Natural selective attention: Orienting and emotion

Abstract

The foundations of orienting and attention are hypothesized to stem from activation of defensive and appetitive motivational systems that evolved to protect and sustain the life of the individual. Motivational activation initiates a cascade of perceptual and motor processes that facilitate the selection of appropriate behavior. Among these are detection of significance, indexed by a late centro-parietal positivity in the event-related potential, enhanced perceptual processing, indexed by a initial cardiac deceleration, and preparation for action, indexed by electrodermal changes. Data exploring the role of stimulus novelty and significance in orienting are presented that indicate different components of the orienting response habituate at different rates. Taken together, it is suggested that orienting is mediated by activation of fundamental motivational systems that have evolved to support survival.

Psychophysiological arousal and inter‐ and intraindividual differences in risk‐sensitive decision making

“…Meanwhile, Goudriaan et al (2006) found that HR decelerations immediately prior to response button presses distinguished more strongly between advantageous and disadvantageous deck choices in participants with lower BAS scores. While these studies consistently show low BAS scores to be associated with increased peripheral sensitivities during decision making, the specific peripheral marker is not fully consistent and may reflect sympathetic versus parasympathetic contributions (Bradley, 2009; Bradley & Lang, 2007; Dawson et al, 2007; Graham & Clifton, 1966). …”

Cardiac responses to viewing facial emotion differentiate frontotemporal dementias

“…Emotional stimuli produce autonomic effects including modulation of heart rate, but different emotions do not reliably produce specific individual patterns of autonomic responses, and they are therefore hypothesized to relate to arousal and intensity rather than emotion category 10, 11. Stimulus onset induces a cardiac orienting deceleration, which is modulated by affective content, with greater cardiac deceleration accompanying higher emotional valence 12, 13, 14. This central regulation of cardiac function is mediated by a distributed brain network including anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), insula, and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) 15, 16.…”

Stimulus-specific adaptation, habituation and change detection in the gaze control system

“…Perhaps not surprisingly, mechanisms have evolved to respond selectively to unexpected events and to trigger a series of autonomic reflexes that prepare the body for possible action (Sokolov 1963;Barry 2009). These include galvanic responses (Bradley 2009), changes in heart rate (Bradley 2009), and pupillary dilation (Bala and Takahashi 2000;Weinberger et al 1975). This wide repertoire of responses, which is remarkably preserved phylogenetically, has been termed by Pavlov as the "orienting response" (Sokolov 1963;Barry 2009).…”

“…In parallel to the orienting reflex, unexpected events also capture the animal's attention for evaluation and decision of the appropriate action (Posner 1980). Thus, unexpected events have dramatic and widespread bodily effects, most are hidden, pre-attentive, and subconscious, but can be detected with sensitive measurement devices (Bradley 2009). …”