Emotional valence promotes free recall of foreign language words after video exposure

Abstract

The effect of emotional valence in word retrieval is well-established in native languages, but findings in a foreign language remain inconsistent. This study investigated the impact of emotional valence on free word recall in English as a foreign language after video exposure. Participants were upper-intermediate English speakers with Spanish as their mother tongue who watched eight emotionally valenced and four neutral videos, followed by an immediate free recall task and a delayed recall task after 2 weeks. Generalized linear mixed models showed that word valence influenced recall, with neutral words being less easily recalled than negative words, and a decline in recall between sessions. These findings support the Motivated Attention Account, which suggests that motivationally significant stimuli capture more attention than neutral stimuli, regardless of their polarity. Furthermore, the results align with previous evidence in native language research and some studies in foreign language contexts. This study highlights the robust effect of emotional valence on word recall at different time intervals, using authentic input with upper-intermediate English speakers who have Spanish as their mother tongue and who learned English later in life.