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CHAPTER 13 - Love Letters and Hate Mail

CerebralProcessing of Emotional Language Content

from Section III - Emotion Perception and Elicitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

By
Johanna Kissler
Edited by
Jorge Armony  and
Patrik Vuilleumier
Jorge Armony
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Patrik Vuilleumier
Affiliation:
Université de Genève
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Summary

In human language the mapping between symbol and meaning is arbitrary, and any symbol or set of letters may represent any object, action, or descriptor. As such, both the lexical meaning and the emotional meaning of words and sentences are entirely acquired through learning. This chapter reviews current empirical evidence on the processing of emotional content in human language. Regarding emotional semantics, the question of whether the right hemisphere plays a special role is of considerable theoretical interest because of its implications for the organization of the semantic system in general. The temporal dynamics of emotional language processing is also discussed here. Unlike lesion studies, functional neuroimaging studies generally do not indicate a pronounced role of the right hemisphere in the processing of emotional semantics. The chapter outlines how the processing of emotional language content differs from the processing of semantically neutral language.

Keywords

amygdalabrain regionselicitationfacial expressionsface processingemotion perceptionemotional expressions
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Human Affective Neuroscience , pp. 304 - 329
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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