Neural Correlates of Processing Valence and Arousal in Affective Words
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Psychological frameworks conceptualize emotion along 2 dimensions, "valence" and "arousal." Arousal invokes a single axis of intensity increasing from neutral to maximally arousing. Valence can be described variously as a bipolar continuum, as independent positive and negative dimensions, or as hedonic value (distance from neutral). In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to characterize neural activity correlating with arousal and with distinct models of valence during presentation of affective word stimuli. Our results extend observations in the chemosensory domain suggesting a double dissociation in which subregions of orbitofrontal cortex process valence, whereas amygdala preferentially processes arousal. In addition, our data support the physiological validity of descriptions of valence along independent axes or as absolute distance from neutral but fail to support the validity of descriptions of valence along a bipolar continuum.
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Valence and arousal interact in critical emotion-processing regions.
“it has recently been suggest that valence and arousal interact in critical emotion-processing regions (Lewis et al, 2007;Nielen et al, 2009.”
From Affective Cognition and its Disruption in Mood Disorders (2011) · cites this paper as Lewis et al, 2007
Regions specific to positive and negative valence have been identified, including VLPFC and insula for negatively-valenced pictures and words.
“Regions specific to positive and negative valence have also been identified, in particular roles for ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) (Kensinger and Schacter, 2006) and insula (Anders et al., 2004;Lewis et al., 2007) in response to negatively-valenced pictures and words.”
From Affective Cognition and its Disruption in Mood Disorders (2011) · cites this paper as Lewis et al., 2007
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- Authors
- Lewis, P., Critchley, H., Rotshtein, P., & Dolan, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Liverpool (GB)
- University College London (GB)
- Venue
- Cerebral Cortex
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2006-03-31
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 742-748
- ISSN
- 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2199
- PMC
- PMC2267931
- OpenAlex
- W2136153767
- Cited by
- 391
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 31 · 2012: 34
- FWCI
- 9.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (074333)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Keywords
- valence, arousal, emotional words, emotions, orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, neural correlates, hedonic value, emotion models
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Amygdala, Arousal, Emotions, Female, Frontal Lobe, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Photic Stimulation, Semantics, Verbal Behavior
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