11. The effects of positive affect and arousal on working memory and executive attention

Happy with a difference, unhappy with an identity: Observers’ mood determines processing depth in visual search

“…The presumption that overall RTs and intertrial effects in the positive and neutral conditions would not differ relies on previous findings showing that the average neutral mood of most people is rather positive (Diener & Diener, 1996;Isen, 1984) and that processing levels in positive and neutral moods are therefore frequently the same (Gasper & Clore, 2002;Navon, 1977). Furthermore, the assumption is also in line with Ashby and colleagues' (Ashby et al, 1999;Ashby et al, 2002) dopamine account, which states that a moderate concentration of dopamine is present in people in neutral affective states and that dopamine concentration is only increased in positive affective states.…”

“…This result can be interpreted as enhanced top-down control, in terms of more successful suppression of irrelevant information in positive than in negative or neutral mood conditions. Ashby and colleagues (Ashby et al, 1999;Ashby, Valentin, & Turken, 2002) proposed a neuropsychological theory to account for the improved cognitive control shown by observers in a positive mood. The authors assume that during periods of positive affect, the release of dopamine (mainly in the mesocorticolimbic system) is temporarily increased, and that raised dopamine levels in the prefrontal cortex entail greater cognitive flexibility.…”

Accessing movies based on emotional impact

“…The exploration of movies by their emotional dimensions can be used for entertainment, education or even medical purposes [4,28,44]. Considering the effect of the emotions in a person's attention, motivation and behavior, a scenario where it would be beneficial to have emotional impact videos to capture viewer's attention is in educational contexts, where video could capture students' attention in different ways, either to focus or to relax.…”

“…Considering the effect of the emotions in a person's attention, motivation and behavior, a scenario where it would be beneficial to have emotional impact videos to capture viewer's attention is in educational contexts, where video could capture students' attention in different ways, either to focus or to relax. The induction of emotions using movies has been largely used in psychology studies [4] and in health-related studies. In fact, experimental studies confirmed that positive emotions can have a beneficial effect on physical health [4,9].…”

“…The induction of emotions using movies has been largely used in psychology studies [4] and in health-related studies. In fact, experimental studies confirmed that positive emotions can have a beneficial effect on physical health [4,9]. The development of new mechanisms to catalog, find and access movies based on emotions could help to assess videos' emotion impact, and to find movies or scenes that tend to induce a certain feeling in the users.…”