Bayer, M. 1, 2 , Sommer, W. 2 & Schacht, A. 3
1 Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Berlin, Germany
2 Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
3 CRC Text Structures, University of Göttingen, Germany
The pupillary response of the human eye has been shown to be sensitive to both task load and emotional content. The present study investigated the interplay of both factors in the processing of single words that varied in emotional valence and arousal. To this aim, two tasks of varying cognitive load, uninstructed reading and a lexical decision task, were employed; followed by an unannounced recognition memory task. In contrast to previous findings for pictures and sounds, high-arousing words elicited smaller pupillary responses than low-arousing words. This effect occurred independently of task load, which increased pupil diameter. Furthermore, high-arousing words elicited faster response latencies in the lexical decision task and better incidental memory performance. These results indicate that the influence of arousal in word processing does not mandatorily activate the autonomic nervous system, but rather works on a cognitive level, facilitating word processing.