How automatic is “automatic vigilance”? The role of working memory in attentional interference of negative information

Hemispheric interaction, task complexity, and emotional valence: Evidence from naturalistic images

“…While negatively-valenced photos have been found to interfere with competing tasks, this interference was only observed for tasks that did not require significant attentional resources (Okon-Singer, Tzelgov, & Henik, 2007). Further, when working memory is already devoted to a difficult task, negative stimuli have been found to induce fewer negative feelings than normal (Van Dillen & Koole, 2007) and cause lower than normal activation in brain areas involved in processing negative emotion (Erk, Kleczar, & Walter, 2007). fMRI data also supports the idea that negative images are more demanding than positive images.…”

At face value: Categorization goals modulate vigilance for angry faces

“…In this task, participants categorize, as quickly as possible, a series of faces. Typically, people are thought to display vigilance for angry faces when they are slower to categorize angry faces compared to happy (Study 1) or neutral (Studies 2 and 3) faces, because attention is automatically drawn to and/or held longer by the angry facial expression at the cost of task relevant features (Van Dillen & Koole, 2009;Van Honk et al, 2001). We argue, however, that when the categorization goal does not require facial expressions to be processed, this relative slow-down should not occur.…”

“…In support of this notion, several studies suggest that top-down control processes moderate the role of bottom-up attention filters in processing salient, but task-irrelevant information (Chong et al, 2008;Dreisbach & Haider, 2009;Klauer & Musch, 2002;Spruyt, De Houwer, Hermans, & Eelen, 2007;Van Dillen & Koole, 2009). For example, loading people's mental capacity with a focal task decreases attentional interference of angry faces (Erthal et al, 2005;Holmes, Vuilleumier, & Eimer, 2003;Pessoa, McKenna, Gutierrez, & Ungerleider, 2002).…”

“…We designed the present experiments to investigate the abovementioned predictions using a speeded categorization task (see Van Dillen & Koole, 2009, for a similar paradigm). In this task, participants categorize, as quickly as possible, a series of faces.…”

Caution follows fear: Evidence from hierarchical drift diffusion modelling.

“…Beyond the results of experiments that have manipulated spatial frequency information it is not clear how the ASAP account might explain the effects of emotional stimuli on RT and accuracy in experiments that have neither controlled for nor manipulated the presence of spatial frequency information. For facial expressions specifically, experiments have reported a diverse set of findings including: 1) reductions in target detection accuracy following expressions presented in rapid sequence of images (de Jong, Koster, van Wees, & Martens, 2010;Maratos, 2011;Peers & Lawrence, 2009;Sigurjónsdóttir, Sigurðardóttir, Björnsson, & Kristjánsson, 2015;Stebbins & Vanous, 2015;Vermeulen, Godefroid, & Mermillod, 2009) 2) increased target detection accuracy following fearful compared to angry expressions (Taylor & Whalen, 2014) 3) faster visual search for complex images following the presentation of a fearful face (Becker, 2009;Quinlan & Johnson, 2011) 4) slower RTs when fearful and other expressions are presented as task-irrelevant distractors (Berggren, Richards, Taylor, & Derakshan, 2013;Fox et al, 2002;Georgiou et al, 2005;Gupta, Hur, & Lavie, 2016;Hodsoll et al, 2011;Van Dillen & Koole, 2009) and 5) faster RTs for neutral probes following in the same location as a threat-related expression (e.g., Bradley, Mogg, Falla, & Hamilton, 1998). Although it is difficult to summarize the interpretation for each result (for reviews see; Mogg & Bradley, 2016;Yiend, 2010) a common interpretation of both RT and accuracy effects in these studies is that emotion biases the competition for limited resourcesa competition that emotion stimuli are, as the result of evolutionary pressures, predisposed to win or influence.…”