How arousal modulates the visual contrast sensitivity function.

Lee, Tae‐Ho; Baek, Jongsoo; Lü, Zhong-Lin; Mather, Mara

doi:10.1037/a0037047

Cited by 50 publications

(61 citation statements)

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“…It is possible that this higher arousal facilitated participants' responses to the angry faces, which also had a higher level of arousal. Studies have shown that presenting an arousing cue (e.g., a fearful face or a fear-conditioned auditory tone) enhances contrast sensitivity in subsequent visual perception (Lee et al 2014;Phelps et al 2006). Moreover, arousing and nonarousing visual stimuli themselves can differ in low-level visual features, such as the energy distribution of frequencies (e.g., Delplanque et al 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Independent effects of reward expectation and spatial orientation on the processing of emotional facial expressions

2015

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The present study investigated the effect of reward expectation and spatial orientation on the processing of emotional facial expressions, using a spatial cue-target paradigm. A colored cue was presented at the left or right side of the central fixation point, with its color indicating the monetary reward stakes of a given trial (incentive vs. non-incentive), followed by the presentation of an emotional facial target (angry vs. neutral) at a cued or un-cued location. Participants were asked to discriminate the emotional expression of the target, with the cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony being 200-300 ms in Experiment 1 and 950-1250 ms in Experiment 2a (without a fixation cue) and Experiment 2b (with a fixation cue), producing a spatial facilitation effect and an inhibition of return effect, respectively. The results of all the experiments revealed faster reaction times in the monetary incentive condition than in the non-incentive condition, demonstrating the effect of reward to facilitate task performance. An interaction between reward expectation and the emotion of the target was evident in all the three experiments, with larger reward effects for angry faces than for neutral faces. This interaction was not affected by spatial orientation. These findings demonstrate that incentive motivation improves task performance and increases sensitivity to angry faces, irrespective of spatial orienting and reorienting processes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Independent effects of reward expectation and spatial orientation on the processing of emotional facial expressions

2015

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“…Several studies have demonstrated that changes in emotional states are associated with changes in perceptual or cognitive processes, including visual perception (Gasper, 2004; Phelps et al, 2006; Bocanegra and Zeelenberg, 2009; Kuhbandner et al, 2009; Lee et al, 2014a), temporal attention (Jefferies et al, 2008), spatial attention (Phelps et al, 2006), and cognitive control (van Wouwe et al, 2009; van Steenbergen et al, 2010; Kuhbandner and Zehetleitner, 2011). Influences of mood on basic auditory processing, however, have remained largely unexplored [see Siegel and Stefanucci (2011) for a recent exception].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, following previous studies that demonstrated effects of emotion cues on contrast sensitivity in the visual domain (Phelps et al, 2006; Bocanegra and Zeelenberg, 2009; Lee et al, 2014a), we used a perceptual performance measure rather than brain indices of auditory processing. To the best of our knowledge only one other recent study has investigated how mood impacts basic auditory perception (Siegel and Stefanucci, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inconsistent Effect of Arousal on Early Auditory Perception

2017

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Mood has been shown to influence cognitive performance. However, little is known about the influence of mood on sensory processing, specifically in the auditory domain. With the current study, we sought to investigate how auditory processing of neutral sounds is affected by the mood state of the listener. This was tested in two experiments by measuring masked-auditory detection thresholds before and after a standard mood-induction procedure. In the first experiment (N = 76), mood was induced by imagining a mood-appropriate event combined with listening to mood inducing music. In the second experiment (N = 80), imagining was combined with affective picture viewing to exclude any possibility of confounding the results by acoustic properties of the music. In both experiments, the thresholds were determined by means of an adaptive staircase tracking method in a two-interval forced-choice task. Masked detection thresholds were compared between participants in four different moods (calm, happy, sad, and anxious), which enabled differentiation of mood effects along the dimensions arousal and pleasure. Results of the two experiments were analyzed both in separate analyses and in a combined analysis. The first experiment showed that, while there was no impact of pleasure level on the masked threshold, lower arousal was associated with lower threshold (higher masked sensitivity). However, as indicated by an interaction effect between experiment and arousal, arousal did have a different effect on the threshold in Experiment 2. Experiment 2 showed a trend of arousal in opposite direction. These results show that the effect of arousal on auditory-masked sensitivity may depend on the modality of the mood-inducing stimuli. As clear conclusions regarding the genuineness of the arousal effect on the masked threshold cannot be drawn, suggestions for further research that could clarify this issue are provided.

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“…Once an emotional stimulus is presented, it changes the way subsequently presented neutral objects compete for attention. For example, the ability to detect a solitary neutral stimulus can be enhanced by presenting an emotionally arousing stimulus just beforehand (Bocanegra & Zeelenberg, 2009; Padmala & Pessoa, 2008; Zeelenberg & Bocanegra, 2010), at least if the stimulus has low spatial frequency (Lee, Baek, Lu, & Mather, in press). Moreover, the presentation of an emotional stimulus has also been shown to enhance the ability to identify a neutral target within an array of neutral distracters (Becker, 2009; Olatunji, Ciesielski, Armstrong, & Zald, 2011; Phelps, Ling, & Carrasco, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative Arousal Increases the Effects of Stimulus Salience in Older Adults

Sutherland

Mather

2015

Experimental Aging Research

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Background/Study Context Stimuli compete for mental representation, with salient stimuli attracting more attention than less salient stimuli. In a recent study, we found that presenting an emotionally negative arousing sound before briefly showing an array of letters with different levels of salience increased the reporting of the more salient letters but decreased reporting of the less salient letters (Sutherland & Mather, 2012). In the current study we examined whether negative arousal produces similar effects on attention in older adults. Methods Data from 55 older adults (61–80 years; M = 70.7; SD = 5.1) were compared with those from 110 younger adults (18–29 years; M = 20.3; SD = 2.3) from Sutherland and Mather (2012). Neutral or negative arousing sound clips were played before a brief presentation of eight letters, three of which were presented in a darker font than the others to create a group of high and low salience targets. Next, participants recalled as many of the letters as they could. At the end of the study, participants rated the emotional arousal and the valence of the sounds. Results Higher ratings of emotional arousal for the sounds predicted a greater advantage for high salience letters in recall. This influence of arousal did not significantly differ by age. Conclusion The effects of negative arousal on subsequent attention were similar in older adults as in younger adults. Moreover, the results support arousal-biased competition theory (Mather & Sutherland, 2011), which predicts that emotional arousal amplifies the effects of stimulus salience in attention and memory.

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How arousal modulates the visual contrast sensitivity function.

Cited by 50 publications

References 61 publications

Independent effects of reward expectation and spatial orientation on the processing of emotional facial expressions

Independent effects of reward expectation and spatial orientation on the processing of emotional facial expressions

Inconsistent Effect of Arousal on Early Auditory Perception

Negative Arousal Increases the Effects of Stimulus Salience in Older Adults

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