Skip to main content
Search
Search
    Quick Search anywhere
    Quick search in Citations
Advanced Search
Skip main navigationClose Drawer MenuOpen Drawer Menu
Previous article
Freier Beitrag

Die semantische Repräsentation von Emotionsbegriffen bei Kindern im Grundschulalter

Published Online:August 31, 2017https://doi.org/10.1026/0942-5403/a000238

Abstract

Zusammenfassung. Dem Erwerb von Emotionsbegriffen kommt eine besondere Bedeutung im kindlichen Lexikonerwerb zu. Zum einen ermöglicht das Emotionsvokabular den zwischenmenschlichen Austausch über Gefühle, zum anderen erfüllen Emotionsbegriffe aufgrund ihrer besonderen semantischen Eigenschaften eine Brückenfunktion für den Erwerb abstrakter Wortbedeutungen. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht die Wortverarbeitung bei 86 Kindern zwischen sechs und neun Jahren an einer Auswahl von 24 Emotionsbegriffen. Vier Aufgaben mit unterschiedlichem Schwierigkeitsgrad und unterschiedlichen Anforderungen an die semantische Verarbeitung wurden eingesetzt: lexikalisches Entscheiden (Wort-Pseudowort), emotionales Kategorisieren (positiv-negativ), Wortverstehen (Wortauswahl aus Ablenkermenge) und Wortproduktion (Satzvervollständigung). In allen Aufgabentypen zeigten sich Verbesserungen mit zunehmendem Alter, wobei sich die Leistungen in Abhängigkeit vom Aufgabentyp unterschieden. Die Ergebnisse zu Korrektheit, Reaktionszeit und Fehlertypen verdeutlichen, wie Kinder ihr Wissen über die Bedeutung von Emotionsbegriffen im Laufe des Grundschulalters ausdifferenzieren.


The Semantic Representation of Emotion Terms in Child Development

Abstract. Emotion terms are part of the emotive vocabulary represented in the mental lexicon. The acquisition of emotion terms is a relevant domain of later lexical development. Emotion terms are seen as precursors of successful learning of abstract vocabulary, as they illustrate the distinction between entities existing in the physical world and those existing only in the human mind. The central aim of the present study was to scrutinize the development of semantic representations during childhood. The study investigates the processing of 24 emotion terms (12 positive and 12 negative items, matched for frequency, arousal, age of acquisition, concreteness, and word length) in 86 children between 6 and 9 years of age. We used four tasks that require access to different aspects of lexical and semantic knowledge: lexical decision (word or pseudoword), emotional categorization (evaluation as positive or negative), word comprehension (sentence completion with four response options), and word production (free sentence completion). Results demonstrated that children improved with increasing age: 9 year-olds performed better than 6 year-olds in all of the tasks, and their reaction times were faster than those of the younger children in the decision and categorization task. These results uncover relevant developmental changes in the acquisition of emotion terms during middle childhood. A qualitative analysis of the responses in the sentence completion tasks revealed sensitivity to semantic features of emotion words: If the children did not select the target item, they chose another emotion term of the same valence. Similarly, the responses in the productive completion task showed that more than 70 % of the children used semantically adequate terms: Obviously, words that denote emotions form a lexical class for children at school age. Moreover, the children’s reactions reflected the task demands: Although accuracy was similar in lexical decision and in emotional categorization, reaction times were slower in the categorization task. Accuracy differences between the two sentence completion tasks suggested that comprehension of emotion terms was superior to production. In addition, it was found that 6 year-old children showed preferential processing of positive compared to negative words in the lexical decision and in the emotional categorization task. Taken together, the present study shows that the semantic representation and processing of emotion terms expands and differentiates during school age. The increasing availability of an emotion vocabulary allows children to effectively communicate about emotional events.

Literatur

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Golan, O., Wheelwright, S., Granader, Y. & Hill, J. (2010). Emotion word comprehension from 4 to 16 years old: A developmental survey. Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience, 2. doi:10.3389/fnevo.2010.00109 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Bayer, M. & Schacht, A. (2014). Event-related brain responses to emotional words, pictures, and faces: A cross-domain comparison. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01106 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Bretherton, I. & Beeghly, M. (1982). Talking about internal states: The acquisition of an explicit theory of mind. Developmental Psychology, 18, 906 – 921. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Bulheller, S. & Häcker, H. O. (Hrsg.). (2002). Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM). (Deutsche Bearbeitung und Normierung nach J. C. Raven.) Frankfurt: Pearson Assessment. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Estes, Z. & Verges, M. (2008). Freeze or flee? Negative stimuli elicit selective responding. Cognition, 108, 557 – 565. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Feyereisen, P., Malet, C. & Martin, Y. (1986). Is the faster processing of expressions of happiness modality-specific? In H. D. EllisM. A. JeevesF. NewcombeA. YoungEds., Aspects of face processing (pp. 349 – 355). Dordrecht: Springer. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Glück, C. W. (2011). Wortschatz- und Wortfindungstest für 6- bis 10-Jährige: WWT 6 – 10 (2., überarb. Aufl.). München: Elsevier, Urban & Fischer. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Goh, W. D., Yap, M. J., Lau, M. C., Ng, M. M. R. & Tan, L.-C. (2016). Semantic richness effects in spoken word recognition: A lexical decision and semantic categorization megastudy. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(723), 802. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00976 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Hofmann, M. J., Kuchinke, L., Tamm, S., Võ, M. L. H. & Jacobs, A. M. (2009). Affective processing within 1/10th of a second: High arousal is necessary for early facilitative processing of negative but not positive words. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 9, 389 – 397. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Izard, C., Fine, S., Schultz, D., Mostow, A., Ackerman, B. & Youngstrom, E. (2001). Emotion knowledge as a predictor of social behavior and academic competence in children at risk. Psychological Science, 12, 18 – 23. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Jacobs, A. M., Võ, M. L.-H., Briesemeister, B. B., Conrad, M., Hofmann, M. J., Kuchinke, L., Lüdtke, J. & Braun, M. (2015). 10 years of BAWLing into affective and aesthetic processes in reading: What are the echoes? Frontiers in Psychology, 6. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00714 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Kauschke, C. (2012a). Kindlicher Spracherwerb im Deutschen: Verläufe, Forschungmethoden, Erklärungsansätze. Germanische Arbeitshefte: Vol. 45. Berlin: De Gruyter. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Kauschke, C. (2012b). Sprechen über Inneres – die Versprachlichung von Emotionen im Kindesalter. SAL-Bulletin, 145, 5 – 16. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Kauschke, C. & Klann-Delius, G. (1997). The acquisition of verbal expressions for internal states in German. In S. NiemeierR. DirvenEds., The language of emotions (p. 173). Amsterdam: Benjamins Publishing. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Kauschke, C., Nutsch, C. & Schrauf, J. (2012). Verarbeitung von konkreten und abstrakten Wörtern bei Kindern im Schulalter. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 44, 2 – 11. First citation in articleLink, Google Scholar

  • Klann-Delius, G. (2015). Emotion in language. In U. LüdtkeEd., Emotion in language. Theory – research – application (pp. 157 – 173). Amsterdam: Benjamins Publishing. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Kristen, S., Sodian, B., Licata, M., Thoermer, C. & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2012). The development of internal state language during the third year of life: A longitudinal parent report study. Infant and Child Development, 21, 634 – 645. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Kumschick, I. R., Beck, L., Eid, M., Witte, G., Klann-Delius, G., Heuser, I., et al. (2014). Reading and Feeling: the effects of a literature-based intervention designed to increase emotional competence in second and third graders. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(1448). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01448 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Ludwig, D., Schwarzer, G. & Kauschke, C. (2016). Positiv oder Negativ? Verarbeitung von Emotionsbegriffen und Gesichtsausdrücken bei Kindern mit typischem und mit auffälligem Spracherwerb. Logos, 24, 15 – 23. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Petermann, F. & Wiedebusch, S. (2016). Emotionale Kompetenz bei Kindern (3., überarb. und erw. Aufl.). Göttingen: Hogrefe. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Russell,  , James, A. & Ridgeway, D. (1983). Dimensions underlying Children’s Emotion Concepts. Developmental Psychology, 19, 795 – 804. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Schröder, S., Würzner, K.-M., Heister, J., Geyken, A. & Kliegl, R. (2015). childLex: A lexical database of German read by children. Behavior Research Methods, 47, 1085 – 1094. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Schwarz-Friesel, M. (2013). Sprache und Emotion (2., akt. und erw. Aufl.). Tübingen: Francke. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Schwarz-Friesel, M. (2015). Language and emotion. The cognitive linguistic perspective. In U. LüdtkeEd., Emotion in Language. Theory – research – application (pp. 157 – 173). Amsterdam: Benjamins Publishing. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Sylvester, T., Braun, M., Schmidtke, D. & Jacobs, A. M. (2016). The Berlin Affective Word List for Children (kidBAWL): Exploring processing of affective lexical semantics in the visual and auditory modalities. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00969 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Trentacosta, C. J. & Izard, C. E. (2007). Kindergarten children’s emotion competence as a predictor of their academic competence in first grade. Emotion, 7, 77 – 88. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Vaish, A., Grossmann, T. & Woodward, A. (2008). Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 383 – 403. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Vigliocco, G., Kousta, S.-T., Della Rosa, P. A., Vinson, D. P., Tettamanti, M., Devlin, J. T. & Cappa, S. F. (2013). The neural representation of abstract words: The role of emotion. Cerebral Cortex, 24, 1767 – 1777. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Võ, M. L. H., Conrad, M., Kuchinke, L., Urton, K., Hofmann, M. J. & Jacobs, A. M. (2009). The Berlin Affective Word List Reloaded (BAWL-R). Behavior Research Methods, 41, 534 – 538. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Widen, S. C. & Russell, J. A. (2008). Children acquire emotion categories gradually. Cognitive Development, 23, 291 – 312. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Wiedebusch, S. & Petermann, F- (2011). Förderung sozial-emotionaler Kompetenz in der frühen Kindheit. Kindheit und Entwicklung, 20, 209 – 218. First citation in articleLink, Google Scholar