Emotionality of words as related to vividness of imagery and concreteness

We investigated the association of the imagery and concreteness of words on their emotionality. Emotionality was evaluated on the basis of skin conduc tance. A total of 61 subjects (all university students) rated the vividness of imagery and concreteness of the words in a list of 25 word pairs. Each pair was comprised of one abstract word and one concrete word with a relate d meaning, e.g., "friendship" and "friend," thereby controlling meaning. Th e skin-conductance response of each word was measured subsequently from the se same subjects. Our results show thar both imagery and concreteness were significantly related to emotionality.