No abstract

The present study aimed to explore how 174 Spanish first language (L1) and foreign language (LX) users perceive emotionality and pleasantness in audiovisual and purely visual material eliciting blended emotions and whether cultural background and Trait Emotional Intelligence (EI) are linked to emotion perception. Participants rated the emotionality and pleasantness of the stimuli through a 7-point semantic differential scale and completed a self-reported measure of Trait EI. Data were analysed by means of univariate and multivariate statistical tests and correlation coefficients. Overall, LX users tended to provide higher ratings of emotionality and pleasantness than L1 users. This result seems to suggest that LX users are aware of the LX detachment effect and thus overcompensate when providing emotion perception ratings. Moreover, American participants rated the stimuli as more emotional and pleasant than Asian participants regardless of modality of presentation. On the other hand, Trait EI turned out to be unrelated to emotionality and pleasantness ratings contrary to previous evidence suggesting a positive role of EI in decoding emotions.