We examined how proficiency influences the processing of emotion words in Spanish–English bilinguals (22 balanced and 20 unbalanced). All unbalanced bilinguals were more proficient in English than Spanish. Participants rated the valence of negative, neutral, and positive words in both languages while EEG was being recorded. ERP latencies and amplitudes were analyzed for two components. The language effect was significant on the late positive component (LPC) amplitude, which was larger for emotion than for neutral words for both groups in English. The unbalanced group presented larger LPC amplitudes for positive than for neutral and for neutral than for negative words in Spanish, suggesting emotion processing differences in these participants’ less proficient language. Valence effects were consistent across languages for the balanced group, but not for the unbalanced group, perhaps reflecting differences in reactivity to emotion words in the less proficient language.

中文翻译：

---

西班牙语 - 英语双语者情绪文字处理的电生理相关性

我们研究了熟练程度如何影响西班牙语-英语双语者（22 个平衡和 20 个不平衡）中情感词的处理。所有不平衡的双语者都比西班牙语更精通英语。参与者在记录脑电图时对两种语言中的负面、中性和正面词的效价进行评分。分析了两个组件的 ERP 延迟和幅度。语言效应对晚期正分量 (LPC) 幅度有显着影响，在英语中两组的情绪比中性词的幅度更大。不平衡组在西班牙语中表现出比中性词和中性词更大的 LPC 振幅，表明这些参与者在不太熟练的语言中的情绪处理差异。平衡组的不同语言的价效应是一致的，