Tagging multiple emotional stimuli: Negative valence has little benefit.

Abstract

Six experiments examined the influence of emotional valence on the tagging and enumeration of multiple targets. Experiments 1, 5 and 6 found that there was no difference in the efficiency of tagging/enumerating multiple negative or positive stimuli. Experiment 2 showed that, when neutral-expression face distractors were present, enumerating negative targets was faster overall, but was only more efficient for small numbers of targets. Experiments 3 and 4 determined that this negative target advantage was most likely caused by increased attentional guidance to negative valenced stimuli and was not based on simple visual feature differences. The findings suggest that a multiple target negative stimulus advantage will only occur under conditions of attentional competition, and for relatively small numbers of targets.The results are discussed in relation to theories of multiple and single item processing, threat priority mechanisms, and the types of representations that support different attentional tasks.

Why doesn’t emotional valence affect subitising and counting in simple enumeration?

“…Experimental manipulations that have an effect on attention also influence performance in enumeration tasks (Trick & Pylyshyn, 1994). However, although the effects of emotion on attention have been demonstrated in many tasks, Watson and Blagrove (2012) found that their manipulations neither sped enumeration (as would be predicted by attentional capture) nor delayed it (as would be expected if emotional factors made it difficult to disengage attention). To determine whether this surprising result would recur in other enumeration tasks, we investigated the impact of valence (the negativity or positivity of the emotion) and arousal (how exciting or stimulating the emotion is) on a subsequent enumeration task where participants were required to determine the number of dots with accuracy.…”

“…In their study, Watson and Blagrove (2012) found that valence had no effect on RT or RT slopes in simple enumeration. Subitising and counting emerged as usual, as shown by differences in RT slopes between 1 to 3 and 5 to 8 of items, but there was no effect of emotional valence—even when participants were forced to decide whether the faces were positive, negative, or neutral at the end of each trial (Experiments 5 and 6).…”

“…Given that emotional valence has been shown to have effects on other tasks, there was reason to expect effects on subitising and counting. Consequently, in a series of carefully controlled studies, Watson and Blagrove (2012) had participants enumerate one to nine faces that varied in valence. In those studies, displays remained until participants made a response.…”

“…Furthermore, Watson and Blagrove (2012) used faces as emotional stimuli, schematic faces for the most part. It is difficult to distinguish the effects of valence from arousal with schematic faces, which is problematic because valence and arousal can have separable effects (e.g., Ihssen & Keil, 2013; Singh & Sunny, 2017).…”

“…It is difficult to distinguish the effects of valence from arousal with schematic faces, which is problematic because valence and arousal can have separable effects (e.g., Ihssen & Keil, 2013; Singh & Sunny, 2017). Arousal effects may account for some of the more mysterious findings in Watson and Blagrove (2012). If negative faces are associated with higher arousal than positive or neutral faces, and high arousal prepares individuals for rapid response, it would explain why selective enumeration was faster whenever there were negative faces in the display, regardless of whether they served as targets or distractors.…”