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Using the lexical decision task to explore emotional processing of emoji

What is the lexical decision task?

A lexical decision task is a paradigm used in psychology where participants rapidly decide whether a stimulus is a real word or a non-word (a made-up letter string). Psychologists measure how accurately and quickly people respond in their classification of the stimuli. This helps psychologists understand how different characteristics of concepts are stored and retrieved from long-term memory which helps them understand how automatic these can be retrieved. 

Emoji Balloons

Do we process emoji emotionally?

This research found that we do not respond to emoji which are more valenced (happy or sad) more efficiently than neutral ones, suggesting that emoji may not be processed emotionally

Working on Laptop

Do emoji help us process words?

This research found that when pairing a happy emoji to a happy word, this does not help us process the word any more efficiently than without an emoji or with one which is opposite in sentiment to the word. This suggests that emoji are not interpreted automatically as emotional

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