The Automatic Processing of Emotion-label Words and Emotion-laden Words in Chinese-English Bilinguals

Two core controversies persist in the research on the automatic processing of emotional words. The first centers on how emotion-label words and emotion-laden words differentially modulate the automatic processing. The second concerns whether the automatic processing of emotional words in a second language (L2) can attain native-like automaticity and efficiency. To examine these questions, the present study employed an emotional Stroop task with 31 Chinese-English bilinguals of upper-intermediate proficiency. Results demonstrated a cross-language positivity advantage, reflected in faster responses to positive than to negative and neutral words. Critically, word type significantly moderated this valence effect: it was robust for emotion-label words but attenuated for emotion‑laden words. Reaction-time data further indicated no significant disadvantage for L2 relative to L1 processing, suggesting that upper intermediate L2 proficiency can support near-native automatic access to emotional words. Notably, however, accuracy patterns diverged across languages: a negativity bias emerged in L1, whereas L2 processing exhibited a positivity bias. Together, these findings underscore that even among upper intermediate bilinguals, automatic emotional processing remains sensitive to lexico-semantic distinctions, highlighting the need for theoretical models to incorporate such subtleties in bilingual emotion representation.