The effect of fear and anger on selective attention.

Abstract

This experiment examined the effects of two discrete negative emotions, fear and anger, on selective attention. A within-subjects design was used, and all participants (N = 98) experienced the control, anger, and fear conditions. During each condition, participants viewed a film clip eliciting the target emotion and subsequently completed a flanker task and emotion report. Selective attention costs were assessed by comparing reaction times (RTs) on congruent (baseline) trials with RTs on incongruent trials. There was a significant interaction between emotion condition (control, anger, fear) and flanker type (congruent, incongruent). Contrasts further revealed a significant interaction between emotion and flanker type when comparing RTs in the control and fear conditions, and a marginally significant interaction when comparing RTs in the control and anger conditions. This indicates that selective attention costs were significantly lower in the fear compared to the control condition and were marginally lower in the anger compared with the control condition. Further analysis of participants reporting heightened anger in the anger condition revealed significantly lower selective attention costs during anger compared to a control state. These findings support the general prediction that high arousal negative emotional states inhibit processing of nontarget information and enhance selective attention. This study is the first to show an enhancing effect of anger on selective attention. It also offers convergent evidence to studies that have previously shown an influence of fear on attentional focus using the global-local paradigm.

Effects of thought suppression on provoked men’s alcohol-related physical aggression in the laboratory.

“…According to this model, provocation (and other conflict-promoting cues) elicits negative affect which activates an associative network of aggression-related thoughts, feelings, memories, expressive motor reactions, and physiological responses (Berkowitz, 1990; 1993). In accordance with the predictions of the AAM, this literature further suggests that emotion has the tendency to focus people’s attention onto the most pressing aspects in a particular moment (Berkowitz, 1989; Finucane, 2011). This heightened emotion and myopic narrowing of attention onto cues in the immediate moment are thus expected to engender aggressive responses in provocative environments (for a review, see Giancola et al, 2010).…”

Effect of 48 h Fasting on Autonomic Function, Brain Activity, Cognition, and Mood in Amateur Weight Lifters

“…Recent studies have provided support for a role of cortical acetylcholine in attentional orienting and stimulus discrimination, and the prefrontal cortex is one of the most important areas in these processes [41]. It is noteworthy that increased cognitive flexibility may also emerge because of slightly increased anger, which was shown to be specifically associated with improved selective attention [42]. …”

The influence of positive vs. negative affect on multitasking

“…According to the second hypothesis, local, effortful processing by the negative group would facilitate cognitive control and selective attention, improving multitasking performance (Finucane, 2011;Van Steenbergen et al, 2010). However, the increase in avoidable errors in the Math task -a relatively simple arithmetic task -suggests that this was not the case.…”

“…Similarly, whereas positive affect increases distractibility, negative affect improves selective attention (Finucane, 2011) andcognitive control (van Steenbergen, Band, &Hommel, 2010). This allows for a deeper focus on the task at hand (Andrews & Thomson, 2009;Braem et al, 2013).…”