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Cursing Feedback Control, Attentional Capture, and Physiological Arousal: A Combined Eye Tracking and Electrocardiography Study
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Poster E106 in Poster Session E, Thursday, October 26, 10:15 am - 12:00 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Laura P. Fitzgerald1, Lucia Pattullo1, Benjamin J. Sacks1, Jamie Reilly1; 1Temple University
Introduction: Cursing occurs across virtually all natural languages, yet our understanding of the neurobiology of cursing remains limited. Many neurological disorders are characterized by non-volitional or uncontrolled cursing, known as neurogenic cursing. Hughlings-Jackson (1878) distinguished between two types of neurogenic cursing. Non-propositional cursing includes interjections following sudden dismay or excitement (Shit!), while propositional cursing is embedded within controlled, intentional constructions (That smells like shit). We hypothesize a feedback control loop between arousal and both types of cursing. The pathway begins at a low-arousal baseline. Next, an intrinsic or extrinsic trigger evokes physiological arousal, the speed and intensity of which mediate two potential outcomes. Non-propositional cursing results from a rapid spike in phasic arousal causing an individual to immediately exit the loop and curse. Slower changes in arousal lead to an intermediate deliberation stage, allowing for emotion regulation. An individual may then choose to curse or instead modulate their output to avoid conflict. We examined the effects of exposure to cursing on physiological (i.e., heart rate, gaze) and cognitive (i.e., memory, attention) indicators of arousal to elucidate the operation of feedback within this loop. We predict increased heart rate and greater visual attention to curse words during reading and poorer recall of passages containing curse words. Method: Participants (N=5, data collection ongoing) read didactic passages as we continuously monitored eyegaze (Eyelink 1000) and heart rate (HR; BIOPAC MP150). After each passage, participants were cued to recall as much detail as possible. Passages (N=6) were roughly matched in complexity (Flesch-Kincaid level) and length (M=230 words). Half the passages contained taboo words; the remainder included pragmatically unexpected words. We defined rectangular regions of interest (RoIs) surrounding target words and acquired baseline HR during one-minute rest intervals preceding each story. We conducted the following contrasts: a) HR(taboo_RoI) > HR(control_RoI), b) HR(taboo_RoI) > HR(baseline), c) Dwell Time(taboo_RoIs) > Dwell Time(control_RoIs), d) N Facts Recalled(taboo_passages) > N Facts Recalled(control_passages) Results: Average HR over 2-second intervals after gaze entered taboo RoIs (M=80.09, SD=15.58) was not significantly different from control RoIs (M=85.37, SD=13.87), t(4)=1.17, p=.15, or baseline (M=89.01, SD=19.92), t(4)=1.18, p=.15. Gaze dwell time was significantly longer on taboo (M=943.25, SD=174.87) than control words (M=1580.29, SD=380.69), t(4)=-3.4, p<.01. A Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test indicated participants recalled more facts after reading control versus taboo passages (Z=-2.22, p=.01). Discussion: We did not observe physiological effects of exposure to cursing, possibly due to sample size. Cognitive effects, however, were significant; participants had better recall for control than curse passages and spent more time looking at curse than control words. It is unlikely that these effects are simply due to distraction or surprise, since control passages contained unexpected words. These preliminary results partially support a feedback control loop between arousal and cursing. Understanding the physiological underpinnings of neurogenic cursing is the first step toward developing treatments for this socially impairing condition. Next steps include exploring the physiological and cognitive effects of curse word production in a planned sister experiment as well as investigating arousal and cursing in naturalistic language settings.
Topic Areas: Control, Selection, and Executive Processes, Disorders: Acquired