Emotion and Abstract Word Processing in Aphasia: Evidence from Lexical Decision, Reading Aloud, and Recall

Emotion has been suggested to influence lexical processing, with emotion-label words (e.g., happiness) often showing an advantage over other abstract words (e.g., duty) in unimpaired language. However, processing of emotion-label words in aphasia remains underexplored. This study examined the processing of emotion-label and non-emotion abstract words across four tasks: lexical decision, reading aloud, free recall, and item recognition, in nine individuals with aphasia and 112 unimpaired controls, analysed at the individual and group level. Results revealed task-specific patterns: participants with aphasia were more likely to show an advantage for emotion-label words in lexical decision and reading aloud, whereas controls more often showed this advantage in free recall and recognition. This pattern suggests that performance in people with aphasia was influenced by their language impairment. These findings point to a processing benefit for emotion-label words in some individuals and highlight the importance of considering task demands and individual-level analyses.