Abstract
Affective word meanings are often treated as stable lexical properties, although their organization may change across development. Using representational content analysis, we examined how semantic and form-based lexical information predicts valence and arousal judgments from childhood to adulthood. Across two experiments, Spanish affective ratings from children aged 7, 9, 11, and 13 years were modeled within and across age groups and compared with adult judgments. Semantic representations were the strongest predictors of both dimensions, but valence and arousal showed distinct developmental patterns. Valence remained comparatively stable across childhood and showed strong correspondence with adult judgments already at age 7. Arousal, despite being systematically predictable within each child group, showed weaker cross-age generalization, with semantic transfer declining as developmental distance increased. Moreover, semantic information predicted word-specific age differences more accurately for arousal than for valence. Child-adult correspondence in arousal shifted from negative at age 7 to positive at ages 11 and 13, suggesting increasing similarity in lexical-affective mappings across development. These findings indicate that developmental variation in arousal does not reflect an absence of systematic organization in younger children but rather age-related differences in how lexical meaning relates to activation. Overall, affective lexical development combines a relatively stable evaluative structure with a more flexible organization of arousal.