Exploring the Effect of Verbal Emotional Words Through Event-Related Brain Potentials

Abstract

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/56494 . IntroductionFor centuries, philosophers and neuroscientists have questioned whether the use of language and the ability to solve complex problems are related and, if so, what the nature of the relationship between language and thought is. Most of the attention -and controversy -have been focused on the claim that the structure of language shapes non-linguistic thinking socalled linguistic relativity.Human intelligence directly derives from brain activity and it is closely linked to the natural languages that humans speak [ ]. The Language, this complex system of sound-meaning connections, not only provides a comprehensive description of the world, but its acquisition is one of the most fundamental human traits, and it is obviously the brain that undergoes the developmental changes."rain development seems to be non-linear, with sensitive periods of time in which the characteristics of experiences determine different possible outcomes [ ]. In fact, during development, the brain not only stores linguistic information but also adapts to the grammatical regularities of language.Language acquisition might be oversimplified as the way in which the brain learns, perceives, represents and integrates complex sequences of verbal events. The temporal nature of sounds, structural integration, expectations, and cognitive sequencing allows the brain to construct progressively intricate representations of the environment, and with progressive maturity, even aspects of emotion or cognition not readily verbalized may be influenced by linguistically based thought processes. No matter whether it is verbal or not the new material we have to deal with, once it appears it is processed through a group of co-acting neural specific subsystems which allow us to detect, encode, temporarily hold and compare incoming stimuli with previous material, along with the decision making on what to do next. In this context, it is crucial to understand that certain characteristics of the stimulus might influence its processing and, if so, how these characteristics interact with cognitive processing. . . Evaluating incoming informationPresently, it is generally accepted that incoming information is initially processed in the working memory WM , which is a theoretical construct used to refer to the system or mechanism underlying the maintenance of task-relevant information during the performance of a cognitive task. WM is crucial for a wide range of complex cognitive activities but has a limited capacity [ -]. Enough empirical evidence supports that WM plays an important role in recognition, encoding and manipulation of task-related and concurrent distractor stimuli, while WM load influences attention modulation. In fact, the working memory central executive system [ , ], concept based on the Supervisory "ttentional System proposed by Shallice [ , ], is critical for systematizing a continuous background monitoring that searches for new relevant information, ...