Positive emotion broadens attention focus through decreased position-specific spatial encoding in early visual cortex: Evidence from ERPs

Abstract

Recent evidence has suggested that not only stimulus-specific attributes or top-down expectations can modulate attention selection processes, but also the actual mood state of the participant. In this study, we tested the prediction that the induction of positive mood can dynamically influence attention allocation and, in turn, modulate early stimulus sensory processing in primary visual cortex (V1). High-density visual event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants performed a demanding task at fixation and were presented with peripheral irrelevant visual textures, whose position was systematically varied in the upper visual field (close, medium, or far relative to fixation). Either a neutral or a positive mood was reliably induced and maintained throughout the experimental session. The ERP results showed that the earliest retinotopic component following stimulus onset (C1) strongly varied in topography as a function of the position of the peripheral distractor, in agreement with a near-far spatial gradient. However, this effect was altered for participants in a positive relative to a neutral mood. On the contrary, positive mood did not modulate attention allocation for the central (taskrelevant) stimuli, as reflected by the P300 component. We ran a control behavioral experiment confirming that positive emotion selectively impaired attention allocation to the peripheral distractors. These results suggest a mood-dependent tuning of position-specific encoding in V1 rapidly following stimulus onset. We discuss these results against the dominant broaden-and-build theory.

Feeling happy enhances early spatial encoding of peripheral information automatically: electrophysiological time-course and neural sources

“…Thus, when attentional resources are spread over a larger portion of the visual field, this gain in spatial attention is somehow counteracted by a loss regarding the processing of the details and local information. In line with this prediction, we found in our previous study (Vanlessen, et al, 2013) that participants in the positive mood group showed a drop in accuracy for processing the content (i.e., local elements) of these textures shown in the upper visual field, compared to the participants in the neutral mood group.…”

“…However, this behavioral effect was evidenced only in a control experiment where no EEG was recorded concurrently (Vanlessen, et al, 2013). Hence, we could link these behavioral effects with the changes observed at the level of the C1 only indirectly.…”

“…To address these questions, we adapted in this study our previous paradigm (Vanlessen, et al, 2013) and we instructed participants to attend to the location of peripheral stimuli shown in the upper visual field (secondary task), besides monitoring a stream of rapidly presented stimuli in the center of the screen (primary task, RSVP identical to our previous study). Importantly, high density (i.e., 128 channels) EEG was continuously recorded enabling us to concurrently characterize changes in top-down attention control (P300 component) and early sensory processing (C1 amplitude) induced by positive mood.…”

“…To overcome these limitations, we previously validated a task enabling us to titrate effects of positive mood on early stages of visual processing and attention selection, both at the EEG and behavioral levels (Vanlessen, Rossi, De Raedt, & Pourtois, 2013). In this earlier study, participants were randomly assigned to either a neutral or a positive mood induction condition that consisted of a standard guided imagery procedure (Holmes, 2006;Holmes, Coughtrey, & Connor, 2008).…”

Distinct parietal sites mediate the influences of mood, arousal, and their interaction on human recognition memory

“…positive emotion has been associated with a broadening of spatial attention and increased susceptibility to peripheral stimuli and distractors (Basso, et al, 1996;Gasper & Clore, 2002;Jefferies, et al, 2008;Vanlessen, Rossi, De Raedt, & Pourtois, 2013). The ventral parietal regions that are reported here to be modulated by mood valence have previously been linked with bottom-up attentional processes during memory tasks (Cabeza, et al, 2008;Ciaramelli, et al, 2010), whereby attention is automatically captured by old stimuli, leading to retrieval of those items from memory.…”