Elsevier

Biological Psychology

Volume 94, Issue 1, September 2013, Pages 44-54
Biological Psychology

Directed attention reduces processing of emotional distracters irrespective of valence and arousal level

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.05.001Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Attention to emotional pictures was measured with ERPs (EPN and LPP).

  • Pleasant and unpleasant pictures were shown at fixation and flanked by letters.

  • Attention was directed to either the pictures or the letters.

  • When the letters were attended to, linear effects on EPN and LPP decreased.

  • So, emotional ERPs decreased more strongly for highly than mildly arousing pictures.

Abstract

Emotional stimuli tend to capture attention, and this so-called motivated attention is commonly measured using the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP). We hypothesized that voluntary, directed attention reduces motivated attention more strongly for highly than moderately arousing pleasant or unpleasant pictures. Participants were instructed to direct their attention to either a picture at fixation or the letters flanking the picture. Pictures varied substantially in arousal and valence. When the pictures were attended to, EPN and LPP increased linearly with arousal. When the letters were attended to, these linear effects decreased in the EPN for pleasant and unpleasant pictures and in the LPP for pleasant pictures. Thus, directed attention decreases processing of emotional distracters more strongly for highly than moderately arousing pleasant and unpleasant pictures. These results are consistent with the view that directed attention decreases emotion effects on sensory gain.

Keywords

Attention
Emotion
Event-related potentials
EPN
LPP

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