Emotional content interacts with word frequency during parafoveal reading

Processing emotional information is a key ability in human life. However, little is known about how this innate ability affect acquired abilities such as reading. In this study, we recorded eye movements of 43 participants as they silently read 210 one-line English sentences. Each sentence contained a target word manipulated by emotional content (negative/neutral/positive) and word frequency (low/high). All target words were unpredicted, with well-controlled prior sentential context and pre-target words. We found a significant main effect of the target word frequency on the first fixation durations of pre-target words, indicating a lexical parafoveal-on-foveal (PoF) effect, supporting the parallel processing models in reading. Notably, this study is the first to report an interaction between emotional content and word frequency during parafoveal reading, observed in early eye movement measures (i.e., first fixation and gaze durations). This suggests that emotional information can be extracted from the parafovea and influences lexical access. During foveal reading, we found that emotional words were fixated shorter than neutral words, with no difference between positive and negative words. However, this emotional processing priority was found only for low frequency words. Interestingly, the interaction between emotional content and word frequency was observed in the early stage of parafoveal processing but in the late stage of foveal processing, highlighting a dynamic and intricate interplay between emotional processing and lexical access. Overall, our findings suggest that emotion processing is automatic and takes precedence, influencing lexical access even in the “unattended” area like the parafovea.