Nonverbal communication

Response bias

Neuroscience

Organic chemistry

Developmental psychology

Philosophy

Valence (chemistry)

Cognition

Cognitive psychology

Psychology

Generalizability theory

Chemistry

Cognitive bias

Emotional valence

Linguistics

Ambiguity

Social psychology

Social Psychological and Personality Science

Ambiguous stimuli are useful for assessing emotional bias. For example, surprised faces could convey a positive or negative meaning, and the degree to which an individual interprets these expressions as positive or negative represents their "valence bias." Currently, the most well-validated ambiguous stimuli for assessing valence bias include nonverbal signals (faces and scenes), overlooking an inherent ambiguity in verbal signals. This study identified 32 words with dual-valence ambiguity (i.e., relatively high intersubject variability in valence ratings and relatively slow response times) and length-matched clearly valenced words (16 positive, 16 negative). Preregistered analyses demonstrated that the words-based valence bias correlated with the bias for faces, rs (213) = .27, p < .001, and scenes, rs (204) = .46, p < .001. That is, the same people who interpret ambiguous faces/scenes as positive also interpret ambiguous words as positive. These findings provide a novel tool for measuring valence bias and greater generalizability, resulting in a more robust measure of this bias.

Spring Break or Heart Break? Extending Valence Bias to Emotional Words