Relationship between properties of words and elicitation of skin conductance response

We investigated the association of subject-rated imagery, subject-rated con creteness, subject-rated emotionality, frequency, date of entry into the la nguage, and word length with emotional imagery as measured by the skin cond uctance response elicited by that word. 50 words in a list of 24 word-pairs were rated by 96 university students; then their skin conductance response of each word was measured for each word. In each pair, one word was concre te and one was abstract but with related meaning, e.g., adolescent and adol escence. Stepwise multiple regression indicated that 30% of variance in the later skin conductance response was explained by imagery and subject-rated emotionality. Imagery alone explained 24% of variance.