Persian norms for affective dimensions and lexico semantic features of words
Introduction: Some studies, which are engaging with the mechanisms of word procession in the brain, are interested in the brain activity responses to the emotional content of the words. There are also some studies which have focused on how lexico-semantic features affect word processing by controlling the affective dimensions. To perform such studies we need a list of affective words in Farsi language and culture. The present study aims to make a list of such words to be used in probable future neural processing studies of Persian words. Materials & Methods: In this study 150 Farsi speaking college students, with the average of 22 years of age, scored 300 Farsi words based on their valence, being evocable, familiarity, age of acquisition and being imaginable, by using Likert scale. Information about the frequency, objectivity and class of words were also added to each word by researchers. Results: Within 294 studied words with clear valence, there were 237 nouns, 47 adjectives and 10 verbs. There were also 158 positive, 79 negative and 63 neutral words in this study. Data gathered for each word based on scores were recorded in tables for future references. Conclusion: The provided list of words and related scores in this study can be useful in order to control or study the factors contributing to word processing in Persian youth for future studies. The reason for different scoring paradigm in this study with other patterns was the difference in culture and sociolinguistic backgrounds with other cultures and languages.
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