The Emotional Stroop Effect Is Modulated by the Biological Salience and Motivational Intensity Inherent in Stimuli

Abstract

Prior research has found significant emotional Stroop effects for negative stimuli, but the results have been inconsistent for positive stimuli. Combining an evolutionary perspective of emotion with the motivational dimensional model of affect, we speculated that the emotional Stroop effect of a stimulus may be influenced by the biological salience and inherent motivational intensity of the stimulus. In the present study, we examined this issue with two experiments. The results indicated that both low-and high-withdrawal-motivation negative stimuli produced a robust emotional Stroop effect; however, the high-withdrawal-motivation negative stimuli produced a stronger emotional Stroop effect than the low-withdrawal-motivation negative stimuli. Regarding positive stimuli, only the high-approach-motivated positive stimuli produced the emotional Stroop effect, unlike the low-approach-motivation positive stimuli. These findings suggest that the emotional Stroop effect is modulated by the biological salience of stimuli and by the motivational intensity inherent in the stimuli. Biological salience and motivational intensity play an additive effect in the emotional Stroop effect.

Tonic pain reduces autonomic responses and EEG functional connectivity elicited by affective stimuli

“…In contrast, healthy people displayed an attentional bias toward both sensory pain and affective words (Arioli et al, 2021;Feroz et al, 2017;Quan et al, 2020). The attentional deficits toward affective stimuli observed in pain patients, compared with healthy controls, suggest that pain salience either reduces the attentional processing of affective stimuli or is a consequence of affective disorders related to pain syndromes.…”

“…A recent meta‐analysis of the disruptive effects of pain on the emotional Stroop task revealed that patients with chronic pain or acute pain displayed an attentional bias toward sensory pain words (Todd et al, 2018). In contrast, healthy people displayed an attentional bias toward both sensory pain and affective words (Arioli et al, 2021; Feroz et al, 2017; Quan et al, 2020). The attentional deficits toward affective stimuli observed in pain patients, compared with healthy controls, suggest that pain salience either reduces the attentional processing of affective stimuli or is a consequence of affective disorders related to pain syndromes.…”

Can adult learners sense L2 emotional words automatically? The role of L2 use on the emotional Stroop effect

“…threatening, negative emotions) or reproduction (e.g. infant, sex) prevent the disengagement of attention and thus delay task-relevant processing, color naming in this case (Algom et al, 2004;Fox et al, 2001;Larsen et al, 2008;Quan et al, 2020). Therefore, the more automatically and strongly the word meanings are activated, the harder it becomes to suppress them, resulting in more interferences.…”