DIMENSIONS OF SPEECH-PERCEPTION - SEMANTIC ASSOCIATIONS IN THE AFFECTIVE LEXICON

The affective lexicon has been explained in terms of three underlying dimensions: Evaluation, Activity, and Potency. We assessed the importa nce of these dimensions during online speech perception. Participants made speeded lexical decisions about emotion words that were heard in a tone of voice that was either congruent or incongruent with the word 's meaning. The denotative semantic category from which words were cho sen was significantly related to lexical decision times (P < 0.001). T one of voice did not influence decision times, nor did it interact wit h semantic category. Regression analyses showed that lexical decision times were significantly predicted by dimension weights on Potency, an d by the three-way interaction between dimension weights on Evaluation , Activity, and Potency (both Ps < 0.001). The implications of this st udy for models of knowledge representation and perception are discusse d.