Ambiguous stimuli are useful for assessing emotional bias. For example, surprised faces could convey a positive or negative meaning, and the degree to which an individual interprets these expressions as positive or negative represents their “valence bias.” Currently, the most well-validated ambiguous stimuli for assessing valence bias include nonverbal signals (faces and scenes), overlooking an inherent ambiguity in verbal signals. This study identified 32 words with dual-valence ambiguity (i.e., relatively high intersubject variability in valence ratings and relatively slow response times) and length-matched clearly valenced words (16 positive, 16 negative). Preregistered analyses demonstrated that the words-based valence bias correlated with the bias for faces, r_s(213) = .27, p < .001, and scenes, r_s(204) = .46, p < .001. That is, the same people who interpret ambiguous faces/scenes as positive also interpret ambiguous words as positive. These findings provide a novel tool for measuring valence bias and greater generalizability, resulting in a more robust measure of this bias.

模棱两可的刺激对于评估情绪偏见很有用。例如，惊讶的面孔可以传达积极或消极的含义，个人将这些表情解释为积极或消极的程度代表了他们的“效价偏差”。目前，用于评估效价偏差的最有效的模糊刺激包括非语言信号（面部和场景），忽略了语言信号中固有的模糊性。该研究确定了 32 个具有双价歧义的单词（即，在价等级方面相对较高的主体间变异性和相对较慢的响应时间）和长度匹配的明确价词（16 个正面，16 个负面）。预注册分析表明，基于词的价偏差与面部偏差相关，r _s (213) = .27, p< .001，以及场景，r _s (204) = .46，p < .001。也就是说，将模棱两可的面孔/场景解释为正面的人也将模棱两可的词解释为正面。这些发现为测量价偏差和更大的普遍性提供了一种新工具，从而可以更有效地衡量这种偏差。