Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278

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Acta Psychologica
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / a c t p s y

Emotional valence of spoken words influences the spatial orienting of attention☆

Julie Bertels a,b,⁎, Régine Kolinsky a,b, José Morais c
a
Université Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.), Belgium
b
Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS (F.R.S.–FNRS), Belgium
c
Université Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.), Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The influence of the affective content of speech on the spatial orienting of auditory attention was examined
Received 18 December 2008 by adapting the dot probe task. Two words, one of which was emotional in one quarter of the trials, were
Received in revised form 23 February 2010 played simultaneously from a left- and a right-located loudspeaker, respectively, and followed (or not) by a
Accepted 24 February 2010
lateralized beep to be detected (Experiments 1 and 2) or localized (Experiment 3). Taboo words induced
Available online 26 March 2010
attentional biases towards their spatial location in all experiments, as did negative words in Experiment 3,
PsycINFO classification:
but not positive words. Thus, in audition, the identification of an emotional word automatically activates the
2346 Attention information about its spatial origin. Moreover, for both word types, attentional biases were only observed
2360 Motivation & Emotion when the emotional word was presented on the participant's right side, suggesting that the dominant left
hemisphere processing of words constrains the occurrence of spatial congruency effects.
Keywords: © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Auditory attention
Cognitive bias
Emotional content
Spoken words

1. Introduction “where” subsystem on the medial, posterior auditory cortex (Clarke,

The present work examines whether the affective content of speech
influences the spatial orienting of auditory attention. If so, an emotional
word might facilitate or interfere with the processing of an unrelated,
simple auditory signal subsequently presented, depending on whether
this signal shares the spatial origin of the speech stimulus or not.
It has been proposed that the auditory system, like the visual one,
is composed of two parallel streams of processing: the “what” and the
“where” subsystems (Kubovy & Van Valkenburg, 2001). The dissoci-
ation of these two subsystems is supported, for example, by the
observation of an illusion in which a sequence of pitches is perceived
correctly but in the wrong ear location (Deutsch & Roll, 1976), and by
the fact that adaptation may have a detrimental effect on localization
while leaving pitch perception unaltered (Hafter, 1997). The two
auditory subsystems seem to rely on distinct cerebral structures: the
“what” subsystem relying on the superior temporal cortex and the
☆ The first author was a Research Fellow of the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique
(F.R.S.–FNRS) and is presently a Scientific Research Worker of the F.R.S.–FNRS. The second
author is a Senior Research Associate of the F.R.S.–FNRS. All authors were affiliated to the
Research Unit in Cognitive Neurosciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles.
⁎ Corresponding author. UNESCOG, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Avenue F.D.
Roosevelt, 50, C.P.191, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
E-mail address: jbertels@ulb.ac.be (J. Bertels).
Bellmann, Meuli, Assal, & Steck, 2000; Rauschecker, 1997, 1998a,b).
In audition, as perceptual form and organization are not processed
in relation to space, possible links between the “what” and the
“where” auditory subsystems have been underestimated (see Kubovy,
1988). Still, it can be argued that such functional links afford us an
ecological advantage. In peripheral space, beyond a 20° visual angle,
auditory targets elicit shorter orientation latencies than visual targets
(Goldring, Dorris, Corneil, Ballantyne, & Munoz, 1996) and, at night,
the identification of sounds signalling either danger or urgent
requests for help may require auditory localization. Consequently,
identification of an auditory object relevant for survival (or at least for
ecological adaptation) might automatically activate information
about the spatial location of its source in order to orient spatial
attention to the same location. This would put the listener in a better
attentional state to process subsequent auditory (or visual) informa-
tion coming from the same source. For example, identifying the kind
of animal that produced a particular cry should, in principle, influence
the level of attention devoted to its position in space and therefore the
accuracy and/or rapidity of detection or localization of subsequent
signals coming from the same direction.
Obviously, not all auditory objects convey shallow, non-symbolic,
information. Spoken words are auditory objects that transmit highly
abstract information, including semantics. As regards spoken words,
some refer to emotional states or are emotionally loaded. Although
emotional words are not more directly relevant for survival than

0001-6918/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.02.008
 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278
neutral words (especially when uttered in a neutral intonation), their
identification might evoke emotional feelings, boost the attentional
system and trigger the “where” auditory subsystem, influencing the
orientation of spatial attention.
Many authors examined the spatial orienting of auditory attention,
namely the characteristics of the auditory “where” subsystem,
without considering the involvement of the “what” subsystem (e.g.,
Buchtel & Butter, 1988; Rhodes, 1987; Spence & Driver, 1994). Most of
these studies used an auditory variant of the cuing paradigm (Posner,
1980), in which a peripherally-presented auditory cue is followed by
an auditory target, presented either at the same location as the cue or
at the opposite location (in valid and invalid trials, respectively).
Exogenous attentional orienting to the spatial location of the cue is
reflected by the validity effect, namely the reaction time (henceforth,
RT) difference between invalid and valid trials.
In the present study, we used a variant of the auditory cuing
paradigm to attempt to assess the impact of the emotional content of
word cues, relying on the “what” subsystem, on the spatial orienting
of auditory attention.
This variant actually consists of an adaptation to the auditory
modality of the dot probe task (also called attentional deployment
task, MacLeod, Mathews, & Tata, 1986) used in the visual modality
to examine the role of the emotional content of written words on
the spatial orienting of visual attention. In the dot probe task, two
written words, either one emotionally loaded and the other not, or
both neutral, are presented one above the other. In half of the
trials, the words are followed by an unrelated visual target (a dot)
in the location that was previously occupied by one of the words.
On congruent trials (i.e. valid trials, in the terminology of the cuing
paradigm), the dot is presented at the same location as the one
previously occupied by the emotional word, while on incongruent
(i.e. invalid) trials the dot is presented at the opposite location. In
our auditory adaptation of the dot probe task (named the beep
probe task), during each trial two different spoken words were
presented through loudspeakers in a diotic way, i.e. simulta-
neously, one on the left and the other on the right side of the
listener. The use of loudspeakers instead of headphones was
motivated by the ecological advantage of making sounds come
from the external world. In the relevant trials, one of the words
was emotional and the other was neutral. In half of the trials, a
lateralized single beep target followed the presentation of the pair
of words. The use of an auditory target instead of a visual one, as
in the dot probe task, allowed us to keep the unimodal aspect of
the original paradigm.
The congruence or incongruence between the presentation side
of the emotional word and the presentation side of the beep was
critical. Consistent with the underlying idea of the cuing paradigm
that the faster the participant reacts to a given location, the most
attention was attracted in this location (Posner, Snyder, &
Davidson, 1980), the prediction derived from the auditory “what–
where” connection hypothesis was that the spatial congruence
between the emotional word and the beep would lead to shorter
RTs than their spatial incongruence, hence creating what is called
an attentional bias, following MacLeod and Mathews' (1988)
terminology.
It must be noted that the auditory “what–where” connection
hypothesized here needs not be emotion-dependent. However, as in
the present situation only one of the diotic stimuli was emotional, any
spatial congruency effect implies that the “what–where” connection is
driven (or at least is reinforced) by the emotional member of the
diotic pair, not by the neutral one.
Given that both the words and beeps were presented in a
lateralized way, perceptual laterality effects related to hemispheric
specialization were likely to be observed. Indeed, as shown by
Demakis and Harrison (1994), both neutral and affective words are
mainly or more efficiently processed by the left hemisphere, at least
265
when the emotional content of the word is irrelevant to the task.
Furthermore, as Kinsbourne (1970) argued, the presentation of verbal
material could activate the left hemisphere preponderantly, thus
leading to involuntary orientational biases to the right side of space.
To this hemispheric imbalance hypothesis one may add the
assumption that an emotional word catches more attentional
resources than its paired neutral word, and therefore activates the
hemispheric contralateral to its side of presentation to a greater
extent than the ipsilateral one. Thus, taking these two assumptions
together, one may predict the attentional bias to be stronger when the
emotional word is presented on the right side. Indeed, in this case, the
processing of a right-sided beep would be favoured by both
attentional mechanisms, the “hemispheric” and the “emotional”
one, whereas processing of a left-side beep would be disadvantaged
by both. In contrast, if the emotional word is presented on the left side,
processing a beep presented on either the left or the right side would
benefit from one of the two mechanisms, either the “emotional” or the
“hemispheric” one, respectively, but would be disadvantaged by the
other mechanism.
The influence of the emotional content of a word on attentional
orienting could depend on its specific emotional valence. Because the
rapid processing of positive information does not seem to be as crucial
for the organism's well-being as is the processing of negative
information (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001;
Grühn, Smith & Baltes, 2005; Rozin & Royzman, 2001; Taylor, 1991),
we hypothesized the “where” auditory subsystem to be more likely
triggered by negative and taboo words (namely vulgar, shocking or
obscene words, as well as insults) than by positive ones. Hence, we
expected taboo and negative spoken words to facilitate the processing
of the beep presented at the same spatial location (compared to its
presentation at the opposite side) to a greater extent than positive
words. This effect would be larger for right-presented emotional
words, as argued above.
Experiment 1 consisted of an auditory adaptation of the original
version of the dot probe task. As in this task, the participants were
required to detect the presence of the non-linguistic target in each
trial, here the beep. Also, given that in the visual paradigm
participants were asked to read the word presented in the upper
position in order to be sure they paid attention to the linguistic
stimuli, we asked them to repeat the word presented through a pre-
specified loudspeaker after responding to the beep in Experiment 1.
Given that only effects of taboo words emerged, we eliminated this
repetition task in a second experiment, speculating that it might have
monopolized some attentional resources, making it difficult for
negative words to facilitate selectively the detection of a same-side
beep. In addition, the attentional biases observed in Experiment 1 for
taboo words could have been due to the fact that participants had to
pronounce these shocking words in front of the experimenter.
Elimination of the repetition task thus allowed us to both reduce
the cognitive load and remove this potential bias. Finally, in a third
experiment, we used a localization rather than a detection task in
order to introduce a spatial component in the task, given that spatial
validity effects have been observed more frequently in the auditory
cuing paradigm when spatial representations are somehow relevant
for the participant's goal (Rhodes, 1987; Schmitt, Postma, & De Haan,
2000; Spence & Driver, 1994).
2. Experiment 1: Beep probe detection and word repetition
This experiment was intended to be a close auditory analogue of
the classic version of the dot probe task (MacLeod et al., 1986, see also
e.g., Fox, 1993 and Salemink, van den Hout, & Kindt, 2007), using
lateral stimulations. We did not use up–down stimulations because
these proved to be exceedingly hard to discriminate. Neutral,
negative, positive and taboo words were presented. Participants
were asked to detect the target — here, a beep — and to then repeat a
266 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278
word of the pair presented on a pre-specified side, in the same way
that they had to read aloud the upper word of the pair in the original
version of the dot probe task in order to make sure they paid attention
to the linguistic stimuli.
Following the auditory cuing literature, the use of a detection
task would prevent the occurrence of any validity effect (Rhodes,
1987; Schmitt et al., 2000), at least when loudspeakers and
uninformative cues are used (Spence & Driver, 1994). Indeed, the
lack of any spatial representation linked to the task would probably
preclude spatial orienting towards the location of the auditory cue.
Nevertheless, Buchtel, Butter, and Ayvasik (1996) argued that
validity effects are observed with a detection task when there is
an orienting reaction towards the source of the sound, namely in
conditions favouring the intention to orient the head to a sound
source. Following this idea, given the instruction to repeat a word
presented on a pre-specified loudspeaker on each trial (i.e. to orient
attention voluntarily towards one side of the auditory space) and in
spite of the fact that a detection task and uninformative cues were
used in Experiment 1, we expected to observe congruency effects
between the position of the emotional word in the pair and the
position of the following beep.
As any activation of the “what–where” connections is presumably
due to the need to register relatively rapid changes in the
environment, we assumed that it would be transient. To test this
idea we used two word-beep intervals here, one short and one long,
and expected the predicted attentional bias (i.e. facilitated processing
of the beep presented at the same spatial location as the emotional
word of the pair, compared to the beep presented at the opposite side)
to occur with the short interval, not — or at least less so — with the
long one. Moreover, if an attentional bias were to occur in the long
interval condition, we predicted it to be negative. Namely, partici-
pants would detect the beep faster if presented at the opposite
location (i.e. at the location of the neutral word) than if it was
presented at the same location as the emotional word. As a matter of
fact, given the lengthening of the SOA (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony,
i.e. the time between the onset of the word and the onset of the beep)
in this condition, one could expect an inhibition of return phenom-
enon (IOR, cf. Posner & Cohen, 1984) to occur: with long SOAs,
attention oriented to the location of the cue would come back to a
central location for the application of inhibitory processes to the
location previously explored, making it easier to process any
information coming at the opposite rather than at the same location
as the cue.
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Participants
Participants were 35 first-year students of the Université Libre
de Bruxelles (31 women; 3 left-handed), ranging from 17 to
40 years (mean: 20.3). They were given course credits for their
participation. The results of three women, all right-handed, were
discarded from the analyses: two because their average RTs (all
experimental conditions mingled) were superior to two standard
deviations above the overall average performance, and one because
of her inability to repeat correctly the presented words. All
participants had spoken French for at least the last 10 years.
Previous studies investigating attentional biases in the visual
modality pointed to the robustness of this phenomenon only in
selected groups of participants such as anxious subjects (e.g., Bar-
Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans–Kranenburg, & van Ijzendoorn,
2007), repressors (Mogg et al., 2000) and depressed people (e.g.,
Mogg, Bradley & Williams, 1995). Therefore, we used personality
questionnaires (filled in after the beep probe task) evaluating
anxiety and depression levels (the Spielberger Trait-State Anxiety
Inventory, STAI-Y; Spielberger, 1983, and the Beck Depression
Inventory, BDI–II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996, respectively), as well
as willingness to be socially desirable (the Marlowe–Crowne Scale
of Social Desirability, SDS; Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) in order to
examine whether these measures would correlate with the
emotional effects. Table 1 displays the average scores obtained in
these questionnaires.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups (8 par-
ticipants in each group) created on the basis of the pair-beep interval
length (short/long) and the side of the auditory space (the
loudspeaker) to which they had to pay attention in order to repeat
the word presented on that side (left/right), hereafter called repetition
side.
2.1.2. Material and apparatus
Words were orally presented. They were spoken by a French-
speaking female theatre student in a neutral tone of voice and were
digitally recorded on a Sony MiniDisc. Stimuli were then transferred
on a Macintosh Powerbook G3 via the Digidesign DIGI 002 Rack
interface and were cleaned and normalized with the Protools
Digidesign 6.2.2. software. Mean word duration was 719 ms (standard
deviation: 135 ms).
The words used in this experiment (as in the following ones)
were chosen as described below. There were 480 pairs of mono- or
bi-syllabic words: 120 emotional pairs, in which one of the words
was emotionally neutral and the other was emotionally charged (see
Appendix A), and 360 neutral pairs, consisting of two emotionally
neutral words. Emotional pairs included 40 positive (e.g., amour/
agence — love/agency), 40 negative (e.g., bombe/bulle — bomb/
bubble) and 40 taboo pairs (e.g., salope/serrure — bitch/lock), defined
as such because the emotional word in the pair was positive,
negative or taboo. These words were generated by collaborators or
chosen from the relevant literature (Bonin et al., 2003; Hermans &
De Houwer, 1994; Messina, Morais & Cantraine, 1989; Van der
Goten, De Vooght & Kemps, 1999). In accordance with the original
version of the dot probe task (e.g. MacLeod et al., 1986, see also Fox,
1993 and Salemink et al., 2007), all the 120 emotional pairs as well
as 120 neutral pairs (i.e., as many neutral as emotional pairs) were
critical pairs, as they were followed by a beep. The others were filler
pairs, also considered as catch trials, since there was no beep to
detect.
On the basis of the database Lexique 2 (New, Pallier, Ferrand, &
Matos, 2001), each category of emotional words was matched to
the set of neutral words associated with them in a pair, according
to the number of phonological neighbours, literary frequency and
web frequency. The use of web frequency was crucial for taboo
words given that it better reflects their frequency of use than the
literary frequency. Hence, these matchings ensure that attentional
orienting towards the spatial location of either type of word is not
due to these lexical factors. According to the same criteria, we also
matched all emotional words to all associated neutral words, and
the two series of neutral words constituting the neutral critical
pairs. Finally, we matched these four sets of material. These
matching sets led to non-significant difference at 0.05. Within a
Table 1
Average standard scores obtained on the STAI-Y (Spielberger, 1983) and on the SDS
(Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) and average raw scores obtained on the BDI–II (Beck et al.,
1996) in Experiments 1, 2 and 3 (standard deviations are in parentheses).
Exp. 1 (n = 32) Exp. 2 (n = 24) Exp. 3 (n = 20)
STAI-Y
State anxiety 48.09 (10.80) 46.38 (7.46) 48.05 (6.79)
Trait anxiety 48.84 (10.36) 49.58 (10.81) 46.75 (9.54)
SDS 47.72 (22.35) 47.83 (12.01) 46.96 (7.64)
BDI-II 10.56 (7.8) 12.08 (8.54) 9.4 (5.59)
 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278
pair, the first phoneme, the syllabic structure and the phonological
uniqueness point of the two words were identical. Words of the
filler pairs were only matched in terms of first phoneme and
syllabic structure.
Four post-hoc control studies were carried out on these words or
part of them.
In the first post-hoc study, the 480 words constituting the critical
pairs, a priori classified as neutral (360), positive (40), negative (40)
and taboo (40), were presented to 24 listeners, who were asked to
rate each word on a 1 (very negative) to 7 (very positive) scale for
emotionality. The difference between the emotional means of the two
words of each pair was calculated from these ratings. For emotional
pairs of words the minimal acceptable difference was one point,
whereas for neutral pairs the difference had to be smaller than one
point. Following this criterion, two negative, seven positive and 14
neutral pairs were removed from analyses.
In the second post-hoc study, a list of 120 words a priori
classified as neutral (80) and taboo (40) was presented to 24
listeners, who were asked to rate each word on a 1 (normal) to 5
(very taboo, shocking) scale for obscenity. No word was removed
from analyses on the basis of these ratings, as the confidence
intervals of the two word categories did not overlap and as the
minimum and the maximum values corresponding to one category
did not enter into the confidence interval of the other category;
however, one taboo word was removed because more than the half
of the participants did not understand its shocking meaning
(biroute).
The characteristics of the emotional pairs that were taken into
account in the statistical analyses are presented in Table 2. Since the
shock value was only assessed for the taboo words and part of the
neutral words, only data concerning the shock value of the taboo
words are mentioned in Table 1. It should be noted that the exclusion
of 24 pairs on the basis of their emotional valence or the
understanding of their meaning (see above) did not affect the
matching of the three categories of emotional pairs, on literary
frequency, web frequency or the number of phonological neighbours.
Results from the two subsequent control studies were indicative
and did not serve to exclude pairs from further analyses. In the
third post-hoc study, 24 participants were asked to rate the 240
words from the emotional pairs, a priori classified as neutral (120),
negative (40), positive (40) and taboo (40), on a 1 (very quiet) to 7
(very arousing) arousal scale. Regarding words presented in the
non-excluded pairs, statistical analysis showed that the arousal
level differed between the emotional types of words, F(2, 109) =
450.29, p b 0.001, η2 = 0.894, each type differing from the others,
p b 0.001 for all (Bonferroni corrected), with negative words
producing the highest arousal, followed by the taboo and the
positive words. For each pair we also calculated the difference in
arousal level between the emotional word and its neutral associate.
The effect of the type of emotional pair was significant, F(2, 109) =
258.2, p b 0.001, η2 = 0.828, each type differing from all the others
at p b 0.001 (Bonferroni corrected). Negative pairs led to the
greatest difference (mean: 2.04), followed by taboo (1.37) and
positive pairs (−1.64).1 It is also worth noting that the shock value
1
As we developed in a normative study (Bertels, Kolinsky, & Morais, 2009), it is not
surprising that positive words were judged as less arousing than their associate
neutral words given that in the 7-point scale we used the “1” level depicting a very
calm, relaxing feeling; the “7” level reflecting a very arousing, exciting feeling; and the
“4” level referring to no particular feeling. This actually means that while neutral
words were judged (on average) as not evoking any particular arousing feeling,
positive words were in fact judged as more calming and relaxing than neutral words
(see Table 2).
267
of the taboo words was positively correlated with their arousal
level, r = 0.56, p b 0.001.
In the fourth post-hoc study, 24 participants rated the same
words as in study 3 on a 1 (unfamiliar) to 5 (very familiar) scale for
familiarity. Regarding words presented in the non-excluded pairs,
statistical analyses revealed that familiarity differed between the
emotional types of words, F(2, 109) = 66.679, p b 0.001, η2 = 0.555,
with positive words more familiar than the negative and taboo
words, which also differed from each other (all p ≤ 0.001,
Bonferroni corrected). We also calculated for each pair the
difference in familiarity between the emotional word and its
neutral associate. The effect of type of emotional pair was
significant, F(2, 109) = 3.36, p = 0.04, η2 = 0.059, reflecting that
positive pairs led to a greater difference than negative (0.45 vs.
0.08, p = 0.04, Bonferroni corrected), but not taboo pairs (0.34,
F b 1). The difference between negative and taboo pairs did not
reach significance (p N 0.10).
In the beep probe task, each pair of words was presented
diotically, namely with the two words constituting the pair
presented simultaneously with each different member spoken
through a different, lateralized, loudspeaker. Words within each
pair were synchronized at their onset and offset, which was
facilitated by the fact that they had the same syllabic structure, and
were uttered at a constant rate. This synchronisation was made by
operating very short excisions using the Protools Digidesign 6.2.2.,
and was perceptually evaluated by the first author. Critical pairs
were followed by a 100-ms beep. Filler pairs were followed by a
silence of identical duration.
2.1.3. Procedure
Participants sat in front of a computer. Two loudspeakers were
located at 45 cm on their left and right, with an anterior deviation
of 60° in relation to the sagittal plane. Stimulus presentation and
timing as well as data collection were controlled using the
Psyscope button box and 1.2.5. PPC software (Cohen, MacWhinney,
Flatt, & Provost, 1993) running on a Macintosh Performa 6320.
Each session began with detailed instructions. Participants were
told that they would hear pairs of different words, presented
simultaneously, one on the left and one on the right, and that in
half of the trials, a beep would be presented after the pair of words,
either on the left or the right. They had to perform two tasks on
each trial: firstly, to detect the beep by pressing the right key of a
button box as quickly and accurately as possible with the preferred
hand, without caring about its side of presentation; and secondly,
to repeat as accurately as possible the word presented at a pre-
specified side (the same throughout the testing), to ensure they
paid attention to the presented words.
Each trial started with the presentation of a 750 ms fixation
cross in the middle of the screen. Then, a pair of auditory words
was presented. In half of the trials, immediately or 250 ms after the
offset of the words (depending on the participants), a beep was
presented, at the location of one of the words. The participant had
2500 ms to answer. The interval between the response and the
next trial was 2000 ms. Trials were pseudo-randomly presented: a
beep was presented in not more than three trials in a row, and
similarly a word of the same emotional type was presented in not
more than three trials in a row whatever the presentation side, and
never more than in two trials in a row on the same presentation
side.
The experiment started with a 36-trial practice block, during
which participants received feedback regarding their performance.
Next, each participant was presented with five 96-trial blocks,
without any feedback. Thus, a participant was presented with each
pair only once insofar as assignment of a specific word to one side
(e.g., “beauté–bateau” vs. “bateau–beauté”) and beep location were
counterbalanced between participants.
268 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278

Table 2
Characteristics of the emotional pairs taken into account in the statistical analyses, following post-hoc control studies.

n Literary frequency Web frequency Number of phonological neighbours Emotional valence Shock value Arousal Familiarity

Negative pairs 38
Negative words 32.163 4261.413 7.053 2.08 – 5.81 3.83
Neutral words 30.046 9021.363 6.658 4.445 – 3.774 3.751
Positive pairs 33
Positive words 82.42 15,059.057 10.061 6.16 – 2.191 4.467
Neutral words 248.035 16,487.881 11.364 4.433 – 3.828 4.013
Taboo pairs 39
Taboo words 5.676 363.245 8.769 2.877 2.984 5.052 3.549
Neutral words 5.195 1385.998 7.41 4.386 – 3.686 3.209

2.2. Results adjusted post-hoc comparisons showed that taboo pairs led to longer
RTs than negative and positive pairs, both p b 0.001, which did not
Errors (misses and false alarms) were rare, 0.28% on average. differ between each other, p N 0.10.
Therefore, the analyses focused on RT data only. RTs on erroneous More crucially, there was a significant three-way interaction
trials as well as on trials in which the participant had not correctly between type of emotional pair, beep location and emotional word
repeated the word (in total, 11.18% of the observations) were location, F(2, 56) = 5.07, p b 0.01, partial η2 = 0.153, superimposed by
excluded from further analyses. This was also the case for RTs on a significant four-way interaction between type of emotional pair,
the 24 pairs for which (a) the emotional word did not differ beep location, emotional word location and interval length, F(2, 56) =
considerably on emotional valence from the neutral word; or 3.27, p b 0.05, partial η2 = 0.104. Considering each interval condition
(b) one neutral word did differ on emotional valence from the separately, we found the effect of type of emotional pair to be
other neutral word of the pair; or (c) the shocking meaning was significant in both, F(2, 28) = 14.27 and 6.53, both p b 0.01, partial
not straightforward (see Method).2 Table 3 displays the mean η2 = 0.505 and 0.318. In contrast, the three-way interaction between
correct RTs. type of emotional pair, beep location and emotional word location
Firstly, we examined whether the presence of an emotional word was significant in the short interval condition, F(2, 28) = 7.97,
of a particular valence affected the response to the beep. For this p = 0.002, partial η2 = 0.363, but not in the long one, F b 1.
purpose, a 2 (interval length: short/long) × 2 (repetition side: left/ In the short interval condition, we analysed separately the data for
right) × 4 (type of emotional pair: neutral/negative/positive/taboo) each type of emotional pair, given that we predicted the occurrence of
× 2 (beep location: left/right) repeated measures analysis of variance attentional biases with taboo and negative pairs, but not with positive
(ANOVA) design was applied on correct response latencies. The type pairs. The interaction between beep location and emotional word
of emotional pair and the beep location were within-subject factors, location was significant for the taboo pairs, F(1, 14) = 9.46, p b 0.01,
interval length and repetition side were between-subject factors. partial η2 = 0.403, but not for the negative pairs, F(1, 14) = 1.8, p N 0.10,
The only significant factor was the type of emotional pair, F(3, 84) = partial η2 = 0.114; for positive pairs there was only a trend, F(1, 14) =
17.8, p b 0.01, partial η2 = 0.389: taboo pairs led to significantly longer 3.7, p = 0.08, partial η2 = 0.208. This interaction reflects the fact that,
RTs (463 ms, on the average) than neutral (416 ms), positive (415 ms) when the taboo word was right-presented, participants detected the
and negative (414 ms) pairs respectively, all p b 0.01 (Bonferroni beep faster when this was right-presented (434 ms) than when it was
corrected). No other comparison was significant, all p N 0.10. The left-presented (515 ms), p b 0.001 (Bonferroni corrected). No effect
interaction between type of emotional pair and interval length did not was observed when the taboo word was left-presented, p N 0.10 (see
reach significance, F b 1. Fig. 1). Thus, the attentional bias reflected by the RT difference (81 ms)
The second important point was to assess whether emotional
words led to attentional biases, namely if they facilitated the detection
of the beep when this was presented at the same spatial location (in Table 3
Mean correct detection times observed in Experiment 1 for all types of pairs (standard
spatially congruent trials) as the emotional word in comparison to the
errors are in parentheses).
situation where it was presented at the opposite spatial location (in
spatially incongruent trials). As in other studies that looked for Type of emotional pair
attentional biases linked to the emotional valence of the stimuli, the Beep and emotional word Neutral Negative Positive Taboo
analyses only took the results on emotional pairs into account, given locations
that, by definition, emotional word location is not available for neutral Short interval condition
pairs. A 2 (interval length: short/long) × 2 (repetition side: left/ Beep Left 436 (21)
right) × 3 (type of emotional pair: positive/negative/taboo) × 2 (beep Emotional word Left 448 (28) 435 (21) 468 (27)
Emotional word Right 402 (17) 407 (19) 515 (29)
location: left/right) × 2 (emotional word location: left/right) repeated
Beep Right 424 (20)
measures ANOVA design was applied on response latencies. Interval Emotional word Left 429 (23) 407 (22) 489 (33)
length and repetition side were between-subject factors, the other Emotional word Right 431 (24) 431 (29) 434 (27)
variables were within-subject factors. The only main effect that Average 430 (17) 427 (18) 420 (18) 477 (24)
reached significance was the type of emotional pair, F(2, 56) = 18.46,
Long interval condition
p b 0.001, partial η2 = 0.397. As with the previous analysis, Bonferroni Beep Left 409 (17)
Emotional word Left 394 (16) 409 (17) 428 (18)
Emotional word Right 397 (20) 398 (20) 459 (33)
2 Beep Right 395 (21)
Note that results from the statistical analyses on the whole set of data were similar
Emotional word Left 406 (25) 410 (23) 444 (28)
to the ones obtained after exclusion of these pairs. In particular, the four-way
Emotional word Right 403 (22) 422 (33) 467 (37)
interaction between type of emotional pair, beep location, emotional word location
Average 402 (17) 400 (18) 410 (18) 450 (24)
and interval length was significant, F(2, 56) = 4.37, p b 0.02, partial η2 = 0.135.
 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278
Fig. 1. Target detection latencies observed for taboo pairs in Experiment 1, in the short
interval length condition, as a function of the emotional word and beep locations.
between the spatially incongruent and congruent taboo trials was
restricted to the condition in which the taboo word was right-
presented. This bias was not correlated with any of the scores on the
personality questionnaires (STAI-state: r = −0.15; STAI-trait: r = 0.11;
BDI–II: r = −0.05; SDS: r = 0.07, all p N 0.50).
Moreover, the attentional bias linked to right-presented taboo
words in the short interval condition was significantly larger than the
non-significant biases associated with right-presented negative and
positive words (−30 and −24 ms, respectively), t(15) = 3.753 and
4.123, both p b 0.005 (Bonferroni corrected).
It is of theoretical interest to consider on which spatial attentional
orienting component(s) taboo words had an effect. A positive attentional
bias like the one observed here for right-presented taboo words (i.e., a
positive difference between RTs on incongruent and congruent trials for
these words) could be due either to vigilance to the taboo words,
namely an effect on the engagement component of attentional
orienting, or to difficulties in disengaging attention from these words
once attention has been normally engaged. In the former case, the
attentional bias would result from a RT advantage on congruent
compared to incongruent trials, whereas in the latter case it would
proceed from increased RTs on incongruent trials. However, merely
comparing RTs on congruent and incongruent trials does not disentan-
gle these possibilities given the absence of a baseline in the emotional
trials. To solve this problem, Koster, Crombez, Verschuere, and De
Houwer (2004) proposed to use the neutral trials (i.e., trials in which
both words are emotionally neutral) as baseline and to compare them
systematically with the RTs on congruent and incongruent trials, but this
approach has been recently criticized (Mogg, Holmes, Garner, & Bradley,
2008). Given that neutral trials do not, by definition, contain emotional
words, these authors argued that potential non-spatial interference
effects of emotional words could contribute to the RT difference
between neutral and spatially (in)congruent trials. As such general,
non-spatial effects of taboo words occurred in the present experiment,
the RT difference with neutral words would not be a pure index of the
attentional orienting processes influenced by the presentation of taboo
words.
Nevertheless, the specific results obtained here allow us to use
another baseline, to which the criticism addressed by Mogg et al.
(2008) does not apply. Since attentional biases towards taboo words
were only observed when the taboo word was right-presented, RTs on
left-presented taboo words can serve as a baseline to determine
whether participants were particularly vigilant to right-presented
taboo words or, instead, had difficulties to disengage from these
words. Attentional vigilance to right-presented taboo words would be
reflected in RTs on right-located beeps presented after right-
presented taboo words being shorter than the average RTs on left-
and right-located beeps presented after left-presented taboo words.
269
To put it in a formula: x̅ RTs taboo R-beep R b x̅ RTs taboo L (beep L&R).
In contrast, difficulties to disengage attention from right-presented
taboo words would be reflected in increased RTs on left-located beeps
following right-presented taboo words compared to RTs on beeps
following left-presented taboo words, i.e. x̅ RTs taboo R-beep L N x̅ RTs
taboo L (beep L&R). Given that general, non-spatial effects of taboo
words do not depend on the location of the taboo word in the pair, any
difference between these RTs can only be allocated to spatial effects of
right-presented taboo words.
As can be seen in Fig. 1, in the short interval condition of the present
experiment, RTs on trials in which both the taboo word and the beep
were right-presented were shorter than RTs on trials in which the
taboo word was left-presented (434 vs. 479 ms, t(15) = 2.35,
p = 0.035). In contrast, RTs on trials in which the right-presented
taboo word was followed by a left-located beep did not differ from RTs
on trials in which the taboo word was left-presented (515 vs. 479 ms, t
(15) = 1.75, p = 0.10). Hence, these results suggest that attention
would be engaged preferentially to the spatial location of a right-
presented taboo word relative to the spatial location of the neutral
word presented simultaneously in the pair.
2.3. Discussion
In Experiment 1, participants had to detect a beep as quickly as
possible and to repeat on each trial a word presented at a pre-
specified side. We observed an attentional bias: the detection of a
beep was faster if it appeared at the same spatial location as a just
presented taboo word than if it appeared at the opposite location. As
predicted, this attentional bias was observed only when the beep
followed immediately the presentation of the pair of words,
suggesting that the phenomenon is very fleeting. Moreover, this
only held true when the taboo word originated from the right side of
the listener, a specificity that allowed us to establish that the observed
attentional bias reflected attentional vigilance towards taboo words
rather than difficulties to disengage from these words.
In addition to producing an attentional bias, taboo words also seem
to lead to a general, non-spatial effect. Indeed, whatever the interval
length this time, taboo pairs yielded longer RTs to the beep than the
other types of pairs, be they emotional or neutral ones.
Contrary to our prediction, there was no attentional bias linked to
the spatial source of negative words. However, in this experiment, the
concurrent repetition task may have monopolized some attentional
resources, making it difficult for negative words to facilitate
selectively the detection of a same-side beep. This explanation was
checked in Experiment 2 by removing the repetition task.
3. Experiment 2: Beep probe detection
This experiment was similar to Experiment 1, except that
participants only had to detect the beep, without having to pay
attention to one side of presentation in order to repeat the presented
word. Moreover, given the results of the first experiment, we only
used the short interval condition for all participants.
In addition to reducing the cognitive load of the task, the present
experiment could also help us to discard an alternative explanation of
the effects observed on taboo words in Experiment 1. Indeed, in the
former experiment, the observed bias and delayed RTs could be linked
to the participants' emotional reaction to the requirement of repeating
a taboo word in front of the experimenter, in a similar way as the taboo
nature of the verbal response made by the subject could be responsible
for the higher recognition thresholds and galvanic skin response
observed for those words (Zajonc, 1962). If this were the case, no
specific effect of taboo words should be observed in the present
experiment. On the contrary, if the effects observed in Experiment 1
reflected attentional influences of taboo words, the same attentional
270 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278

bias and delayed RTs should be observed here, because the present Table 4
situation no longer requires a verbal response. Mean correct detection times observed in Experiment 2 for all types of pairs (standard
errors are in parentheses).

3.1. Method Type of emotional pair

Beep and emotional word Neutral Negative Positive Taboo

3.1.1. Participants locations
Participants were 27 undergraduate students of the Université Beep Left 297 (12)
Libre de Bruxelles (24 women; 3 left-handed), ranging in age from 18 Emotional word Left 292 (11) 301 (15) 294 (13)
to 25 (mean: 18.97). They were given course credits for their Emotional word Right 282 (11) 294 (14) 303 (14)
Beep Right 294 (11)
participation. The results of three participants (3 women; 1 left-
Emotional word Left 285 (13) 291 (14) 295 (14)
handed) were discarded from further analyses, because their RTs Emotional word Right 286 (12) 301 (13) 286 (12)
were superior to two standard deviations above the mean. All Average 295 (12) 286 (12) 297 (14) 294 (13)
participants had spoken French for at least 10 years. Average scores
on three personality questionnaires evaluating anxiety and depres-
sion levels as well as willingness to be socially desirable are presented
in Table 1.
when the taboo word was right-presented, participants detected the
3.1.2. Material and apparatus beep faster when it was also right-presented than when it was left-
The material and the apparatus were the same as in Experiment 1. presented (286 vs. 303 ms), p = 0.05. No difference was observed when
the taboo word was left-presented, p N 0.10 (see Fig. 2). These
3.1.3. Procedure comparisons were not significant for negative and positive pairs, all
The procedure was exactly the same as in Experiment 1 except p N 0.10. We thus observed an attentional bias linked to taboo words
that there was no repetition task and we only used the short interval (17 ms) when these were right-presented. This bias was not correlated
condition: for all participants on critical pairs, the beep appeared with any of the scores on the personality questionnaires (STAI-state:
immediately after the offset of the words. r = 0.04; STAI-trait: r = −0.016; BDI–II: r = −0.076; SDS: r = −0.057,
all p N 0.50).
3.2. Results Moreover, the attentional bias linked to right-presented taboo
words was significantly larger than the non-significant bias associated
Errors (misses and false alarms) were again very infrequent (0.2%, with right-presented positive words (−7 ms), t(23) = 2.969, p b 0.015
on the average) so that the analyses focused only on the RT data. As in (Bonferroni corrected). However, the difference between the atten-
Experiment 1, RTs on erroneous trials as well as RTs on 24 pairs were tional biases linked to right-presented taboo and negative words
excluded from the analysis (see Method of Experiment 1).3 Table 4 (−4 ms) was not significant, p N 0.10.
displayed the mean correct RTs. Given that, as in Experiment 1, an attentional bias was only
As in the previous experiment, we first applied a 4 (type of observed when the taboo word was right-presented, we used RTs on
emotional pair: neutral/negative/positive/taboo) × 2 (beep location: trials in which taboo words were left-presented as a baseline in order
left/right) repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) design on to determine which spatial orienting component was affected by the
correct response latencies to examine whether the presence of an presentation of a right-presented taboo word. However, RTs on trials
emotional word in the pair influenced the processing of an ensuing in which both the taboo word and the beep were right-presented did
beep. The type of emotional pair and the beep location were within- not significantly differ from RTs on trials in which the taboo word was
subject factors. The type of emotional pair was the only significant left-presented (286 vs. 295 ms, t(23) = 1.36, p N 0.10). Similarly, RTs
factor, F(3, 69) = 3.51, p = 0.02, partial η2 = 0.132. Bonferroni adjust- on trials in which the right-presented taboo word was followed by a
ed post-hoc comparisons showed that RTs on taboo pairs (294 ms) left-located beep did not differ from RTs on trials in which the taboo
tended to be longer than RTs on negative pairs (286 ms), p = 0.09. word was left-presented (303 vs. 295 ms, t(23) = 1.16, p N 0.10).
This was not the case for taboo pairs relative to positive ones Hence, these results do not allow us to conclude about the nature of
(297 ms), p N 0.10. the spatial component affected by the presentation of taboo words.
The same effect was observed in the 3 (type of emotional pair:
negative/positive/taboo) × 2 (beep location: left/right) × 2 (emotional
word location: left/right) repeated measures ANOVA design applied on
correct response latencies, F(2, 46) = 4.41, p b 0.02, partial η22 = 0.161.
Taboo pairs led to significantly longer RTs than negative pairs, p b 0.05.
No difference was observed for taboo pairs compared to positive ones,
p N 0.10 (Bonferroni corrected). No other effect or interaction was
significant. In particular, the three-way interaction between type of
emotional pair, beep location and emotional word location felt short of
significance, F(2, 46) = 2.71, p = 0.078, partial η2 = 0.105. Nevertheless,
Bonferroni adjusted comparisons revealed that, as in Experiment 1,

3
Results from the statistical analyses on the whole set of data were similar to the ones
obtained without the excluded pairs: the three-way interaction between type of emotional
pair, beep location and emotional word location was not significant, F(2, 46) =2.29, pN 0.10,
partial η2 = 0.09. Nevertheless, right-presented beeps following right-presented taboo
words tended to lead to shorter RTs than left-presented beeps following right-presented Fig. 2. Target detection latencies observed for taboo pairs in Experiment 2, as a function
taboo words, p= 0.065 (Bonferroni corrected). of the emotional word and beep locations.
 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278 271

3.3. Discussion Table 5

Mean correct localization times observed in Experiment 3 for all types of pairs (standard
errors are in parentheses).
As in Experiment 1, we observed an attentional bias linked to the
taboo nature of words. Taboo pairs also yielded longer RTs than Type of emotional pair
negative pairs. Given that participants did not now have to repeat Beep and emotional Neutral Negative Positive Taboo
words, the effects observed in Experiment 1 cannot be attributed to an word locations
emotional reaction when repeating a taboo word. The fact that these Beep Left 358 (18)
effects were larger in Experiment 1 than in the present experiment is Emotional word Left 349 (18) 359 (19) 374 (23)
most probably due to the longest RTs associated to the double task Emotional word Right 359 (19) 360 (21) 384 (22)
condition of our first experiment. Consistent with this idea, for Beep Right 349 (17)
Emotional word Left 352 (16) 329 (15) 367 (20)
Experiments 1 and 2 considered together, we observed a significant Emotional word Right 335 (16) 354 (18) 348 (19)
correlation between attentional biases linked to right-presented Average 353 (17) 349 (17) 350 (18) 368 (20)
taboo words and the average RTs, r = .461, p b 0.01.
Given that no attentional bias was observed for negative words,
contrary to what we supposed, it does not seem that the presence or
absence of such an effect of these words is, at least exclusively, related
to the extent to which attentional resources are mobilized by a as possible by pressing the left or right key of a button box. Again,
concurrent task. It may be the case that a spatial dimension needs to there was no repetition task.
be involved, in addition to a low cognitive load, in order to observe
attentional biases towards the spatial location of negative words.
Indeed, as already mentioned in the Introduction of Experiment 1, 4.2. Results
some authors argued that spatial attentional orienting towards the
location of a single peripheral cue would only occur when a spatial As in Experiments 1 and 2, errors (misses, false alarms and wrong
representation is activated by the task (Rhodes, 1987; Schmitt et al., localizations) were very infrequent (0.4%, on the average) so that the
2000; Spence & Driver, 1994). Supporting this idea, they observed analyses focused only on the RT data. Erroneous responses were
validity effects (i.e. spatial attentional orienting) with a localization excluded from further analyses. Also, we excluded from the analyses
task but not with a detection task. Considering that the presence of an the RTs on 24 pairs (see Method of Experiment 1).4 Mean correct RTs
emotional word in the pair can act as a single peripheral cue, one are presented in Table 5.
possibility is that attentional orienting towards its spatial location (i.e. We first applied a 4 (type of emotional pair: neutral/negative/
attentional biases) occurs more easily if a localization task is used, positive/taboo) × 2 (beep location: left/right) repeated measures
because this task strongly activates a spatial representation. This analysis of variance (ANOVA) on response latencies. Both variables
possibility was investigated in Experiment 3. were treated as within-subject factors. The effect of type of emotional
pair was significant, F(3, 57) = 8.57, p b 0.01, partial η2 = 0.311, with
4. Experiment 3: Beep probe localization taboo pairs leading to overall longer RTs (368 ms) than neutral
(353 ms), positive (350 ms) and negative (349 ms) pairs, all p b 0.03
This experiment was exactly the same as Experiment 2, except that (Bonferroni corrected). Also significant was the effect of beep location,
participants had to localize the beep when it was presented, instead of F(1, 19) = 9.48, p b 0.01, partial η2 = 0.333, which reflects the fact that
simply detecting it. Word repetition was not required, so that, participants localized the beep faster when it was right-presented
contrary to Experiment 1, participants' attentional resources were not than when it was left-presented (348 vs. 363 ms, respectively).
mobilized by a concurrent task. In doing so, we predicted that we Further analyses only took the results on emotional pairs into
would observe not only attentional biases linked to the taboo nature account. A 3 (type of emotional pair: positive/negative/taboo) × 2
of the words (as was the case in the two previous experiments) (beep location: left/right) × 2 (emotional word location: left/right)
but also attentional biases linked to the spatial location of negative repeated measures ANOVA design was applied on response latencies.
words. All variables were within-subjects factors. The main effects that
reached significance were the type of emotional pair, F(2, 38) = 9.32,
4.1. Method p = 0.001, partial η2 = 0.329, and the beep location, F(1, 19) = 9.64,
p b 0.01, partial η2 = 0.336, both reflecting the same differences as in
4.1.1. Participants the analysis including neutral words (see above). The three-way
Participants were 23 undergraduate students of the Université interaction between the type of emotional pair, beep location and
Libre de Bruxelles (23 women; 3 left-handed), ranging in age from 18 emotional word location was also significant, F(2, 38) = 6.01,
to 22 (mean: 19.35). They were given course credits for their p = 0.005, partial η2 = 0.24.
participation. The results of three subjects (3 women, 1 left-handed) To further examine this interaction, we analyzed separately the results
were discarded from further analyses because their error rate was for each type of emotional pair. The interaction between beep location and
superior to two standard deviations above the mean. All participants emotional word location was significant for the taboo and negative
had spoken French for at least 10 years. Average scores on three pairs, F(1, 19)=4.45, pb 0.05, partial η2 =0.19 and F(1, 19)=9.33,
personality questionnaires evaluating anxiety and depression levels pb 0.01, partial η2 =0.329, not for the positive pairs, F(1, 19)=2.92,
as well as willingness to be socially desirable are presented in Table 1. pN 0.10, partial η2 =0.133. The interaction between beep location and
emotional word location for taboo pairs reflected the fact that when
the taboo word was right-presented, participants localized a right-
4.1.2. Material and apparatus
The material and the apparatus were the same as in Experiments 1
and 2.
4
Note that results from the statistical analyses including the excluded pairs were similar
4.1.3. Procedure to those obtained without these: the three-way interaction between type of emotional
The procedure was exactly the same as in Experiment 2 except pair, beep location and emotional word location is significant, F(2, 38) = 5.25, p = 0.01,
that the participants had to localize the beep as quickly and accurately partial η2 = 0.216.
272 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278
presented beep faster (348 ms) than a left-presented beep (384 ms),
p=0.004. There was no difference when the taboo word was left-
presented, pN 0.10 (see Fig. 3a). This was also the case for negative
pairs: when the negative word was right-presented, participants
localized a right-presented beep faster (335 ms) than a left-presented
one (359 ms), p=0.002, while there was no difference when the word
was left-presented, pN 0.10 (see Fig. 3b).
We thus observed attentional biases linked to taboo (36 ms) and to
negative (24 ms) words when they were right-presented. None of these
attentional biases was correlated with any of the scores on the
personality questionnaires (For taboo words: STAI-state: r = 0.07,
STAI-trait: r = 0.23, BDI-II: r = −0.13, SDS: r = −0.10, all p N 0.30; for
negative words: STAI-state: r = −0.06, STAI-trait: r = 0.15, BDI–II:
r = 0.21, SDS: r = −0.30, all p N 0.15 ).
The difference between the attentional biases linked to right-
presented negative and taboo words and the attentional bias linked to
right-presented positive words (6 ms) did not reach significance, both
p ≥ 0.10 (Bonferroni corrected). As expected, the biases linked to right-
presented negative and taboo words did not differ from each other, t b 1.
As can be seen in Fig. 3a, RTs on trials in which both the taboo word
and the beep were right-presented were shorter than RTs on trials in
which the taboo word was left-presented (348 vs. 370 ms, t(19) =
2.34, p = 0.03). In contrast, RTs on trials in which the right-presented
taboo word was followed by a left-located beep did not differ from RTs
on trials in which the taboo word was left-presented (384 vs. 370 ms,
t(19) = 1.2, p N 0.10). Similarly, as depicted by Fig. 3b, RTs on trials in
which both the negative word and the beep were right-presented
were shorter than RTs on trials in which the negative word was left-
presented (335 vs. 350 ms, t(19) = 2.34, p = 0.03). On the contrary, no
RT difference was found between trials in which a left-located beep
Fig. 3. a and b. Target localization latencies observed in Experiment 3, as a function of
the emotional word and beep locations, for taboo (a) and negative (b) pairs,
respectively.
followed a right-presented negative word and trials in which a negative
word was left-presented (359 vs. 335 ms, t(19) = 1.194, p N 0.10).
4.3. Discussion
As in Experiments 1 and 2, we observed that participants
responded faster to a beep presented at the same location as a
taboo word than presented at the same location as a neutral word.
Again, this attentional bias was only observed when the taboo word
was right-presented. Moreover, as in Experiment 1, results suggest
that participants did not have difficulties in disengaging attention
from taboo words but were, rather, particularly vigilant to these
words. This spatial effect of taboo words thus appears to be robust. In
addition, as in the previous experiments, trials in which a taboo word
was presented led to overall longer RTs to a following beep than other
types of trials, whatever the side of presentation of the beep.
Importantly, in Experiment 3, an attentional bias was also
observed towards negative words. As with the attentional biases
observed for taboo words, this bias for negative words was only
observed when the emotional word was right-presented and most
probably reflects attentional vigilance towards these words.
5. General discussion
While the distinction between the “what” and the “where” auditory
subsystems is largely accepted (e.g., Kubovy & Van Valkenburg,
2001), the functional link between these subsystems has been
relatively neglected. Yet such a link would be advantageous for
ecological adaptation: if the identification of an auditory object that
conveys emotional information leads to activate the information about
its spatial location, then one would be in a better attentional state to
react to subsequent auditory information coming from the same spatial
location.
In the present study, we investigated the existence of a functional
link between the auditory “what” and “where” subsystems by
examining the influence of the emotional content of spoken words,
linked to the “what” subsystem, on the spatial orienting of auditory
attention, relying on the “where” subsystem. This was done by using a
specific kind of cuing situation (Posner, 1980), actually an auditory
adaptation of the attentional deployment task (MacLeod et al., 1986)
in which a pair of spoken words — one potentially emotional — was
followed by a beep target. Considering that the presence of an
emotional word of the pair can act as a single peripheral cue, we
expected to observe spatial congruency effects, namely attentional
biases linked to the spatial location of taboo and negative words, but
no specific effect of positive words was anticipated. Moreover,
according to Kinsbourne's (1970) theory, as the presentation of
verbal material could prime the left hemisphere, leading to an
orientational bias to the contralateral hemifield, and following the
idea that an emotional word catches more attentional resources than
its paired neutral word (therefore activating to a greater extent the
hemispheric contralateral to its side of presentation), we predicted
attentional biases linked to the emotional valence of the words to
occur largely when the emotional word was right-presented.
An overview of the experiments and their associated results is
presented in Table 6. Crucially, in addition to non-spatial inhibitory
effects of taboo words, attentional biases linked to the spatial location
of taboo and negative spoken words were observed. Namely,
participants responded faster to a beep presented at the same spatial
location as the taboo or negative word of the pair than to the neutral
word. In particular, attentional biases towards taboo words were
consistently observed in three experiments, regardless of whether
attention to the words and a spatial response were required or not. In
contrast, attentional biases towards negative words were only
observed when the attentional load was low, that is when attention
to the words was not required, and when participants had to indicate
 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278 273

Table 6 emotional trials exclusively. Hence, if there were any influence of

Overview of the three experiments. the predictive nature of the occurrence of an emotional word, this
Experiment Interval Task(s) Results influence marred all these reaction times, making them comparable
length (ms) and warranting that any difference between them is due to their
Spatial effects Non-spatial effects specific emotional content.
(attentional biases)
Finally, in Experiment 3, although target beeps were also
1 0 Beep Right taboo words RTs taboo N RTs presented more often after emotional than after neutral trials, the
detection negative, positive,
participants' task was to localize the beep. Thus, an adequate response
then neutral words
repetition could not be prepared on the basis of the occurrence of an emotional
250 Beep – RTs taboo N RTs word in the pair, given that the location of the emotional word of the
detection negative, positive, pair (left/right) was not predictive of the location of the beep. Still, we
then neutral words observed results similar to those of Experiments 1 and 2, indicating
repetition
that the predictability of the relation between the presence of an
2 0 Beep Right taboo words RTs taboo N RTs
detection negative words emotional word and the occurrence of the beep, even if it were noted
3 0 Beep Right taboo and RTs taboo N RTs by the participants (which is unwarranted), could not be responsible
localization negative words negative, positive, for the observation of spatial and non-spatial effects for taboo and
neutral words
negative words, respectively.

5.1. Attentional biases to taboo words

the spatial location of the beep by pressing one of two response
buttons (as in Experiment 3). Importantly, these attentional biases
occurred only when the emotional word of the pair was right-
presented, which is coherent with Kinsbourne's (1970) theory.
Notably, these attentional biases were observed in unselected
volunteers and were not correlated with any of the scores in the
personality questionnaires. Our data are thus in accordance with the
idea of an emotion-dependent functional link between the “what” and
the “where” auditory subsystems.
Before discussing the conditions under which this link is observed, a
relevant methodological point should be addressed. In all experiments,
we adopted MacLeod et al.'s (1986) original design of the dot probe task
that was largely used in other visual studies (e.g., Fox, 1993; Salemink
et al., 2007). As previously commented on by Mogg and Bradley (1998,
1999), in this design, the occurrence of an emotional word is predictive
of the occurrence of the target. More specifically, in the present
experiments the beep was presented after all emotional pairs but only
after one third of the neutral pairs.
Nevertheless, the present results cannot be accounted for by the
predictability of the occurrence of the beep. As a matter of fact, in the
present study, we used several types of emotional words (i.e., negative,
positive, and taboo). Thus, if the predictability of the occurrence of the
beep following an emotional word were responsible for the observed
spatial and non-spatial effects, then these effects would be observed for
all emotional words. On the contrary, when a detection task was used
(Experiments 1 and 2), only taboo words influenced the spatial
orienting of attention, only negative words led to non-spatial effects,
and positive words did not elicit either type of effect. Moreover,
attentional biases were only observed when the emotional word was
right-presented in the linguistic pair. This cannot be a consequence
of the fact that the presence of an emotional word in the pair was
predictive of the occurrence of the beep, given that the side of presen-
tation of the emotional word was unpredictable. Indeed, it does not
seem reasonable to admit that listeners only attended to taboo words on
their right side or that they decided that only taboo words presented on
their right side were predictive of the occurrence of the beep. However,
even if the present results eliminate the possibility that the attentional
effects would result from the detection of the predictability of the
occurrence of the target, further studies should rather present a to-be-
localized beep on each (emotional or neutral) trial, as it is often the case
in dot probe studies (e.g., Mogg, Bradley, De Bono, & Painter, 1997; Mogg
& Bradley, 1999).
It ought also to be taken into account that the occurrence of
attentional biases linked to the presentation of a specific type of
emotional word was investigated comparing reaction times to
An attentional bias linked to the spatial source of right-presented
taboo words was consistently observed in three experiments. This is
consistent with previous results from visual studies that used the
taboo variant of the emotional Stroop task (the taboo Stroop task), in
which it has been repeatedly shown that healthy, unselected
participants took longer to name the ink colour of taboo words
compared to neutral words (MacKay & Ahmetzanov, 2005; MacKay
et al., 2004; Siegrist, 1995; Taylor, Kornblum, Lauber, Minoshima, &
Koeppe, 1997). These interference effects are generally considered to
be attentional biases. However, as in the Stroop setting the two
dimensions of the stimulus, relevant and irrelevant for the task (the
ink colour and the emotional valence, respectively), are part of the
same stimulus, no spatial attentional shift is expected to occur. Given
that taboo words have never been used in paradigms involving spatial
attentional orienting such as the dot probe task (MacLeod et al., 1986)
and the emotional cuing paradigm (Stormark, Nordby, & Hugdahl,
1995), the present results extend the findings already reported in the
Stroop situation for visually presented taboo words by showing
spatial attentional biases for auditorily presented taboo words. In
addition, in comparison to most visual studies using taboo words (but
see Nielsen & Sarason, 1981), the present results may have more
ecological validity, given that such words are more common in oral
than in written language.
We also examined, more specifically, on which spatial atten-
tional orienting component(s) taboo words had an effect. For this
purpose, we compared RTs on congruent and incongruent right-
presented taboo trials with RTs on left-presented taboo trials
(acting as baseline, given that no attentional bias was observed on
these trials). In Experiments 1 and 3, we observed an RT advantage
for congruent right-presented taboo trials compared to baseline
left-presented taboo trials, but found no difference between RTs on
incongruent right-presented taboo trials and left-presented taboo
trials. This is more consistent with the hypothesis of an attentional
vigilance towards taboo words than with the idea of difficulties to
disengage attention from these words once attention has been
normally engaged. Attention would be engaged preferentially to
the spatial location of a right-presented taboo word relative to the
spatial location of the neutral word presented simultaneously in
the pair. However, further studies using a different methodology
should confirm these findings. Indeed, as suggested by an
anonymous Reviewer, the fact that no attentional bias was
observed for left-presented taboo words does not ensure that
they did not have any influence on RTs (e.g., they could be
antagonistic). As such, RTs on emotional trials do not appear to be
the most proper baseline.
274 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278
Further work should aim at clarifying the basis of this attentional
vigilance towards spoken taboo words. Nevertheless, it is worth
noting that the set of taboo words we used in the experiments was
matched in literary and web frequencies with the set of neutral words
with which they were associated in the pairs. The infrequent nature of
taboo words is therefore unlikely to be responsible for the occurrence
of the attentional bias. Moreover, one of the post-hoc control studies
confirmed that our taboo words were not less familiar than the
associated neutral words (see Method section of Experiment 1).
Rather, two potential factors could have held the participants'
attention: the arousing and shocking nature of the taboo words.
According to various studies, arousal would account for the
observed effects on attention (e.g., Anderson, 2005; Schimmack,
2005) as well as on memory (e.g., Buchanan, Etzel, Adolphs, & Tranel,
2006; Kensinger & Corkin, 2003; Mather et al., 2006). Using the
attentional blink paradigm, recent studies showed preferential
attentional processing of taboo stimuli (Arnell, Killman, & Fijavz,
2007; Mathewson, Arnell, & Mansfield, 2008; Most, Smith, Cooter,
Levy, & Zald, 2007), and some researchers argued that the arousal
nature of these stimuli in fact influences their encoding in memory
(Arnell et al., 2007; Mathewson et al., 2008). However, the whole set
of data does not seem to support the idea that arousal is the only
factor leading to attentional capture: in Mathewson et al.'s (2008)
study, the threatening words used in the experiments were as
arousing as taboo words, but had no effect. Hence, even if arousal is a
crucial dimension, taboo words seem to have a particular quality
which accounts for this different effect.
Although our study was not initially designed to assess the impact
of arousal, two results of our post-hoc control study (see Method
section of Experiment 1) enable us to discard this factor as the main
basis of the observed effects. Firstly, no correlation was found
between the attentional bias when the emotional word was right-
presented and the difference in arousal between the emotional and
the neutral word of the pair in any of the experiments (all p N 0.10).
Hence, this difference does not seem to be a good predictor of the size
of the attentional bias (highest R2: 0.041). This was the case both
when the correlation analyses included all emotional words irrespec-
tive of valence and when separate correlation analyses were
performed for positive, negative and taboo words. Secondly, the
arousal level of taboo words was lower than the arousal level of the
negative words used in the experiments. Also, the difference in
arousal between the emotional and the neutral word of the pair was
lower for taboo than for negative pairs. If arousal were the crucial
factor in the occurrence of the effect, we should have observed robust
attentional biases towards negative words as well. Thus, rather than
arousal, it seems that it is their shocking quality (perhaps combined
with arousal) that is the relevant factor of the attentional bias they
provoke. As MacKay et al. (2004) suggested, the particular type of
emotional reaction could play a crucial role in the culmination of the
process. For example, taboo words may create sexual arousal or
embarrassment, which would be responsible for this particular
involvement of attentional processes.
Attentional biases linked to taboo words appear to be short-
lived, suggesting that the activation of the “what-where” connec-
tions would be transient. As a matter of fact, in Experiment 1,
attentional biases to taboo words were only observed when the
interval between the offset of the words and the onset of the beep
was null, not when it was 250 ms long. The fact that an attentional
bias only occurs towards events (here, the beep) which are
concomitant (e.g., in the emotional Stroop task) or which
immediately follow the emotional information (taboo, in our
case) seems adaptive: given their transitory nature, emotional
auditory stimuli would create reactions having an influence on the
processing of immediately subsequent events, not on the proces-
sing of later ones. This would be the case particularly when
subsequent events are not emotional and when they have no other
link with the emotional information than spatial location. However,
as the effect of two intervals were compared only in Experiment 1
(given that no attentional bias was observed with the long one)
and as no other study using an attentional deployment task
compared different conditions of intervals between the pair of
words and the probe, our observation remains isolated, and hence
should be considered with caution.
5.2. Attentional biases towards negative words
In addition to attentional biases to right-presented taboo words,
we also observed attentional biases to right-presented negative words
in Experiment 3, but this was not the case in Experiments 1 and 2.
Therefore, the attentional bias to negative words appears to be less
robust than the attentional biases to taboo words or, instead, to occur
under specific conditions.
A crucial factor could be cognitive load, with spatial effects of the
negative valence observable only under low-load conditions. Indeed,
in Experiment 3, the average RTs were far shorter than in
Experiment 1 (344 vs. 439 ms). The idea that task-irrelevant
emotional stimuli are subject to the effects of processing load (as
are neutral stimuli, cf. Lavie, 1995) is supported by studies showing
that brain responses usually observed to emotional stimuli disappear
when cognitive load increases (e.g., Doallo, Holguín, & Cadaveira,
2006; Mitchell et al., 2007; Pessoa, McKenna, Gutierrez, & Ungerlei-
der, 2002; Pessoa, Padmala, & Morland, 2005). Also, at the
behavioural level, interference effects of emotional stimuli on
performance vanish with the increase of task demands, suggesting
that interference only occurs when sufficient resources are available
to process task-irrelevant emotional information (Okon-Singer,
Tzelgov, & Henik, 2007; Smith Erthal et al., 2005). Similarly, in our
study, participants were particularly vigilant to negative stimuli
when cognitive load was low (Experiment 3), not at all when it was
high (Experiment 1).
However, cognitive load does not explain the whole phenomenon.
As a matter of fact, no attentional bias to negative words was observed
in Experiment 2, although participants only had to detect the presence
of a beep. As already developed in the Discussion section of
Experiment 2, one possibility is that negative words would only
influence the spatial orienting of auditory attention when the spatial
location of the beep is task-relevant, as was the case in Experiment 3,
but not in Experiment 2. Actually, when negative words are
presented, the involvement of a spatial orienting component would
be critical to permit “what”-related dimensions to influence “where”-
related ones, in addition to a low cognitive load. The “where”
subsystem would be influenced by the “what” subsystem that detects
a negative emotional content only when it is previously activated,
namely when it is somehow relevant to the participant's goal. These
assumptions require verification in further studies.
Interestingly, as was the case with taboo words, attentional biases
to right-presented negative words would be due to participants being
particularly vigilant to these words: when presented together with a
neutral word, attention would be oriented preferentially to the spatial
location of the negative word.
5.3. Laterality effects in attention
Following Kinsbourne's (1970) theory, we assumed that the use of
verbal material would prime the left hemisphere, leading to
orientational biases to the contralateral side (the right one).
Ordinarily, one would expect left rather than right orientational
biases, given the emotional nature of the words and the fact that
emotions are processed in the right hemisphere (e.g., Bryden &
MacRae, 1989). However, this assumption comes from studies in
which participants had to process the emotional dimension of the
stimuli, which was not the case in our experiments. In Experiments 2
 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278
and 3 they were not even required to process the words at all.
Moreover, not all words were emotionally charged. Hence, the mere
presentation of words seems to activate the left hemisphere, and this
activation could have been reinforced by the expectations of the
participants as to the verbal nature of the major part of the material,
leading to a right orientational bias. This idea resonates with the
earlier findings of Demakis and Harrison (1994) who showed that the
rehearsal of affective words primed the left hemisphere, as neutral
words did, suggesting that even affective words are processed by the
left hemisphere. Moreover, Russell and Voyer (2004) showed that the
magnitude of the REA is similar in studies where an emotional
component was present and in studies where it was not. Finally, it is
worth noting that, according to Bryden (1978) and Cheatham and
Herbig (1992), there is a generalized rightward orientational bias in
right-handed people.
As indicated in the Introduction, we predicted the processing of
right-presented congruent beeps to benefit not only from the
attraction of attentional resources to the spatial source of the
emotional word (which would be the case also of left-presented
congruent beeps), but also from the left-hemisphere activation
associated with the recurrent processing of verbal material. The
results of these three experiments confirmed this prediction.
Moreover, only right-presented emotional words influenced signif-
icantly the spatial orienting of attention, and consequently the
processing of the beep. Thus, the emotional valence of the words
only has a systematic (in the case of taboo words) and reliable
influence if it is presented at the side of the auditory space primed
by left-hemisphere activation, hence locking the connections
between the “what” and “where” systems only in the right side of
the space.
This seems to constitute a partial failure of evolutionary
adaptation. It could indeed be so. Non-adaptive behaviours could
in some circumstances result from the conjunction of two or more
mechanisms that are, by themselves, adaptive. The adaptive value
of hemisphere specialisation, particularly for language, is largely
recognized (for recent reviews, see e.g., Hopkins, 2008; Josse &
Tzourio-Mazoyer, 2004). This is also the case for the anatomical
and functional decussation of the central nervous system relating,
mostly in the vertebrates, each half of the brain to the opposite
half of the body and of the environmental space, although its
precise adaptive origin has been matter for debate for many years
(see, e.g., Ramon y Cajal, 1898, and Suttie, 1926, vs. Braitenberg,
1965, for quite opposite views). The combination of two distinct
adaptive mechanisms may not always be adaptive itself, such as
when an auditory non-verbal stimulus is presented on the
opposite side of a previous word (it being particularly relevant
for some reason) which is processed in the left hemisphere and
engages attention to the right of environmental space. Moreover,
the asymmetrical pattern of attentional biases observed here could
also depend on the specific experimental setting that we designed.
If one considers sounds to be usually delivered by an object, and
that they serve to attract visual attention towards this object, our
experiments may have lacked ecological validity to some extent. A
cross-modal setting, with an auditory emotional word followed by
a visual target, could not lock the “what”–“where” connections
exclusively to the right side and might then give rise to a fully
adaptive attentional behaviour. Such experiments are currently in
progress.
In comparison to the unimodal setting used here, the cross-modal
setting will offer a further advantage in allowing reducing the SOA
(more precisely, the word-beep interval) without masking (through
noise effects) the spoken words. This will allow better comparison
with studies investigating attentional biases in the visual modality,
since written words are generally briefly presented. In addition,
observations would not be limited to a relatively late and limited
snapshot of the influence of emotional stimuli on attentional orienting.
275
5.4. Non-spatial effects of emotional words
In all experiments, taboo pairs led to longer RTs to the beep. These
inhibitory effects of taboo words ought to be considered as non-
spatial, because (a) they do not depend on the spatial congruence
between the presentation sides of the emotional word and the beep
and (b) they are observed even when no spatial dimension is involved
(Experiment 2), namely when participants did not have to attend one
side of space in order to repeat a word (as in Experiment 1) nor to
localize the beep on each trial (as in Experiment 3).
These effects can be related to the interference effects of taboo
words observed in taboo Stroop tasks (e.g., MacKay & Ahmetzanov,
2005) and to their slowing effects in lexical decision tasks (Thomas &
LaBar, 2005; but see MacKay et al., 2004), and interpreted as a freezing
reaction, namely an inhibition of motor responses provoking a generic
slowdown, similar to the interpretation of the interference and
slowing effects of negative words (Algom, Chajut, & Lev, 2004). The
fact that these non-spatial effects were also observed when there was
a 250 ms delay between the offset of the words and the onset of the
beep (long interval condition of the Experiment 1) supports this
interpretation: indeed, Flykt (2006) suggested that if an effect of a
threatening stimulus is still present after detection of this stimulus
(namely during the withholding of the response), this effect can be
located at the level of the response. Alternatively, some authors
consider that general non-spatial effects of emotional words would
actually reflect difficulties to disengage attention from their task-
irrelevant emotional content (e.g., Estes & Verges, 2008; McKenna &
Sharma, 2004) or the triggering of binding mechanisms which
associate the source of an emotion (here, the word) with its context
of occurrence (see MacKay et al., 2004 and MacKay et al., 2005).
Further studies should aim at disentangling these interpretations and
identifying the basis of the non-spatial effects we observed.
For the time being, the fact that for taboo words general non-
spatial effects were observed in both the short and the long interval
conditions of Experiment 1 but attentional biases only in the short
interval condition, indicates that these two effects are distinct and
independent from each other. The general non-spatial effects are
more long-lasting and less dependent on the immediate temporal
succession of the emotional stimulus and the beep than the spatial
attentional biases are, at least for taboo words.
5.5. Conclusion
The present data are in agreement with the idea that the functional
link between the “what” and the “where” auditory subsystems is
reinforced by the emotional characteristics of the stimuli. The
identification of a spoken emotional word automatically activates
information about its spatial location, influencing the processing of a
subsequent extraneous auditory stimulus. Nevertheless, only emo-
tional words presented at the automatically primed side of the
auditory space (in our case, the right side) affected the orienting of
attention. This held true for taboo and, to a lesser extent, for negative
words. This suggests that the “what”–“where” connections are locked
exclusively to the right side of the space in a purely auditory situation
using a linguistic material. Further work will aim to assess whether
such a limitation disappears in audio-visual settings or with non-
linguistic emotional auditory materials.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by two grants of the F.R.S.–FNRS
(convention FRFC 2.4579.02 F and FNRS 1.5705.06). Many thanks to
Marcha Van Boven for the help in preparing the material, to Olivia
Gosseries and Ana Franco for testing the participants, as well as to
Pascale Lidji and Chotiga Pattamadilok for their technical assistance.
276 J. Bertels et al. / Acta Psychologica 134 (2010) 264–278

Appendix A Appendix A (continued)

Emotional word Neutral word

French word English translation French word English translation

Words constituting the emotional pairs (included and excluded from the statistical
analyses on the basis of the post hoc control studies), and their English translation. Positive pairs
Included in the statistical analyses
Emotional word Neutral word Rêve Dream Robe Dress
Rire Laugh Rôle Role
French word English translation French word English translation
Romance Romance Raquette Racket
Negative pairs Sincère Sincere Salade Salad
Included in the statistical analyses Sourire Smile Seconde Second
Attaque Attack Allure Speed Succès Success Sûrement Surely
Bombe Bomb Bulle Bubble Tendre Tender Tourne Turn
Bourreau Torturer Baigner Bathe Trésor Treasure Trafic Traffic
Cadavre Corpse Convaincre Convince Vacances Holiday Visite Visit
Cancer Cancer Cadence Rhythm Vie Life Va Go
Carnage Slaughter Corniche Cornice Excluded from the analyses
Cercueil Coffin Citrouille Pumpkin Argent Money Aspect Appearance
Chagrin Grief Charbon Coal Désir Desire Décor Decor
Colère Anger Quarante Forty Gagnant Winner Gazon Lawn
Coupable Culprit Quatorze Fourteen Gaieté Cheerfulness Galop Gallop
Crime Crime Cloche Bell Partage Share Parcours Way
Danger Danger Dessin Drawing Piscine Swimming pool Pilote Pilot
Echec Failure Etoffe Cloth Santé Health Salon Lounge
Haine Hate Hall Hall
Hurler Scream Hardi Bold Taboo pairs
Malheur Misfortune Mélange Blend Included in the statistical analyses
Massacre Massacre Moutarde Mustard Bander Have a hard-on Bambou Bamboo
Menace Threat Minute Minute Bite Dick Bêche Spade
Menottes Handcuffs Mésange Chickadee Blondasse Dull blond Brasseur Brewer
Meurtre Murder Muscle Muscle Bonasse Hottie Balise Beacon
Misère Misery Message Message Bonniche Skivvy Banquise Ice field
Morgue Morgue Merle Blackbird Bordel Brothel Bourgogne Burgundy
Mort Death Mise Putting Catin Trollop Coupon Coupon
Otage Hostage Augure Oracle Chiant Damn Chiot Puppy
Panique Panic Pendule Pendulum Clodo Bum Cresson Cress
Peur Fear Poche Pocket Connasse Bitch Canine Canine
Prison Jail Plateau Tray Conne Twat Quinte Quintain
Ravage Devastation Régate Regatta Crapule Scoundrel Crevette Shrimp
Sanglot Sob Sourcil Eyebrow Crétin Moron Croquis Sketch
Seringue Syringe Cerise Cherry Débile Moronic Décade Decade
Sévices Abuse Centime Cent Encule Bugger Amphore Amphora
Sida Aids Semer Sow Foireux Yellow-bellied Foison Abundance
Souffrir Suffer Secteur District Foutre Cum Firme Firm
Tank Tank Taupe Mole Gerber Throw up Jongler Juggle
Tombe Grave Tâche Task Gueule Trap Gare Station
Torture Torture Tartine Slice of bread Ignare Ignorant Hippique Horse
Tragique Tragic Transit Transit Merde Shit Marque Brand
Violence Violence Voiture Car Merdeux Squirt Matelot Sailor
Excluded from the analyses Morveux Jerk Merlan Whiting
Famine Starvation Fissure Crack Nichon Tit Napper Coat
Hargne Aggressiveness Harpe Harp Niquer Fuck Neiger Snow
Pédé Queer Piquet Peg
Positive pairs Pétasse Slut Pudding Pudding
Included in the statistical analyses Péter Fart Pommeau Pommel
Amour Love Agence Agency Pine Cock Pull Pullover
Beauté Beauty Bateau Boat Pisser Pee Pigeon Pigeon
Bon Good Bas Low Pouffiasse Tart Pochoir Stencil
Cadeau Gift Coton Cotton Putain Whore Panneau Panel
Câlin Cuddle Caddie Trolley Roulure Trollop Rameur Rower
Chance Luck Chaise Chair Salope Bitch Serrure Lock
Charme Charm Chiffre Digit Tapette Queer Tisseur Weaver
Confiance Trust Conduire Drive Taré Cretin Tympan Eardrum
Confort Comfort Canard Duck Taulard Con Teckel Dachshund
Content Glad Carré Square Traînée Slut Trousseau Bunch
Couple Couple Course Race Troncher Shag Tréma Dieresis
Courage Courage Commune Town Excluded from the analyses
Extase Ecstasy Estrade Platform Biroute Prick Benzène Benzene
Fête Party Phase Phase
Gentil Kind Genou Knee
Guérir Recover Garage Garage
Intime Intimate Indice Clue
Joie Joy Juin June
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