The effect of emotional stimuli on detection of neutral targets in attentional blink Yang-Ming Huang, Alan Baddeley and Andy Young Department of Psychology, University of York, UK
Design
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reverent T1 clock sentiment T2 tragedy windmill embattled
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Introduction
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Using a within subject design, we found that emotional T2 were still better detected than neutral T2. But the benefit for a neutral T2 preceded by an emotional T1 no longer existed. The interaction between T1/T2 manipulation, emotional valence and lag was significant. Also, emotional T1 were better detected comparing to neutral T1.
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Experiment 1A replicated previous studies and found a significant difference between the emotional and neutral T2. The interaction between emotion valence and lag is significant.
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Experiment 2
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The figure demonstrates a trial in Experiment 1A. The task is to report the red words in an RSVP sequence. The second target is an emotional word and the lag between T1 and T2 is two.
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The design is similar to Experiment 1A and 1B, but within-subjects and with only 4 lags (1 to 4).
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Previous studies using attentional blink repeatedly found that an emotional T2 suffered less impairment in detection compared to a neutral one. Two hypotheses were used to explain the phenomenon: 1) emotional stimuli have prioritised processing; 2) processing emotional stimuli requires less attentional resource. The current study aimed to examine the effect of emotional T1, to clarify which account is more plausible. Although previous studies using single target detection task found that an emotional distractor preceding the target caused more interference in target detection, supporting the first hypothesis, it remained unclear what would happen when processing emotional stimuli was task relevant. If an emotional T1 has prioritised processing, the neutral T2 after it should suffer more impairment. But if an emotional T1 requires less attentional resource for processing, then a neutral T2 that comes after an emotional T1 should suffer less impairment.
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We manipulated the emotional valence (negative vs. neutral) of words (T2 in Experiment 1A and T1 in Experiment 1B) and lag (1 to 7) in the study.
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Many studies have demonstrated preferential processing for emotional stimuli. The attentional blink paradigm offers the opportunity to clarify the underlying locus of such effects. Attentional blink studies look at detection rates for two targets (T1 and T2) in a rapid sequence of stimuli. A previous study using this paradigm found that an emotional second target (T2) suffered less impairment in detection compared to a neutral one (Anderson, 2005). The current study aimed to extend this approach by examining the role of an emotional first target (T1) on the detection of a neutral T2.
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Experiment 1A & 1B
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Abstract
Experiment 1B demonstrated that when an emotional T1 preceded neutral T2, detection of neutral T2 was better at some lags. Also, the detection for emotional T1 was better than neutral T1 at some lags.
References Anderson, A. K. (2005). Affective influences on the attentional dynamics supporting awareness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134, 258-281. Shapiro, K. L., Caldwell, J., & Sorensen, R. E. (1997). Personal names and the attentional blink: A visual “cocktail party” effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 23, 504-518.
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We found that emotion has a differential effect on attention. When an emotional word serves as T1, it has little or no effect on detection of neutral targets. On the contrary, when an emotional word serves as T2, it is reported more frequently. The results are similar to Shapiro, Caldwell and Sorensen’s (1997). They used personal names as T1 and T2. When personal names were T2, they were better detected. But when personal names were used as T1, they didn’t affect detection of T2. Results from our study also concluded that emotional targets were easier to detect. Further studies are needed to examine whether previous studies demonstrating less attentional blink for emotional stimuli are due to detectability differences or emotionality per se.
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Correspondence should be sent to: Yang-Ming Huang at
[email protected]
