Temperament and Attentional Bias in Vocal Emotional Stroop Tasks

Abstract

Human information processing is influenced by the affective quality of pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. A widely known example is the emotional variant of the colour-naming Stroop task. Although participants are not instructed to attend to valence, it nevertheless influences response times. We studied how persons differ in ignoring the irrelevant valence of stimuli and how such differences are related to personality traits. In two emotional Stroop tasks using a vocal response mode, participants were instructed to name the colour of unpleasant and pleasant words presented in different physical colours. In Study 2, we introduced a second task to increase the cognitive load. Across both studies, extraversion and approach temperament were associated with higher interferences by pleasant words. Neuroticism and avoidance temperament, however, were associated with higher interferences by unpleasant words only when cognitive load increased because of a task switch. This finding suggests that highly neurotic individuals can mitigate influences of emotional stimuli on information processing under conditions of low cognitive load.

Behavioral Inhibition and Developmental Risk: A Dual-Processing Perspective

“…Optimal task performance and effective self-regulation more broadly defined depend on the flexible implementation of both modes of processing based on specific contextual and task demands. Sensitivity to these specific demands is shaped at least partly by individual differences in temperamental reaction tendencies (eg, Paelecke et al, 2012;Wolfe and Bell, 2007). We present these ideas schematically in Figure 2 where the normative developmental shift from primarily automatic processing to more controlled processing (moving from left to right in figure) is illustrated.…”

A Controlled Approach to the Emotional Dilution of the Stroop Effect

“…Although most research has started to address some of the criticisms made by Larson et al[7], many studies still overlook the need to control for lexical features [23]. This is especially true for neighbourhood density which is generally not reported [22,24,25]. …”

Cognitive Appraisals Mediate Affective Reactivity in Affiliative Extraversion

“…More generally, a cognitive appraisal account of affective reactivity in affiliative extraversion is consistent with the view that the higher order trait of extraversion reflects individual differences in reward processing ( Smillie, 2013 ). For example, extraverts have been found to show attentional biases toward pleasant stimuli ( Paelecke et al, 2012 ) and greater reactivity on electrophysiological markers of reward processing in response to unpredicted reward ( Cooper et al, 2014 ). Moreover, extraversion is also positively associated with the P300 component of event-related potentials in response to social stimuli, suggesting that these stimuli possess greater motivational significance for extraverts and are therefore allocated a greater degree of attentional processing ( Fishman et al, 2011 ).…”