The interactive role of worried mood and trait anxiety in the selective processing of subliminally presented threat words

Binary vs. continuous experimental designs for the study of unconscious perceptual processing

Binary vs. continuous conceptualizations of consciousness may have an unstated influence on experimental designs in unconscious perception research. The binary approach aims to compare a conscious condition (e.g., supraliminal, no or weak stimulus masking) to an unconscious condition (e.g., subliminal, heavy stimulus masking). In contrast, continuous designs tend to vary stimulus energy along a near-threshold continuum to determine changes in perception as a function of stimulus energy (or duration). The present study compared two experimental designs, binary vs. continuous, for the influence of target-masked prime stimuli on a Stroop task. The display parameters were inspired by emotional Stroop studies reporting unconscious perception. Neither experiment produced strong evidence of unconscious perception, but the experiment with a continuous design was more informative. We thus recommend sampling a range of near-threshold display parameters to yield straight-forward, unambiguous interpretations.

Classic Stroop Color Words Produce No Stroop Effect When the Display Characteristics Are Based Upon Emotional Stroop Studies With Subliminal Presentations

Two forms of the Stroop task have produced contradictory findings regarding unconscious perceptual processing. Emotional Stroop task studies with prime words presented at an objective threshold (i.e., subliminal) produce Stroop-like effects, but comparable studies conducted with classic Stroop stimuli do not produce Stroop effects. We tested the possibility that differences in the display appearance might explain this discrepancy. Color word prime stimuli from the traditional Stroop task were used with display characteristics based upon the emotional Stroop studies. There was a Stroop effect for the relatively long prime stimulus durations (59, 87, or 108 milliseconds) but not for the brief durations (18, 24, or 38 milliseconds). Accordingly, the discrepancy in research findings cannot be attributed to simple differences in display methodology. The failure to find strong evidence of unconscious perceptual processing is consistent with the negative findings from some emotional Stroop studies that use subliminal stimulus presentations.

Attending, learning, and socioeconomic disadvantage: developmental cognitive and social neuroscience of resilience and vulnerability

We review current findings associating socioeconomic status (SES), development of neurocognitive functions, and neurobiological pathways. A sizeable interdisciplinary literature was organized through a bifurcated developmental trajectory (BiDeT) framework, an account of the external and internal variables associated with low SES that may lead to difficulties with attention and learning, along with buffers that may protect against negative outcomes. A consistent neurocognitive finding is that low-SES children attend to information nonselectively, and engage in late filtering out of task-irrelevant information. Attentional preferences influence the development of latent inhibition (LI), an aspect of learning that involves reassigning meaningful associations to previously learned but irrelevant stimuli. LI reflects learning processes clarifying the relationship between neurobiological mechanisms related to attention and socioeconomic disadvantage during child development. Notably, changes in both selective attention and typical LI development may occur via the mesocorticolimbic dopamine (MsCL-DA) system. Chaotic environments, social isolation, and deprivation associated with low SES trigger stress responses implicating imbalances in the MsCL-DA and consolidating anxiety traits. BiDeT describes plausible interactions between socioemotional traits and low-SES environments that modify selective attention and LI, predisposing individuals to vulnerability in cognitive development and academic achievement. However, positive role models, parental style, and self-regulation training are proposed as potential promoters of resilience.

Is preattentive bias predictive of autonomic reactivity in response to a stressor?

Biased processing of threatening information may play a casual role in the development of anxiety disorders. Even though empirical evidence points to the fact that preattentive bias can predict subjectively experienced distress in response to a stressor, it is still unknown whether it could be useful in predicting the physiological reactivity in response to a stressor. In the present study, the emotional Stroop task was used to measure preattentive bias. Whereas Stroop interference for masked threat words (i.e., preattentive bias) was found to be positively associated with emotional distress (self-reported) in response to a laboratory stressor, this association was reversed when the autonomic reactivity (electrodermal activity) was used as a measure of emotional response to the very same stressor. Also, neither of these effects were a function of pre-existing anxiety levels. The negative association between preattentive bias and autonomic reactivity corresponds to the autonomic inflexibility seen in clinical anxiety (or very high scores of trait anxiety) when exposed to stressful events. Results were discussed in terms of an inability to automatically inhibit the processing of threatening cues that seems to be a vulnerability marker for anxiety.

Goal priming and the emotional experience of students with and without attention problems: an application of the emotional stroop task

The primary purpose of the present study is to evaluate the emotional experience of students with (n = 52) and without attention problems (n = 272) during an achievement task. A secondary purpose of the present study is to compare students' emotional response to various stimuli, when motivated by various achievement goals. Participants were randomly assigned into a mastery goal condition, a normative performance goal condition, and a non-normative performance goal condition. Results, using a latent means analysis, indicate that students with attention problems needed additional time to process emotion-loaded but not neutral words, providing evidence for an interference effect. Furthermore, students in the performance-normative, relative to the performance non-normative, condition showed a salient interference effect with respect to various emotion-loaded and neutral words.