Does emotion processing require attention? The effects of fear conditioning and perceptual load.

Yates, Alan; Ashwin, Chris; Fox, Elaine

doi:10.1037/a0020325

Cited by 68 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This is in line with previous studies already showing that emotion processing is reduced under circumstances where attentional resources are limited (Pessoa, Padmala, & Morland, 2005;Yates, Ashwin, & Fox, 2010). When attentional demands are high and attentional resources are fully exhausted to some stimuli, attention is not allocated to emotional stimuli and emotion processing is not observed.…”

Section: Running Head: Influence Of Working Memorysupporting

confidence: 78%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The influence of working memory on the anger superiority effect

Moriya

Koster

Raedt

2014

Cognition and Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The anger superiority effect shows that an angry face is detected more efficiently than a happy face. However, it is still controversial whether attentional allocation to angry faces is a bottom-up process or not. We investigated whether the anger superiority effect is influenced by top-down control, especially working memory (WM). Participants remembered a color then searched for differently colored facial expressions. Just holding the color information in WM did not modulate the anger superiority effect. However, when increasing the probabilities of trials in which the color of a target face matched the color held in WM, participants were inclined to direct attention to the target face regardless of the facial expression. Moreover, the knowledge of high probability of valid trials eliminated the anger superiority effect. These results suggest that the anger superiority effect is modulated by top-down effects of WM, the probability of events and expectancy about these probabilities.Keywords: working memory, visual search, facial expressions, emotion, attention The Influence of Working Memory on the Anger Superiority EffectAnger is one of the inherent human emotions. Anger expression is already observed in infancy (Braungart-Rieker, Hill-Soderlund, & Karrass, 2010;Pemberton Roben et al., 2012), and the structure of anger is universal across cultures (Alonso-Arbiol et al., 2011). Because people express anger under interpersonal provocations or conflicts, rapid recognition of angry faces is important to restore relationships with others or to be motivated to avoid dangerous situations. Many previous studies have shown automatic attentional allocation to angry faces (Eastwood, Smilek, & Merikle, 2001;Fox et al., 2000;Frischen, Eastwood, & Smilek, 2008;Hansen & Hansen, 1988;Horstmann & Bauland, 2006;Öhman, Lundqvist, & Esteves, 2001;Pinkham, Griffin, Baron, Sasson, & Gur, 2010;Williams, Moss, Bradshaw, & Mattingley, 2005). In these studies visual search paradigms are used in which several facial expressions are presented and participants are required to determine whether all presented facial expressions are from the same category (e.g., angry) or not. Reaction times (RTs) to detect an angry target, which is surrounded by happy faces, are shorter than those for a happy target in a crowd of angry distractor faces (Horstmann & Bauland, 2006;Pinkham et al., 2010). This rapid detection of an angry face is called the anger superiority effect. Although some previous studies suggest that the anger superiority effect does not depend on the number of distractors (Öhman et al., 2001), it is still controversial whether attentional allocation to angry faces is a bottom-up and automatic attentional process or not (Frischen et al., 2008).In recent studies, top-down effects on emotional processing have been demonstrated, suggesting that the anger superiority effect is not a purely bottom-up and automatic process. (Mohanty & Sussman, 2013;Todd, Cunningham, Anderson, & Thompson, 2012). Previous studies have shown that angry ...

show abstract

Section: Running Head: Influence Of Working Memorysupporting

confidence: 78%

“…In previous studies on top-down effects on emotional processing, attentional manipulation was a focus of interest (Pessoa et al, 2005;Yates et al, 2010). They investigated whether emotional stimuli attracted attention when participants were required to other nonemotional stimuli or features.…”

Section: Running Head: Influence Of Working Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of working memory on the anger superiority effect

Moriya

Koster

Raedt

2014

Cognition and Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A dynamic shift in the control of emotional distraction may well account for some discrepancies that have appeared in the literature regarding the ability of emotional images to capture attention, where some studies find that irrelevant emotional images that occur outside the focus of attention can disrupt processing (Fox, Dutton, Yates, Georgiou, & Mouchlianitis, 2015;Junhong et al, 2013;Yates, Ashwin, & Fox, 2010), but others show they do not (Lichtenstein-Vidne et al, 2012;Okon-Singer et al, 2007;Vromen et al, 2015). A systematic manipulation of proportion conflict may furthermore shed light on the modulation of other emotional effects such as those revealed with emotional Stroop, visual search, or spatial cueing paradigms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting reactive and proactive control of emotional distraction.

Grimshaw¹,

Kranz²,

Carmel³

et al. 2018

Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Attending to emotional stimuli is often beneficial, because they provide important social and environmental cues. Sometimes, however, current goals require that we ignore them.To what extent can we control emotional distraction? Here we show that the ability to ignore emotional distractions depends on the type of cognitive control that is engaged.Participants completed a simple perceptual task at fixation while irrelevant images appeared peripherally. In two experiments, we manipulated the proportion of trials in which images appeared, in order to encourage use of either reactive control (rare distractors) or proactive control (frequent distractors). Under reactive control, both negative and positive images were more distracting than neutral images, even though they were irrelevant and appeared in unattended locations. However, under proactive control, distraction by both emotional and neutral images was eliminated. Contrasting Reactive and Proactive Control of Emotional DistractionEmotional stimuli are important. They signal potential threats and rewards and so guide adaptive behaviour. Perceptual and attentional systems prioritize them, as demonstrated through behavioural, electrophysiological and neuroimaging research (for reviews see Carretié, 2014;Okon-Singer, Lichtenstein-Vidne, & Cohen, 2013;Pourtois, Schettino, & Vuilleumier, 2013;Yiend, 2010). But sometimes we need to ignore an emotional stimulus so we can get on with the task at hand. We might need to block out a scowling face to maintain our goal of giving a good talk, or ignore an attractive classmate to concentrate on a lecture. Emotional distractions plague us all, and in disorders such as depression, anxiety, and addiction, they can be overwhelming (Cisler & Koster, 2010;De Raedt & Koster, 2010;Field & Cox, 2008). Non-emotional distractors are known to disrupt performance (Forster & Lavie, 2008a,2008b, but they can also be controlled if we know to expect them (Braver, 2012;Müller, Geyer, Zehetleitner & Krummenacher, 2009) Can we ever control emotional distractions as effectively as those that are more mundane? Cognitive Control of Non-emotional DistractionIn non-emotional contexts, entirely irrelevant stimuli can disrupt performance (Forster & Lavie, 2008a, 2008b. For example, Forster and Lavie (2008a) describe an irrelevant flanker paradigm in which participants complete a letter discrimination task near fixation, while irrelevant images (cartoon characters) appear peripherally. Even when the images are completely task-irrelevant and appear in non-target locations, they can disrupt performance (Forster & Lavie, 2008a as long as the participant's task is perceptually simple (i.e., low load; Forster & Lavie, 2008b). Even under low load, distraction is not obligatory, though; distractors are also less disruptive when they appear more frequently. In 4 Forster and Lavie's (2008a) experiment, images were significantly less distracting when they appeared on 50% compared to 10% of trials. Even more striking distractor frequency effects can be se...

show abstract

“…Because attention is considered to be resource limited, one explanation may be that the load imposed in the attention task was high. The likelihood of attention capture has been shown to be greater under low load conditions, when residual capacity was available, than under high load conditions (14,41,42). We titrated the difficulty of the target color change so the monkeys' performance was between 70% and 90% correct, creating a high attentional load.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some studies indicate that capture only occurs in low perceptual load conditions (14,15). Functional MRI (fMRI) has shown that the amygdala response to affective stimuli is modulated by task demands (16,17).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of distracting faces on visual selective attention in the monkey

Landman

Sharma

Sur

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In primates, visual stimuli with social and emotional content tend to attract attention. Attention might be captured through rapid, automatic, subcortical processing or guided by slower, more voluntary cortical processing. Here we examined whether irrelevant faces with varied emotional expressions interfere with a covert attention task in macaque monkeys. In the task, the monkeys monitored a target grating in the periphery for a subtle color change while ignoring distracters that included faces appearing elsewhere on the screen. The onset time of distracter faces before the target change, as well as their spatial proximity to the target, was varied from trial to trial. The presence of faces, especially faces with emotional expressions interfered with the task, indicating a competition for attentional resources between the task and the face stimuli. However, this interference was significant only when faces were presented for greater than 200 ms. Emotional faces also affected saccade velocity and reduced pupillary reflex. Our results indicate that the attraction of attention by emotional faces in the monkey takes a considerable amount of processing time, possibly involving cortical-subcortical interactions. Intranasal application of the hormone oxytocin ameliorated the interfering effects of faces. Together these results provide evidence for slow modulation of attention by emotional distracters, which likely involves oxytocinergic brain circuits.attention | faces | oxytocin | social | vision

show abstract

Does emotion processing require attention? The effects of fear conditioning and perceptual load.

Cited by 68 publications

References 47 publications

The influence of working memory on the anger superiority effect

The influence of working memory on the anger superiority effect

Contrasting reactive and proactive control of emotional distraction.

Effect of distracting faces on visual selective attention in the monkey

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About