Don't look now: Attentional avoidance of emotionally valenced cues

It is often assumed that emotional stimuli receive high priority for processing, and that the distinction between positive and negative valence is fundamental. However, studies of attention to symbolic stimuli, such as words of different valence, have proved inconclusive. In four experiments, control over the emotional attributes of previously neutral line sketches was achieved by associating them with valenced captions. When these newly valenced sketches were paired with neutral stimuli in an attentional search task, they elicited equivalent attentional avoidance. In contrast, in a final experiment, strongly valenced colour pictures captured attention. We suggest that a mechanism acting to limit unnecessary interruptions of ongoing behaviour can inhibit processing of relatively mild emotional stimuli.     

Do emotional stimuli interfere with response inhibition? Evidence from the stop signal paradigm

Participants performed a stop signal task in which an emotional picture preceded a neutral stimulus. They were asked to respond on the basis of the identity of the neutral stimulus unless an auditory tone was presented, in which case participants should try to withhold their response. In Experiment 1, we used positive, neutral and negative pictures. Results demonstrated that the presentation of an emotional stimulus prolonged both response and stopping latencies regardless of the valence of the emotional stimulus. This suggested that the degree of arousal could modulate the interference effect. In Experiment 2, high- and low-arousing pictures with a positive or negative valence were used. In line with the arousal hypothesis, high-arousal pictures interfered more with responding and stopping than low-arousing pictures whereas the valence of the pictures had little or no effect. These findings support the hypothesis that emotional stimuli interrupt ongoing cognitively controlled activities because they attract attention away from these ongoing activities.     

Distinct processing for pictures of animals and objects: evidence from eye movements

Many studies have suggested that emotional stimuli orient and engage attention. There is also evidence that animate stimuli, such as those from humans and animals, cause attentional bias. However, categorical and emotional factors are usually mixed, and it is unclear to what extent human context influences attentional allocation. To address this issue, we tracked participants' eye movements while they viewed pictures with animals and inanimate images (i.e., category) as focal objects. These pictures had either negative or neutral emotional valence, and either human body parts or nonhuman parts were near the focal objects (i.e., context). The picture's valence, arousal, position, size, and most of the low-level visual features were matched across categories. The results showed that nonhuman animals were more likely to be attended to and to be attended to for longer times than inanimate objects. The same pattern held for the human contexts (vs. nonhuman contexts). The effects of emotional valence, category, and context interacted. Specifically, in images with a negative valence, focal animals and objects with human context had comparable numbers of gaze fixations and gaze duration. These results highlighted the attentional bias to animate parts of a picture and clarified that the effects of category, valence, and picture context interacted to influence attentional allocation.     

When bad gets worse: Negative wording amplifies negative recall in persons with the borderline personality trait

The emotional valence of memory recall strongly influences the extreme, and often self‐destructive behavioral response. Overall, 4427 people from the community filled out our screening questionnaire, of which 674 (mean age: 32.9 years, 64.7% women) passed the threshold for the likely presence of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Participants watched one of 9 possible video clips differing in valence (positive, negative or neutral). Results indicate support (ß = .151, p < .05) for a negative cognitive tendency in the evaluations proportionate to the severity of BPD but only when the impression is assessed with negatively‐worded items. This effect is detectable regardless of other factors such as negative mood, extremity of the answers or general impression of the character. These effects are unaffected by acute trauma. To conclude, different factors influence the recall of emotional stimuli, depending on the valence of the stimuli and the valence of the rating scale in persons with strong borderline tendencies.     

“Passion” versus “patience”: the effects of valence and arousal on constructive word recognition

Accumulating evidence suggests that emotional information is often recognised faster than neutral information. Several studies examined the effects of valence and arousal on word recognition, but yielded partially diverging results. Here, we used two alternative versions of a constructive recognition paradigm in which a target word is hidden by a visual mask that gradually disappears, to investigate whether the emotional properties of words influence their speed of recognition. Participants were instructed either to classify the incrementally appearing word as emotional or non-emotional (semantic categorisation task) or to decide whether the appearing letter string is an existing word or not (lexical decision task). Results from both tasks revealed faster recognition times for high- compared to low-arousing words, and for positive compared to negative or neutral words. These findings indicate a recognition advantage for emotionally positive and highly arousing stimuli that persists even when visual word recognition is hampered and participants are encouraged to make more active, semantic inferences to generate the meaning of the emerging word.     

Age-Invariance in the Asymmetry of Stimulus-Evoked Emotional Facial Muscle Activity

This study examined possible effects of aging on the lateralization of stimulus-evoked emotional facial muscle activity. Older participants (mean age 68.4 years) and younger participants (mean age 26.4 years) viewed slides of positive, neutral, or negative emotional content. While participants viewed the slides, bilateral electromyographic (EMG) recordings were obtained from the skin surface over zygomatic and corrugator facial muscles. The participants also made ratings of experienced emotional valence and arousal. Expected patterns of subjective experience and asymmetrical EMG activity were found in response to target stimuli. Greater corrugator muscle activity occurred during presentation of negative stimuli, whereas greater zygomatic muscle activity occurred during presentation of positive stimuli. Consistent with right-hemisphere specialization theories of emotion, left-sided facial EMG activity was consistently greater than that of the right side during presentation of emotional stimuli. However, neither subjective ratings nor EMG patterns showed a significant effect of age group. Such similar patterns of emotional response for the two groups suggest, that the aging process does not produce marked changes in stimulus-evoked emotional experience or in the pattern, magnitude, or lateralization of facial muscle activity associated with emotional states.     

Processing negative valence of word pairs that include a positive word

Previous research has suggested that cognitive performance is interrupted by negative relative to neutral or positive stimuli. We examined whether negative valence affects performance at the word or phrase level. Participants performed a semantic decision task on word pairs that included either a negative or a positive target word. In Experiment 1, the valence of the target word was congruent with the overall valence conveyed by the word pair (e.g., fat kid). As expected, response times were slower in the negative condition relative to the positive condition. Experiment 2 included target words that were incongruent with the overall valence of the word pair (e.g., fat salary). Response times were longer for word pairs whose overall valence was negative relative to positive, even though these word pairs included a positive word. Our findings support the Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis, according to which emotional valence is extracted after conceptual processing is complete.     

Positive emotion can protect against source memory impairment

Despite widespread belief that memory is enhanced by emotion, evidence also suggests that emotion can impair memory. Here we test predictions inspired by object-based binding theory, which states that memory enhancement or impairment depends on the nature of the information to be retrieved. We investigated emotional memory in the context of source retrieval, using images of scenes that were negative, neutral or positive in valence. At study each scene was paired with a colour and during retrieval participants reported the source colour for recognised scenes. Critically, we isolated effects of valence by equating stimulus arousal across conditions. In Experiment 1 colour borders surrounded scenes at study: memory impairment was found for both negative and positive scenes. Experiment 2 used colours superimposed over scenes at study: valence affected source retrieval, with memory impairment for negative scenes only. These findings challenge current theories of emotional memory by showing that emotion can impair memory for both intrinsic and extrinsic source information, even when arousal is equated between emotional and neutral stimuli, and by dissociating the effects of positive and negative emotion on episodic memory retrieval.     

Bad things come easier to the mind but harder to the body: Evidence from brain oscillations

An intriguing finding of research on emotional processing is a discrepancy between perception and behavior. Perceptually, a robust finding is that negative stimuli are processed faster and more efficiently than positive stimuli. Behaviorally, a similarly robust finding is that response times are slower for negative than for positive stimuli. We proposed and tested a novel account to explain this still unexplained discrepancy, on the basis of the assumption that negative valence narrows perceptual processes to the benefit of speeded perception, but broadens motor processes at the cost of slowed responding. Participants performed a valence judgment task in which they responded with their left or right hand to negative and positive stimuli that were presented on the left or right, and we measured the activation of relevant/deactivation of irrelevant perceptual and motor processes, as revealed by the lateralization of electroencephalographic brain oscillations. Stimulus-related lateralization of alpha activity (8–12 Hz) over perceptual areas was increased for negative stimuli, indicating more efficient perceptual processing. By contrast, response-related lateralization of beta activity (20–25 Hz) over motor areas was decreased for negative stimuli, indicating less efficient response activation. Consistent with our predictions, more detailed analyses showed that both lateralization effects were caused by dynamics at the level of inhibiting irrelevant processes. For negative as compared to positive stimuli, the inhibition of irrelevant perceptual processes was increased, but the inhibition of irrelevant motor processes was decreased. These findings indicate that the discrepancy between perception and behavior in emotional processing may stem from asymmetrical effects of emotional valence on the breadth of cortical activations in perceptual and motor networks.     

Immediate emotion-enhanced memory dependent on arousal and valence: The role of automatic and controlled processing

The phenomenon that emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral ones is called emotion-enhanced memory (EEM). Previous studies have shown that both valence and arousal of stimuli contributed to EEM. Kensinger and Corkin (2004) proposed that the EEM dependent on arousal was associated with automatic encoding processes, whereas the EEM dependent on valence was associated with controlled encoding processes. Their experiment with negative words provided some evidence for this associative pattern. However, it is unclear whether the observed association that occurred with negative emotional stimuli could be replicated with positive emotional stimuli. To further examine this issue, two experiments were conducted to investigate the immediate EEM of emotional words in three different attention conditions using a divided attention (DA) paradigm. Results indicated that the immediate EEM dependent on valence was associated with controlled processing, while the immediate EEM dependent on arousal was not always associated with automatic processing. The immediate EEM dependent on arousal for negative stimuli was associated with automatic processing, whereas the immediate EEM dependent on arousal for positive stimuli was associated with controlled processing. Therefore, the immediate EEM dependent on arousal, whether it is associated with automatic or controlled processing, is moderated by the valence of stimuli.     

The effect of cognitive reappraisal on long‐term emotional experience and emotional memory

One's ability to properly regulate emotion is critical to psychological and physical well‐being. Among various strategies to regulate emotion, cognitive reappraisal has been shown to modulate both emotional experience and emotional memory. However, most studies of reappraisal have focused on reappraisal of negative situations, with reappraisal of positive emotion receiving considerably less attention. In addition, the effects of reappraisal on emotional reactions to stimuli are typically only assessed either immediately or after a short delay, and it remains unclear whether reappraisal effects persist over longer time periods. We investigated the effect of cognitive reappraisal on emotional reactions and long‐term episodic memory for positive and negative stimuli. Men and women viewed emotionally negative, positive, and neutral pictures while they were instructed to either increase, decrease, or maintain the initial emotional reactions elicited by the pictures. Subjective ratings of emotional valence and arousal were assessed during the regulation task and again after 1 week. Memory for the pictures was assessed with free recall. Results indicated that pictures accompanied by instructions to increase emotion were better recalled than pictures reappraised to decrease emotion. Modulation of emotional arousal elicited by stimuli persisted over a week, but this effect was observed only for men. These findings suggest that cognitive reappraisal can have long‐lasting effects on emotional reactions to stimuli. However, the sex differences observed for the effects of reappraisal on emotional reactions highlight the importance of considering individual differences in the effects of regulation.     

无关工作记忆表征的负性情绪信息能否捕获视觉注意?一项眼动研究

研究通过分析视觉搜索任务的首次注视点和行为反应时, 探讨无关工作记忆表征的负性情绪信息对视觉注意选择的影响。实验1发现在反映早期注意选择的首次注视点百分率指标上, 不管工作记忆表征的情绪效价如何, 均出现了显著的注意捕获效应; 实验2发现当采用中性情绪靶子刺激时, 首次注视点百分率指标上仍表现出了稳健的注意捕获效应; 在首次注视点持续时间指标上, 实验1和实验2均发现记忆匹配条件的干扰刺激显著小于控制条件的干扰刺激, 表现出注意的快速脱离; 而在行为反应时指标上, 早期的注意捕获效应消失(实验1), 甚至被反转为注意抑制效应(实验2)。这些结果表明在早期注意选择阶段, 记忆驱动的注意捕获效应不受工作记忆表征情绪效价的影响, 但认知控制会在早期注意捕获之后促使注意快速脱离记忆匹配的干扰刺激, 其作用效果受靶子刺激情绪效价的调节。     

Affective valence and P300 when stimulus arousal level is controlled

Visual stimuli from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) were employed in a modified oddball paradigm to elicit the P300 event-related brain potential (ERP) in young adult females (N=12). The pictures varied on valence (negative, neutral, positive) ratings but had the same medium arousal level ratings. The images were presented as targets with a standard stimulus composed of red/white triangles designed to mimic the spatial frequency of the pictures. P300 amplitude from negative relative to neutral stimuli was smaller over frontal areas, whereas amplitude from positive relative to neutral stimuli did not differ. P300 amplitude differences among valence categories were consistent across the midline electrodes, and did not change over the parietal area where arousal effects are typically observed. The findings suggest that valence affects P300 frontal amplitude, and arousal level should be controlled when using emotional stimuli to elicit ERPs. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

The motor side of emotions: investigating the relationship between hemispheres, motor reactions and emotional stimuli

The aim of the present study was to analyze if the left hemisphere preferentially controls flexion responses toward positive stimuli, while the right hemisphere is specialized toward extensor responses to negative pictures. To this end, right-handed subjects had to pull or push a joystick subsequent to seeing a positive or a negative stimulus in their left or right hemifield. Flexion responses were faster for positive stimuli, while negative stimuli were associated with faster extensions responses. Overall, performance was fastest when emotional stimuli were presented to the left visual hemifield. This right hemisphere superiority was especially clear for negative stimuli, while reaction times toward positive pictures showed no hemispheric difference. We did not find any interaction between hemifield and response type. Neither was there a triple interaction between valence, hemifield and response type. We suppose that response dichotomies in humans are not as tightly linked to a hemisphere- and valence-bound reaction type as previously assumed.     

The effects of presentation time on preference for curvature of real objects and meaningless novel patterns

Objects with curved contours are generally preferred to sharp‐angled ones. In this study, we aim to determine whether different presentation times influence this preference. We used images of real objects (experiment 1) and meaningless novel patterns (experiment 2). Participants had to select one of two images from a contour pair, curved and sharp‐angled versions of the same object/pattern. With real objects, the preference for curved versions was greatest when presented for 84 ms, and it faded when participants were given unlimited viewing time. Curved meaningless patterns were preferred when presented for 84 and 150 ms. However, in contrast to real objects, preference for meaningless patterns increased significantly in the unlimited viewing time condition. Participants discriminated poorly between the two versions (curved and sharp‐angled) of the meaningless patterns in the 84‐ and 150‐ms presentations (experiment 3). Therefore, in short times with meaningless patterns, participants selected mostly the curved version without being aware of the difference. In conclusion, presentation time, type of stimulus, and their interaction influence preference for curvature.     

Only “efficient” emotional stimuli affect the content of working memory during free-recollection from natural scenes

Emotional events are thought to have privileged access to attention and memory, consuming resources needed to encode competing emotionally neutral stimuli. However, it is not clear whether this detrimental effect is automatic or depends on the successful maintenance of the specific emotional object within working memory. Here, participants viewed everyday scenes including an emotional object among other neutral objects followed by a free-recollection task. Results showed that emotional objects—irrespective of their perceptual saliency—were recollected more often than neutral objects. The probability of being recollected increased as a function of the arousal of the emotional objects, specifically for negative objects. Successful recollection of emotional objects (positive or negative) from a scene reduced the overall number of recollected neutral objects from the same scene. This indicates that only emotional stimuli that are efficient in grabbing (and then consuming) available attentional resources play a crucial role during the encoding of competing information, with a subsequent bias in the recollection of neutral representations.     

情绪对不同外倾水平个体行为抑制的影响

采用双选择oddball实验范式与事件相关电位（ERP）技术,探讨了情绪对行为抑制的影响以及外倾性的调节作用。行为数据发现,相比标准刺激,被试对偏差刺激的反应时显著更慢,证明实验成功诱发了行为抑制效应。在内倾组,负性刺激下偏差与标准刺激反应时差值显著长于正性刺激条件,而在外倾组无显著差异。脑电数据发现,在N2成分上,内倾组在正性情绪下的波幅显著小于负性和中性情绪,而在外倾组,不同情绪下的波幅不存在显著差异。在P3成分上,内倾组在正性情绪下的波幅显著大于负性和中性情绪,相反,外倾组在负性情绪下的波幅显著大于正性和中性情绪。结果表明,情绪对行为抑制的影响受到了个体外倾性水平的调节。     

双加工再认提取中的情绪记忆增强效应

根据双加工理论, 再认提取可以划分为两种不同的加工：熟悉性与回想。以往的研究普遍认为情绪对再认提取具有增强效应, 但是情绪对再认记忆中两种不同加工方式(熟悉性与回想)的增强效应的神经机制尚存争议。本研究以ERP作为测量手段, 采用修正的“记得/知道”范式对情绪图片进行再认测验, 旨在探究在学习?测验间隔较长的条件下, 情绪信息如何对熟悉性与回想产生增强效应。在行为结果中, 对于知道判断, 情绪图片的记忆表现显著高于中性图片, 情绪效价间没有差异; 对于记得判断, 负性情绪图片的记忆表现要显著高于正性与中性图片。在ERP数据上, 对于知道判断, 情绪图片的FN400新旧效应有增强作用。对于记得判断, 负性图片的LPC的新旧效应波幅显著高于中性与负性图片; 而正性图片的LPC新旧效应增强作用不显著。以上证据表明：学习?测验间隔较长的情况下, 熟悉性再认提取中, 情绪记忆增强效应主要体现在情绪唤醒对记忆强度的提高, 而不仅仅体现在情绪效价对熟悉判断反应倾向的影响。在回想的再认提取中, 情绪效价的调节占据主导地位, 负性情绪图片有显著的情绪记忆增强效应; 正性情绪图片则不具有增强效应。     

Emotion and memory: A recognition advantage for positive and negative words independent of arousal

Much evidence indicates that emotion enhances memory, but the precise effects of the two primary factors of arousal and valence remain at issue. Moreover, the current knowledge of emotional memory enhancement is based mostly on small samples of extremely emotive stimuli presented in unnaturally high proportions without adequate affective, lexical, and semantic controls. To investigate how emotion affects memory under conditions of natural variation, we tested whether arousal and valence predicted recognition memory for over 2500 words that were not sampled for their emotionality, and we controlled a large variety of lexical and semantic factors. Both negative and positive stimuli were remembered better than neutral stimuli, whether arousing or calming. Arousal failed to predict recognition memory, either independently or interactively with valence. Results support models that posit a facilitative role of valence in memory. This study also highlights the importance of stimulus controls and experimental designs in research on emotional memory.     

不同延时条件下的情绪记忆鲜活性

大量研究表明,情绪在一定程度上提高了记忆的准确性,但是情绪对记忆鲜活性的影响更大,该文关注延时条件下情绪记忆鲜活性的研究。研究采用记得/知道范式,操控图片情绪性和测验延时变量,结果发现情绪记忆的记得成绩好于中性记忆,且在不同延时测验下,正性高唤醒图片的记得成绩下降由慢到快再到慢的变化,负性高唤醒图片的记得下降由快到慢变化,而中性则快速下降。说明情绪记忆更具鲜活性,且是效价在高唤醒下起的作用。