Exogenous (automatic) attention to emotional stimuli: a review

A structured framework for emotion-cognition dynamics: Implications for assessment and intervention

This paper presents a novel framework for understanding the interaction between cognitive and emotional processes, recognizing the complex and dynamic relationship between these two constructs. The framework categorizes cognitive functions into four distinct categories: Cold Cognition, Hot Cognition, Warm Cognition, and Cool Cognition. By distinguishing between the style of processing (intuitive vs. analytical) and the content of information (emotional vs. non-emotional), the framework provides a model for both assessment and intervention. For assessment, it helps categorize cognitive and emotional processes, enabling targeted evaluations based on specific processing styles and content. For interventions, it supports the development of training programs that address processing styles in relation to the target function, improving the effectiveness of therapeutic and developmental strategies. Overall, this framework has the potential to advance both theoretical understanding and practical applications in cognitive and emotional assessment and training.

Physically activated modes of attentional control

As we navigate through the day, our attentional control processes are constantly challenged by changing sensory information, goals, expectations, and motivations. At the same time, our bodies and brains are impacted by changes in global physiological state that can influence attentional processes. Based on converging lines of evidence from brain recordings in physically active humans and nonhumans, we propose a new framework incorporating at least two physically activated modes of attentional control in humans: altered gain control and differential neuromodulation of control networks. We discuss the implications of this framework for understanding a broader range of states and cognitive functions studied both in the laboratory and in the wild.

Modulatory effects of goal relevance on emotional attention reveal that fear has a distinct value

Threat-related stimuli can capture attention. However, it remains debated whether this capture is automatic or not. To address this question, we compared attentional biases to emotional faces using a dot-probe task (DPT) where emotion was never goal-relevant (Experiment 1) or made directly task-relevant by means of induction trials (Experiments 2-3). Moreover, the contingency between the DPT and induction trials was either partial (Experiment 2) or full (Experiment 3). Eye-tracking was used to ascertain that the emotional cue and the subsequent target were processed with peripheral vision. Experiments 1 and 2 both showed that negative faces captured attention, with faster target processing when it appeared on the same side as the preceding fearful face (i.e. fear-valid trials) compared to the opposite side where the neutral face was shown (i.e. fear-invalid trials), but also when it appeared on the side of the preceding neutral face (i.e. happy-invalid trials) compared to the happy face (i.e. happy-valid trials). Importantly, this preferential spatial orienting to negative emotion was not observed in Experiment 3, where the goal relevance of emotion was high. However, in that experiment, fearful faces produced a specific attentional bias during the DPT, which was mostly driven by the induction trials themselves.

Neural Correlates of Cognitive Deficit in Emotional Directed Forgetting in Major Depressive Disorder: An Event-Related Potential Study

BACKGROUND

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) patients exhibit difficulty in forgetting negative material, which may result from specific impairments in memory and attention. However, the underlying neural correlates of the corresponding cognitive deficit have not been elucidated. The present study investigated the electrophysiological characteristics and differences, using event-related potentials (ERPs), between MDD patients and healthy controls (HCs) in an emotional directed forgetting task (EDF) with negative and neutral images.

METHODS

A total of 26 MDD patients and 28 HCs were recruited for the current study, all of whom were clinically evaluated using the Hamilton Depression Scale. All participants were subjected to ERP measurements during the EDF task, and behavioral data and ERP components were analyzed.

RESULTS

HCs had higher hit rates than did MDD patients; more false alarms occurred in MDD patients than in HCs, and higher false alarm rates occurred with negative images than with neutral images. The reaction times were also longer for MDD patients than for HCs. Larger image-evoked P2 amplitudes and smaller image-evoked N2 amplitudes occurred in MDD patients, whereas they had higher image-evoked late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes both in negative and neutral emotional conditions than the HCs. MDD patients had higher cue-evoked N2 amplitudes and lower cue-evoked P3 amplitudes, elicited by the Remember cue, than the HCs. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (24-item edition) scores were positively correlated with the LPP amplitudes that were evoked by negative images in a central location.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on these results, we concluded that poor attentional recruiting and allocation, memory inhibitory deficits, and difficulties in memory retention may contribute to the poor performance in the EDF task in MDD patients. The observed ERP patterns provide valuable insights into the neural mechanisms underlying the EDF task in MDD and underscore the potential of EDF as an assessment tool for cognitive and emotional dysregulation in MDD.

Postural correlates of pleasant landscapes visual perception

Introduction

The interplay between motor skills and emotions in the brain represents a significant and longstanding research question. Recently, posturography has provided new insights into this subject. Understanding the biological processes that influence the appreciation of nature and landscapes is also a crucial concern, prompting various experimental methods and theoretical frameworks. This research aimed to propose, for the first time, the use of posturography to study the different ways postural control is modulated by visual perception of pleasant scenes.

Methods

A total of 37 participants (27 females, 10 males; mean age = 24 years ±5 years) were shown images of pleasant and neutral landscapes, while posturographic data were collected. Two viewing conditions were employed: passive vision and active vision, where participants were instructed to envision themselves in the presented scenes.

Results

The results indicated a differential modulation of the postural response based on valence factors (pleasant vs. neutral) and mental simulation (passive vs. active). Notably, significant differences in approach-avoidance behavior were observed approximately 7 s after the onset of stimulus viewing.

Discussion

The findings are discussed in relation to major theories in environmental psychology, highlighting the central role of emotional and embodiment processes in appreciating pleasant environmental scenes and related motor behaviors.

Emotional dissociations in temporal associations: opposing effects of arousal on memory for details surrounding unpleasant events

Research targeting emotion's impact on relational episodic memory has largely focused on spatial aspects, but less is known about emotion's impact on memory for an event's temporal associations. The present research investigated this topic. Participants viewed a series of interspersed negative and neutral images with instructions to create stories linking successive images. Later, participants performed a surprise memory test, which measured temporal associations between pairs of consecutive pictures where one picture was negative and one was neutral. Analyses focused on how the order of negative and neutral images during encoding influenced retrieval accuracy. Converging results from a discovery study (N = 72) and pre-registered replication study (N = 150) revealed a "forward-favouring" effect of emotion in temporal memory encoding: Participants encoded associations between negative stimuli and subsequent neutral stimuli more strongly than associations between negative stimuli and preceding neutral stimuli. This finding may reflect a novel trade-off regarding emotion's effects on memory and is relevant for understanding affective disorders, as key clinical symptoms can be conceptualised as maladaptive memory retrieval of temporal details.

Disgust memory enhancement extends to more accurate memory but not more false memories

People show enhanced memory recall for disgust over fear, despite both being highly negative and arousing emotions. But does disgust's 'stickiness' in memory result in more false memories for disgust versus fear? Existing research finds low false-memory rates for disgust and fear, perhaps from using image lures depicting content unrelated to target images. Therefore, we presented 111 participants with disgust, fear, (and neutral) images during an attention-monitoring task. After 24-48 hours, participants completed a recognition test, where they viewed 'old' (previously seen) and 'new' images (both related and unrelated lures) and indicated whether each image was 'old' or 'new'. Relative to fear, participants experienced fewer false memories of disgust for unrelated lures, but similar false memories for related lures. Furthermore, participants' attention was captured more by disgust than fear images, and correct recognition and memory sensitivity were enhanced for disgust relative to fear. Our findings suggest disgust memory enhancement extends to accurate memory, which has clinical implications.

No Biased Attention to Threat, Incompleteness, and Disgust in Youth with OCD and Anxiety Disorders

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety disorders are early-onset mental disorders characterized by selective attention and strong emotional reactions. Attentional bias has been proposed to play a role in the development, onset, and maintenance of the disorders, but few studies have included youth with mental disorders, and no study has included more than one clinical group, making it unclear whether biased attention is disorder-specific or transdiagnostic in nature. In the present study, 65 youths with OCD (Mage = 13.6 [2.4], 57% girls), 52 youths with anxiety disorders (Mage = 14.5 [2.6] 83% girls), and 45 youths without a psychiatric disorder (Mage = 13.9 [3.1], 67% girls) completed a modified dot-probe task that included threat, incompleteness, and disgust cues. Contrary to our hypotheses, no group exhibited any attentional bias to any emotional cue, no group differences were present, and individual differences in attentional bias were not associated with individual differences in any symptom type. Disgust cues produced slower response times compared to the other emotional cues, but this effect was consistent across all type of trials and present in all three groups. In this study, no support for biased attention in treatment-seeking youth with OCD or anxiety disorders was found, which is in line with recent findings in adults using the dot-probe task. As attentional processes are clearly implicated in the clinical manifestation of these disorders, future research should try to better operationalize and measure relevant processes.

Neural dynamics of attentional resource allocation in early visual cortex: emotional scenes produce competitive interactions

Salient emotional visual cues receive prioritized processing in human visual cortex. To what extent emotional facilitation relies on preattentional stimulus processing preceding semantic analysis remains controversial. Making use of steady-state visual evoke potentials frequency-tagged to meaningful complex emotional scenes and their scrambled versions, presented in a 4-Hz rapid serial visual presentation fashion, the current study tested temporal dynamics of semantic and emotional cue processing. The neural dynamics of bottom-up capture of attention driven by concrete images were analyzed under a passive-viewing-like scenario and in a competitive context, where a concurrent foreground task realized with a random dot kinematogram flickering at 15 Hz enabled the concurrent monitoring of top-down selective attention. Aligned with the semantic primacy hypothesis, the steady-state visual evoke potentials' results provide evidence of an initial rapid capture of attention driven by objecthood, followed by heightened deployment of attentional resources to emotional scenes that remained stable for the entire stimulation period. We replicated previous findings in which emotional distractors first prompt visuocortical facilitation, followed by suppression of a concurrent foreground task. Modeling this time-delayed competition process fit the data better than a time-invariant trade-off between concurrent cues as assumed by most models of selective attention.

Abnormal stability of dynamic functional architecture in drug-naïve children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is most commonly diagnosed neurodevelopmental disorder in childhood, characterized by developmentally inappropriate inattention and/or hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms. Static and dynamic functional connectivity (FC) studies have revealed brain dysfunction in ADHD. However, few studies have estimated the stability of dynamic functional architecture of children with ADHD. The present study attempted to identify the functional stability (FS) abnormalities associated with ADHD in drug-naïve children.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The resting-state fMRI of 42 children with ADHD and 30 healthy controls (HCs) were collected. Using the sliding window approach, FS of each voxel was obtained by measuring the concordance of dynamic FC over time. Further, the seed based dynamic FC (dFC) was conducted to explore the specific brain regions with dFC alteration related to these brain regions with altered FS. Then, the inter-group comparison and correlation analysis were performed.

RESULTS

We found that children with ADHD exhibited (1) decreased FS in the bilateral superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and increased FS in the right middle temporal gyrus (MTG), which both belong to the default mode network (DMN); (2) increased dFC between the bilateral SFG of DMN and the left insula of salience networks (SN) (GRF, voxel-wise p < 0.001, cluster-wise p < 0.05); (3) decreased dFC between the right MTG and the left cerebellum posterior lobe, and (3) worse performance in the Stroop test that significantly correlate with decreased FS in the bilateral SFG (p = 0.043, FDR corrected).

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings showed that the abnormal functional architecture involved the DMN (the bilateral SFG and right MTG) and SN (left insula) regions in children with ADHD. This preliminary study provides novel insight into the dynamic brain functional networks in ADHD.

The Impact of Intravenous Ketamine on Attentional Bias: Probing Mechanisms of Rapid-Acting Antidepressant Effects in Two Clinical Studies

BACKGROUND

Ketamine is known for its rapid antidepressant effect, but its impact on affective information processing (including attentional bias [AB], a putative cognitive mechanism of depression) remains largely unexplored. We leveraged a novel measurement of AB and sought to 1) establish adequate test-retest reliability and validity among participants with depression prior to ketamine treatment and 2) harness a single dose of ketamine to assess mechanistic shifts in AB and their relationship to antidepressant efficacy.

METHODS

A novel dual probe video task was used to index AB toward sad film clips. In study 1, treatment-seeking adults with moderate-to-severe depression (N = 40) completed the task at baseline, 1-week retest, and 1-month retest; a subset of participants (n = 15) also performed the task at 24 hours postketamine infusion (0.5 mg/kg over 40 minutes). In study 2, participants (N = 43) completed the task pre- and 24 hours postketamine.

RESULTS

Indices from the novel AB task were stable prior to ketamine, demonstrating good 1-week and 1-month test-retest reliability. Participants in both studies exhibited a robust reduction in AB from pre- to 24 hours postketamine infusion. In study 1, cross-sectional correlations were observed between AB and clinician-rated depressive symptoms at each pretreatment assessment. In study 2, changes in AB were correlated with improved symptoms from pre- to postinfusion.

CONCLUSIONS

Results provide evidence for the validity of a novel, psychometrically robust measure of AB among individuals with depression. Findings indicate that ketamine reliably and rapidly reduces AB, offering insight into a replicable, potential cognitive mechanism involved in its antidepressant action.

Effects of bottom-up and top-down attentional processes on change blindness for COVID-related stimuli: influence of heart rate variability

Introduction

Top-down mechanisms that regulate attentional control are influenced by task demands and individuals' goals, while bottom-up processes are influenced by salient stimuli. Analogous networks are involved in both processes (e.g., frontostriatal areas). However, they are affected differently by the emotional salience of stimuli, which determines the allocation of attention. This study aims to determine whether the recent pandemic experience continues to exert an influence on cognitive processes. To this end, the study will determine attentional biases toward pandemic-related stimuli compared to negative and neutral stimuli. Furthermore, the study will investigate whether pandemic-related stimuli influence top-down and bottom-up attentional processes and whether the latter affect autonomic control as indexed by Heart Rate Variability (HRV).

Methods

Ninety-six undergraduate students completed a Flicker Task with stimuli categorized by emotional valence (neutral, negative non-COVID, negative COVID-related). This paradigm involves the presentation of two different pictures, which are identical except for a specific detail. The task required to detect the specific detail that has been changed. Given that the task employs images of natural scenes, participants tend to focus more on specific areas of the scene than others. As a result, changes in central interest (CI) areas are detected more rapidly than changes in marginal interest (MI) areas. Participants' response times (RTs) at the task and their HRV data were used to assess attentional performance and the associated autonomic nervous system activity.

Results

The results indicate slower responses to COVID-related stimuli than negative and neutral stimuli for both CI and MI changes, requiring the involvement of bottom-up (CI changes) and top-down (MI changes) processes. The HRV was associated with a slower detection of CI changes in COVID-related scenes.

Discussion

These findings highlight the intricate interplay between emotional salience, attentional mechanisms, and physiological responses to threatening stimuli. Contextual factors, particularly those related to pandemic-related stress, influence attentional processing and its relationship with autonomic activity.

Executive control fluctuations underlie behavioral variability in anthropoids

In complex tasks requiring cognitive control, humans show trial-by-trial alterations in response time (RT), which are evident even when sensory-motor or other contextual aspects of the task remain stable. Exaggerated intra-individual RT variability is associated with brain injuries and frequently seen in aging and neuropsychological disorders. In this opinion, we discuss recent electrophysiology and imaging studies in humans and neurobiological studies in monkeys that indicate RT variability is linked with executive control fluctuation and that prefrontal cortical regions play essential, but dissociable, roles in such fluctuation of control and the resulting behavioral variability. We conclude by discussing emerging models proposing that both extremes of behavioral variability (significantly higher or lower) might reflect aberrant alterations in various aspects of decision-making processes.

Emotional stimuli boost incidental learning through predictive processing

Extracting regularities and probabilities from the environment is a fundamental and critical ability in an ever-changing surrounding. Previous findings showed that people are highly efficient in learning these regularities and that emotional stimuli are better learned than neutral ones. Yet, the generality and the underlying mechanism of this benefit are poorly understood. Here, participants viewed a stream of images with negative and neutral valence. Unbeknownst, the items recurred in regularity as triplets. Then, to assess learning, a surprised familiarity test was conducted. The results of Experiment 1, using two sets of stimuli, found better statistical learning for negative triplets than for neutral triplets. Experiment 2 revealed similar benefits even when only a single negative item was in the triplet at the second or third position, suggesting the advantage is not cumulative. We speculated that the predictability of the negative items is driving the effect. Consequently, Experiment 3 confirmed that the memory for neutral items preceding negative items was better than for neutral items preceding neutral items. Together, these findings provide novel insights into the mechanism of how the learning of incidental temporal associations is influenced by negative stimuli and the role of predictability in the negative valence benefit.

Social cues tip the scales in emotional processing of complex pictures

Perception of a picture is influenced by the social information and emotional value it carries for the viewer. There are still many unanswered questions about how social and emotional processing are related, but it is clear they involve overlapping brain areas and are cognitively interconnected. Yet studies of emotion processing using standardized picture datasets typically leave the social content in the pictures free to vary. In a few studies where the social content has been measured, it correlated with emotional arousal and valence. Here we tested the association between social and emotional content orthogonally, by selecting a similar number of pictures in four categories varying in presence of nonverbal social cues (e.g., gestures, facial expression, body language) and emotional content (neutral, negative). Across two studies, participants (N = 698 in total) provided three ratings for each picture: social relevance (defined as the self-reported use of social cues to understand the picture), valence, and arousal. Despite our best effort to balance the presence of social cues between negative and neutral pictures, ratings of social relevance were strongly associated with ratings of arousal and, to a lesser extent, with valence. These findings likely reflect the intertwined nature of social and emotional processing, which has implications for the neurobiology underlying them, how these systems develop, and how picture databases are used in research.

The impact of stimulus format and presentation order on social working memory updating

Emotional faces and words have been extensively employed to examine cognitive emotional processing including social working memory, which plays a pivotal role in social interactions. However, it remains unclear which exact role these two stimulus formats play in updating specific emotional content, such as positive or negative information. Therefore, the current study examined the differences in working memory updating (WMU) of negative, neutral, and positive faces (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2), using a classic two-back paradigm with an event-related potential technique. In both experiments, emotional stimuli were presented in the same or different-valence order to further determine whether presentation order can also influence the WMU of specific emotional content. Our results showed that both stimulus format and presentation order play a role: (a) while faces showed an affective bias [larger P2 and late positive potential (LPP) for negative and positive faces than for neutral faces], words showed a negativity bias (larger LPP for negative words than both neutral and positive words); (b) While faces showed better performance with same-valence order, words showed better performance with different-valence order. Taken together, our findings indicate that, even if faces and words can contain the same emotional information, they impact social WMU differently.

Effect of negative emotional stimuli on working memory: Impact of voluntary and automatic attention

Emotions are known to influence cognitive performance, particularly working memory (WM) in both its aspects, processing, and maintenance. One explanatory mechanism might be that negative stimuli capture attentional resources, leaving fewer resources for attentional maintenance and processing of information in WM. However, this attentional capture was only investigated using WM tasks in which participants were explicitly asked to process negative items. The aim of this paper was to determine whether explicit processing of emotional stimuli is necessary to impair WM performance, or if their mere presence is enough to capture attention. For this purpose, participants performed a complex span task in which they alternated between memorizing a series of neutral words and processing either emotional images or neutral ones. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to explicitly process emotional images, whereas in Experiment 2, emotional images were presented without any processing being required. In both experiments, we observed a decrease in memory performance when the images were negative compared to neutral. Whether or not voluntary processing is involved, emotional images seem to capture attentional resources, which in turn leads to a decline in memory performance. These results were discussed in relation to attentional theories and the influence of emotion on the specific mechanisms of WM.

Temporal dynamics and neural variabilities underlying the interplay between emotion and inhibition in Chinese autistic children

This study investigated the neural dynamics underlying the interplay between emotion and inhibition in Chinese autistic children. Electroencephalography (EEG) signals were recorded from 50 autistic and 46 non-autistic children during an emotional Go/Nogo task. Based on single-trial ERP analyses, autistic children, compared to their non-autistic peers, showed a larger Nogo-N170 for angry faces and an increased Nogo-N170 amplitude variation for happy faces during early visual perception. They also displayed a smaller N200 for all faces and a diminished Nogo-N200 amplitude variation for happy and neutral faces during inhibition monitoring and preparation. During the late stage, autistic children showed a larger posterior-Go-P300 for angry faces and an augmented posterior-Nogo-P300 for happy and neutral faces. These findings clarify the differences in neural processing of emotional stimuli and inhibition between Chinese autistic and non-autistic children, highlighting the importance of considering these dynamics when designing intervention to improve emotion regulation in autistic children.

How to elicit a negative bias? Manipulating contrast and saturation with the facial emotion salience task

Introduction

Emotion recognition impairments and a tendency to misclassify neutral faces as negative are common in schizophrenia. A possible explanation for these deficits is aberrant salience attribution. To explore the possibility of salience driven emotion recognition deficits, we implemented a novel facial emotion salience task (FEST).

Methods

Sixty-six healthy participants with variations in psychometric schizotypy completed the FEST. In the FEST, we manipulated physical salience (FEST-1: contrast, FEST-2: saturation) of emotionally salient (positive, i.e., happy and negative, i.e., fearful) and non-salient (neutral) facial expressions.

Results

When salience was high (increased contrast), participants recognized negative facial expressions faster, whereas neutral faces were recognized more slowly and were more frequently misclassified as negative. When salience was low (decreased saturation), positive expressions were recognized more slowly. These measures were not associated with schizotypy in our sample.

Discussion

Our findings show that the match between physical and emotional salience influences emotion recognition and suggest that the FEST is suitable to simulate aberrant salience processing during emotion recognition in healthy participants.

Some young adults hyper-bind too: Attentional control relates to individual differences in hyper-binding

Hyper-binding - the erroneous encoding of target and distractor information into associative pairs in memory - has been described as a unique age effect caused by declines in attentional control. Previous work has found that, on average, young adults do not hyper-bind. However, if hyper-binding is caused by reduced attentional control, then young adults with poor attention regulation should also show evidence of hyper-binding. We tested this question with an individual differences approach, using a battery of attentional control tasks and relating this to individual differences in hyper-binding. Participants (N = 121) completed an implicit associative memory test measuring memory for both target-distractor (i.e., hyper-binding) and target-target pairs, followed by a series of tasks measuring attentional control. Our results show that on average, young adults do not hyper-bind, but as predicted, those with poor attentional control show a larger hyper-binding effect than those with good attentional control. Exploratory analyses also suggest that individual differences in attentional control relate to susceptibility to interference at retrieval. These results support the hypothesis that hyper-binding in older adults is due to age-related declines in attentional control, and demonstrate that hyper-binding may be an issue for any individual with poor attentional control, regardless of age.

Neural mechanisms underlying attentional bias modification in fibromyalgia patients: a double-blind ERP study

There is a growing interest in the potential benefits of attentional bias modification (ABM) training in chronic pain patients. However, studies examining the effectiveness of ABM programs in fibromyalgia patients have demonstrated inconclusive effects on both behavioral indices and clinical symptoms. Additionally, underlying neural dynamics of ABM effects could yield new insights but remain yet unexplored. Current study, therefore, aims to investigate the effects of ABM training on known neural electrophysiological indicators of attentional bias to pain (P2, N2a). Thirty-two fibromyalgia patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to an ABM training (N = 16) or control (N = 16) condition (2 weeks duration). Within the ABM training condition participants performed five sessions consisting of a modified version of the dot-probe task in which patients were trained to avoid facial pain expressions, whereas in the control group participants performed five sessions consisting of a standard version of the dot-probe task. Potential ABM training effects were evaluated by comparing a single pre- and post-treatment session, in which event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in response to both facial expressions and target stimuli. Furthermore, patients filled out a series of self-report questionnaires assessing anxiety, depression, pain-related worrying, fear of pain, fatigue and pain status. After training, results indicated an overall reduction of the amplitude of the P2 component followed by an enhancement of N2a amplitude for the ABM condition compared to control condition. In addition, scores on anxiety and depression decreased in patients assigned to the training condition. However, we found no effects derived from the training on pain-related and fatigue status. Present study offers new insights related to the possible neural mechanisms underlying the effect of ABM training in fibromyalgia. Clinical trial (TRN: NCT05905159) retrospectively registered (30/05/2023).

Gender effect in human-machine communication: a neurophysiological study

Purpose

This study aimed to investigate the neural mechanism by which virtual chatbots' gender might influence users' usage intention and gender differences in human-machine communication.

Approach

Event-related potentials (ERPs) and subjective questionnaire methods were used to explore the usage intention of virtual chatbots, and statistical analysis was conducted through repeated measures ANOVA.

Results/findings

The findings of ERPs revealed that female virtual chatbots, compared to male virtual chatbots, evoked a larger amplitude of P100 and P200, implying a greater allocation of attentional resources toward female virtual chatbots. Considering participants' gender, the gender factors of virtual chatbots continued to influence N100, P100, and P200. Specifically, among female participants, female virtual chatbots induced a larger P100 and P200 amplitude than male virtual chatbots, indicating that female participants exhibited more attentional resources and positive emotions toward same-gender chatbots. Conversely, among male participants, male virtual chatbots induced a larger N100 amplitude than female virtual chatbots, indicating that male participants allocated more attentional resources toward male virtual chatbots. The results of the subjective questionnaire showed that regardless of participants' gender, users have a larger usage intention toward female virtual chatbots than male virtual chatbots.

Value

Our findings could provide designers with neurophysiological insights into designing better virtual chatbots that cater to users' psychological needs.

Prioritized neural processing of social threats during perceptual decision-making

Emotional signals, notably those signaling threat, benefit from prioritized processing in the human brain. Yet, it remains unclear whether perceptual decisions about the emotional, threat-related aspects of stimuli involve specific or similar neural computations compared to decisions about their non-threatening/non-emotional components. We developed a novel behavioral paradigm in which participants performed two different detection tasks (emotion vs. color) on the same, two-dimensional visual stimuli. First, electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in a cluster of central electrodes reflected the amount of perceptual evidence around 100 ms following stimulus onset, when the decision concerned emotion, not color. Second, participants' choice could be predicted earlier for emotion (240 ms) than for color (380 ms) by the mu (10 Hz) rhythm, which reflects motor preparation. Taken together, these findings indicate that perceptual decisions about threat-signaling dimensions of facial displays are associated with prioritized neural coding in action-related brain regions, supporting the motivational value of socially relevant signals.

An extremely fast neural mechanism to detect emotional visual stimuli: A two-experiment study

Defining the brain mechanisms underlying initial emotional evaluation is a key but unexplored clue to understanding affective processing. Event-related potentials (ERPs), especially suited for investigating this issue, were recorded in two experiments (n = 36 and n = 35). We presented emotionally negative (spiders) and neutral (wheels) silhouettes homogenized regarding their visual parameters. In Experiment 1, stimuli appeared at fixation or in the periphery (200 trials per condition and location), the former eliciting a N40 (39 milliseconds) and a P80 (or C1: 80 milliseconds) component, and the latter only a P80. In Experiment 2, stimuli were presented only at fixation (500 trials per condition). Again, an N40 (45 milliseconds) was observed, followed by a P100 (or P1: 105 milliseconds). Analyses revealed significantly greater N40-C1P1 peak-to-peak amplitudes for spiders in both experiments, and ANCOVAs showed that these effects were not explained by C1P1 alone, but that processes underlying N40 significantly contributed. Source analyses pointed to V1 as an N40 focus (more clearly in Experiment 2). Sources for C1P1 included V1 (P80) and V2/LOC (P80 and P100). These results and their timing point to low-order structures (such as visual thalamic nuclei or superior colliculi) or the visual cortex itself, as candidates for initial evaluation structures.

Effects of task switching and emotional stimuli on memory selectivity

It is not always easy to attend to task-relevant information and ignore task-irrelevant distractions. We investigated the impact of task switching and emotional stimuli on goal-oriented selective attention and subsequent recognition memory. Results from two experiments with different stimulus materials (words and images) found that the memory advantage of task-relevant information over task-irrelevant information (i.e. memory selectivity) was attenuated on task switch trials and emotional distractor trials. In contrast, task repetitions and emotional targets improved memory selectivity. These results suggest that both task switching and emotional distractors divert limited cognitive resources needed for selective attention and selective encoding. Emotional targets likely supported selective encoding through the process of attentional prioritisation of emotional stimuli. The effects of task switching and emotional stimuli did not interact, suggesting distinct mechanisms, although this conclusion remains tentative.

The role of attention in immersion: The two-competitor model

Currently, we face an exponentially increasing interest in immersion, especially sensory-driven immersion, mainly due to the rapid development of ideas and business models centered around a digital virtual universe as well as the increasing availability of affordable immersive technologies for education, communication, and entertainment. However, a clear definition of 'immersion', in terms of established neurocognitive concepts and measurable properties, remains elusive, slowing research on the human side of immersive interfaces. To address this problem, we propose a conceptual, taxonomic model of attention in immersion. We argue (a) modeling immersion theoretically as well as studying immersion experimentally requires a detailed characterization of the role of attention in immersion, even though (b) attention, while necessary, cannot be a sufficient condition for defining immersion. Our broader goal is to characterize immersion in terms that will be compatible with established psychophysiolgical measures that could then in principle be used for the assessment and eventually the optimization of an immersive experience. We start from the perspective that immersion requires the projection of attention to an induced reality, and build on accepted taxonomies of different modes of attention for the development of our two-competitor model. The two-competitor model allows for a quantitative implementation and has an easy graphical interpretation. It helps to highlight the important link between different modes of attention and affect in studying immersion.

How and when social evaluative feedback is processed in the brain: A systematic review on ERP studies

Social evaluative feedback informs the receiver of the other's views, which may contain judgments of personality-related traits and/or the level of likability. Such kinds of social evaluative feedback are of particular importance to humans. Event-related potentials (ERPs) can directly measure where in the processing stream feedback valence, expectancy, or contextual relevance modulate information processing. This review provides an overview and systematization of studies and early, mid-latency, and late ERP effects. Early effects were inconsistently reported for all factors. Feedback valence effects are more consistently reported for specific mid-latency ERPs (Reward Positivity, RewP, and Early Posterior Negativity, EPN) and late positivities (P3 and Late Positive Potential, LPP). Unexpected feedback consistently increased the Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) and, less consistently, decreased P3 amplitudes. Contextual relevance of the sender (e.g., human vs computer sender) or self-relatedness increased mid-latency to late ERPs. Interactions between valence and other factors were less often found, arising during mid-latency stages, where most consistent interactions showed larger EPN and P3 amplitude differences for valent feedback in a more relevant context. The ERP findings highlight that social evaluative feedback is consistently differentiated during mid-latency processing stages. The review discusses the relevance of findings, possible shortcomings of different experimental designs, and open questions. Furthermore, we suggest concrete venues for future research.

Investigating the suitability of online eye tracking for psychological research: Evidence from comparisons with in-person data using emotion-attention interaction tasks

The future is bound to bring rapid methodological changes to psychological research. One such promising candidate is the use of webcam-based eye tracking. Earlier research investigating the quality of online eye-tracking data has found increased spatial and temporal error compared to infrared recordings. Our studies expand on this work by investigating how this spatial error impacts researchers' abilities to study psychological phenomena. We carried out two studies involving emotion-attention interaction tasks, using four participant samples. In each study, one sample involved typical in-person collection of infrared eye-tracking data, and the other involved online collection of webcam-based data. We had two main findings: First, we found that the online data replicated seven of eight in-person results, although the effect sizes were just 52% [42%, 62%] the size of those seen in-person. Second, explaining the lack of replication in one result, we show how online eye tracking is biased toward recording more gaze points near the center of participants' screen, which can interfere with comparisons if left unchecked. Overall, our results suggest that well-powered online eye-tracking research is highly feasible, although researchers must exercise caution, collecting more participants and potentially adjusting their stimulus designs or analytic procedures.

Attentional deficits in fibromyalgia: an ERP study with the oddball dual task and emotional stroop task

The present study investigated the neural correlates of attentional deficits in fibromyalgia through an Oddball Dual Task and an Emotional Stroop Task, both performed during EEG recordings. Thirty female participants were recruited, being divided into two groups: a group of patients with fibromyalgia (FM, n = 15, Mage = 51.87, SDage = 7.12) and a healthy control group (HC, n = 15, Mage = 46.13, SDage = 8.41). In the Emotional Stroop Task, the behavioural results showed that patients with FM had less hits and longer times reactions than healthy controls. These results were consistent with those obtained with our Event-related Potential (ERP) methodology, which evidenced that patients with FM had higher frontal latencies in the P200 time-window compared to healthy controls. Regarding the Oddball Dual Task, we found that patients with FM had lower P300 amplitudes than healthy participants. Moreover, we found that rare stimuli elicited higher P300 amplitudes than frequent stimuli for healthy controls, but this comparison was non-significant for patients with FM. Taken together, our results suggest that fibromyalgia may be associated to a reduced processing speed, along to reduced neural resources to process stimuli, mainly in distinguishing relevant (rare) and irrelevant (frequent) stimuli according to the goals of the task. Altogether, our results seem to support the hypothesis of generalized attentional deficits in FM.

Exploring the 'mood congruency' hypothesis of attention allocation - An eye-tracking study

BACKGROUND

The 'mood-congruency' hypothesis of attention allocation postulates that individuals' current emotional states affect their attention allocation, such that mood-congruent stimuli take precedence over non-congruent ones. This hypothesis has been further suggested as an underlying mechanism of biased attention allocation in depression.

METHODS

The present research explored the mood-congruency hypothesis using a novel video-based mood elicitation procedure (MEP) and an established eye-tracking attention allocation assessment task, elaborating prior research in the field. Specifically, in Study 1 (n = 91), a video-based MEP was developed and rigorously validated. In study 2 (n = 60), participants' attention allocation to sad and happy face stimuli, each presented separately alongside neutral faces, was assessed before and after the video-based MEP, with happiness induced in one group (n = 30) while inducing sadness in the other (n = 30).

RESULTS

In Study 1, the MEP yielded the intended modification of participants' current mood states (eliciting either sadness or happiness). Study 2 showed that while the MEP modified mood in the intended direction in both groups, replicating the results of Study 1, corresponding changes in attention allocation did not ensue in either group. A Bayesian analysis of pre-to-post mood elicitation changes in attention allocation supported this null finding. Moreover, results revealed an attention bias to happy faces across both groups and assessment points, suggestive of a trait-like positive bias in attention allocation among non-selected participants.

CONCLUSION

Current results provide no evidence supporting the mood-congruency hypothesis, which suggests that (biased) attention allocation may be better conceptualized as a depressive trait, rather than a mood-congruent state.

Visual images of disgusting creatures facilitated attentional orienting and delayed attentional disengagement

Numerous studies have suggested that threatening stimuli induce a spatial attention bias; however, only a few studies have investigated spatial attention biases for disgusting stimuli. Moreover, past studies generally reported that the spatial attention bias to disgusting images is not robustly in normal individuals. We hypothesized that this was due to the unfamiliar of the images, so we prepared the creature's images that were clearly categorized as disgusting and examined the effects of disgusting images on spatial attention bias. A disgusting or an emotionally neutral image was paired and presented with an (emotionally neutral) filler image. After a temporal interval, a target appeared at either the position where a disgusting or a neutral image was presented (valid condition) or where a filler image was presented (invalid condition). Participants pressed a key corresponding to the target's position as quickly and accurately as possible. We varied the position-response correspondence among three experiments. The results showed that the RTs in the invalid condition was longer for the disgusting images than for the neutral images when the position of a disgusting image was not naturally associated with the left-right hand position. We interpreted the results in that that disgusting images generally slowed down attentional disengagement process but the manual responses were inhibited for the position where a disgusting image appeared when the locations of keys and targets were congruent. The present results suggest that disgusting images affect not only attentional processes but also manual responses related to the selection and initiation of responses.

Looming Angry Faces: Preliminary Evidence of Differential Electrophysiological Dynamics for Filtered Stimuli via Low and High Spatial Frequencies

Looming motion interacts with threatening emotional cues in the initial stages of visual processing. However, the underlying neural networks are unclear. The current study investigated if the interactive effect of threat elicited by angry and looming faces is favoured by rapid, magnocellular neural pathways and if exogenous or endogenous attention influences such processing. Here, EEG/ERP techniques were used to explore the early ERP responses to moving emotional faces filtered for high spatial frequencies (HSF) and low spatial frequencies (LSF). Experiment 1 applied a passive-viewing paradigm, presenting filtered angry and neutral faces in static, approaching, or receding motions on a depth-cued background. In the second experiment, broadband faces (BSF) were included, and endogenous attention was directed to the expression of faces. Our main results showed that regardless of attentional control, P1 was enhanced by BSF angry faces, but neither HSF nor LSF faces drove the effect of facial expressions. Such findings indicate that looming motion and threatening expressions are integrated rapidly at the P1 level but that this processing relies neither on LSF nor on HSF information in isolation. The N170 was enhanced for BSF angry faces regardless of attention but was enhanced for LSF angry faces during passive viewing. These results suggest the involvement of a neural pathway reliant on LSF information at the N170 level. Taken together with previous reports from the literature, this may indicate the involvement of multiple parallel neural pathways during early visual processing of approaching emotional faces.

Social concerns about anxious arousal explain the association between neural responses to anxious arousal pictures and social anxiety

Cognitive theories propose that social anxiety disorder involves heightened attention to anxious arousal symptoms due to worries that they may evoke rejection from others. Supporting this, studies have shown that social anxiety is related to greater attention to representations of anxious arousal and to anxiety sensitivity social concerns, which refers to sensitivity to feelings of anxious arousal during social situations. However, this has not yet been tested using neural indices of attention to images depicting anxious arousal. To examine these associations, the current study examined early and sustained attentional bias to anxious arousal images using the P2 and the late positive potential (LPP), respectively. Electroencephalogram data were collected while a non-clinical sample of undergraduate students (N = 106) viewed images of people exhibiting anxious arousal in addition to blocks of negative and neutral images from the IAPS. The neural response to anxious arousal images was isolated using residual scores (e.g., using linear regression to predict the P2 elicited by anxious arousal images from the P2 elicited by neutral images (P2neutral→AA) or negative images (P2negative→AA), then saving the unstandardized residuals). There was an indirect effect of the P2neutral→AA and P2negative→AA waveforms that was explained by anxiety sensitivity social concerns. Additionally, there was an indirect effect of both LPP waveforms on social anxiety symptoms during the early time window of the LPP (400-700 ms). At the later time window of the LPP (700-1000 ms), there was an indirect effect of the LPPneutral→AA residual waveform, but not the LPPnegative→AA, on social anxiety symptoms.

Emotional processing deficits in individuals with problematic pornography use: Unpleasant bias and pleasant blunting

Background and aims

A growing body of evidence indicates a connection between emotional processes and the emergence and progression of addiction. However, scant research has examined the involvement of emotional processing within the framework of problematic pornography use (PPU). This study aimed to examine the electrophysiological and subjective differences in emotional processing between male individuals with PPU and healthy controls (HCs) following exposure to everyday affective images.

Methods

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 42 PPU participants (mean age = 20.14 years, SD = 1.35) and 45 HCs (mean age = 20.04 years, SD = 1.45) during an oddball task, in which unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral images were presented as deviant stimuli, while a neutral kettle image served as the standard stimulus. The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) was employed to assess participants' subjective experience on the dimensions of valence and arousal.

Results

Regarding subjective measures of emotion, individuals with PPU reported lower valence ratings for unpleasant images compared to HCs. In terms of electrophysiological measures of emotion, PPU participants reported larger P2 amplitudes for unpleasant pictures compared to both pleasant and neutral pictures. Moreover, HCs showed enhanced P3 amplitudes in response to pleasant images compared to neutral images, whereas this effect was not observed in PPU participants.

Discussion and Conclusion

These findings indicate that individuals with PPU may display deficits in emotional processing characterized by enhanced responsiveness to negative stimuli and attenuated responsiveness to positive stimuli. The heightened sensitivity to negative stimuli may contribute to the inclination of individuals with PPU to engage in pornography as a coping mechanism for stress regulation. Conversely, their diminished sensitivity to positive stimuli presents a challenge in seeking alternative natural rewards to counter potentially addictive behaviors.

Emotional interference and attentional control in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders: The special case of neutral faces

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD) are characterized by impaired emotion processing and attention. SSD patients are more sensitive to the presence of emotional distractors. But despite growing interest on the emotion-attention interplay, emotional interference in SSD is far from fully understood. Moreover, research to date has not established the link between emotional interference and attentional control in SSD. This study thus aimed to investigate the effects of facial expression and attentional control in SSD, by manipulating perceptual load.

METHODS

Twenty-two SSD patients and 22 healthy controls performed a target-letter discrimination task with task-irrelevant angry, happy, and neutral faces. Target-letter was presented among homogenous (low load) or heterogenous (high load) distractor-letters. Accuracy and RT were analysed using (generalized) linear mixed-effect models.

RESULTS

Accuracy was significantly lower in SSD patients than controls, regardless of perceptual load and facial expression. Concerning RT, SSD patients were significantly slower than controls in the presence of neutral faces, but only at high load. No group differences were observed for angry and happy faces.

LIMITATIONS

Heterogeneity of SSD, small sample size, lack of clinical control group, medication.

CONCLUSIONS

One possible explanation is that neutral faces captured exogenous attention to a greater extent in SSD, thus challenging attentional control in perceptually demanding conditions. This may reflect abnormal processing of neutral faces in SSD. If replicated, these findings will help to understand the interplay between exogenous attention, attentional control, and emotion processing in SSD, which may unravel the mechanism underlying socioemotional dysfunction in SSD.

Infrequent facial expressions of emotion do not bias attention

Despite the obvious importance of facial expressions of emotion, most studies have found that they do not bias attention. A critical limitation, however, is that these studies generally present face distractors on all trials of the experiment. For other kinds of emotional stimuli, such as emotional scenes, infrequently presented stimuli elicit greater attentional bias than frequently presented stimuli, perhaps due to suppression or habituation. The goal of the current study then was to test whether such modulation of attentional bias by distractor frequency generalizes to facial expressions of emotion. In Experiment 1, both angry and happy faces were unable to bias attention, despite being infrequently presented. Even when the location of these face cues were more unpredictable-presented in one of two possible locations-still no attentional bias was observed (Experiment 2). Moreover, there was no bottom-up influence for angry and happy faces shown under high or low perceptual load (Experiment 3). We conclude that task-irrelevant posed facial expressions of emotion cannot bias attention even when presented infrequently.

Architectural experience influences the processing of others' body expressions

The interplay between space and cognition is a crucial issue in Neuroscience leading to the development of multiple research fields. However, the relationship between architectural space and the movement of the inhabitants and their interactions has been too often neglected, failing to provide a unifying view of architecture's capacity to modulate social cognition broadly. We bridge this gap by requesting participants to judge avatars' emotional expression (high vs. low arousal) at the end of their promenade inside high- or low-arousing architectures. Stimuli were presented in virtual reality to ensure a dynamic, naturalistic experience. High-density electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded to assess the neural responses to the avatar's presentation. Observing highly aroused avatars increased Late Positive Potentials (LPP), in line with previous evidence. Strikingly, 250 ms before the occurrence of the LPP, P200 amplitude increased due to the experience of low-arousing architectures, reflecting an early greater attention during the processing of body expressions. In addition, participants stared longer at the avatar's head and judged the observed posture as more arousing. Source localization highlighted a contribution of the dorsal premotor cortex to both P200 and LPP. In conclusion, the immersive and dynamic architectural experience modulates human social cognition. In addition, the motor system plays a role in processing architecture and body expressions suggesting that the space and social cognition interplay is rooted in overlapping neural substrates. This study demonstrates that the manipulation of mere architectural space is sufficient to influence human social cognition.

Dissociating different temporal stages of emotional word processing by feature-based attention

Negative emotional content is prioritized across different stages of information processing as reflected by different components of the event-related potential (ERP). In this preregistered study (N = 40), we investigated how varying the attentional focus allows us to dissociate the involvement of specific ERP components in the processing of negative and neutral words. Participants had to discriminate the orientation of lines overlaid onto the words, the word type (adjective/noun), or the emotional content (negative/neutral). Thus, attention was either not focused on words (distraction task), non-emotional aspects, or the emotional relevance of words. Regardless of the task, there were no significant differences between negative and neutral words for the P1, N1, or P2 components. In contrast, interactions between emotion and task were observed for the early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP). EPN differences were absent during the distraction task but were present in the other two tasks. LPP emotion differences were found only when attention was directed to the emotional content of words. Our study adds to the evidence that early ERP components do not reliably separate negative and neutral words. However, results show that mid-latency and late stages of emotion processing are separable by different attention tasks. The EPN represents a stage of attentional enhancement of negative words given sufficient attentional resources. Differential activations during the LPP stage are associated with more elaborative processing of the emotional meaning of words.

An experimental and simulation study of the impact of emotional information on analogical reasoning

We investigated whether and how emotional information would affect analogical reasoning. We hypothesized that task-irrelevant emotional information would impair performance whereas task-relevant emotional information would enhance it. In Study 1, 233 undergraduates completed a novel version of the People Pieces Task (Emotional Faces People Task), an analogical reasoning task in which the task characters displayed emotional or neutral facial expressions (within-participants). The emotional faces were relevant or irrelevant to the task (between-participants). We simulated the behavioral results using the Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogies (LISA) model of relational reasoning. LISA is a neurally plausible, symbolic-connectionist computational model of analogical reasoning. In comparison to neutral trials, participants were slower but more accurate on emotion-relevant trials, and were faster but less accurate on emotion-irrelevant trials. Simulations using the LISA model demonstrated that it is possible to account for the effects of emotional information on reasoning in terms of how emotional stimuli attract attention during a reasoning task. In Study 2, 255 undergraduates completed the Emotional Faces People Task at either a high- or low-working memory load. The high working memory load condition of Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1, showing that participants were more accurate on emotion-relevant trials than on emotion-irrelevant trials; in Study 2, this increased accuracy could not be accounted for by a speed-accuracy tradeoff. The working memory manipulation influenced the manner in which the congruence (with the correct answer) of emotion-irrelevant emotion influenced performance. Simulations using the LISA model showed that manipulating the salience of emotion, the error penalty, as well as vigilance (which determines the likelihood that LISA will notice it has attended to an irrelevant relation), could reasonably reproduce the behavioral results of both low and high working memory load conditions of Study 2.

Implicit, But Not Explicit, Emotion Regulation Relieves Unpleasant Neural Responses Evoked by High-Intensity Negative Images

Evidence suggests that explicit reappraisal has limited regulatory effects on high-intensity emotions, mainly due to the depletion of cognitive resources occupied by the high-intensity emotional stimulus itself. The implicit form of reappraisal has proved to be resource-saving and therefore might be an ideal strategy to achieve the desired regulatory effect in high-intensity situations. In this study, we explored the regulatory effect of explicit and implicit reappraisal when participants encountered low- and high-intensity negative images. The subjective emotional rating indicated that both explicit and implicit reappraisal down-regulated negative experiences, irrespective of intensity. However, the amplitude of the parietal late positive potential (LPP; a neural index of experienced emotional intensity) showed that only implicit reappraisal had significant regulatory effects in the high-intensity context, though both explicit and implicit reappraisal successfully reduced the emotional neural responses elicited by low-intensity negative images. Meanwhile, implicit reappraisal led to a smaller frontal LPP amplitude (an index of cognitive cost) compared to explicit reappraisal, indicating that the implementation of implicit reappraisal consumes limited cognitive control resources. Furthermore, we found a prolonged effect of implicit emotion regulation introduced by training procedures. Taken together, these findings not only reveal that implicit reappraisal is suitable to relieve high-intensity negative experiences as well as neural responses, but also highlight the potential benefit of trained implicit regulation in clinical populations whose frontal control resources are limited.

The contextual goal dependent attentional flexibility (CoGoDAF) framework: A new approach to attention bias in depression

Successful adaptation to the environment requires attentional prioritization of emotional information relevant to the current situational demands. Accordingly, the presence of an attention bias (AB) for both positive and negative information may allow preferential processing of stimuli in line with the current situational goals. However, AB for negative information sometimes becomes maladaptive, being antithetical to the current adaptive needs and goals of an individual, such as in the case of affective disorders such as depression. Although difficulties in flexible shifting between emotional stimuli in depression have increasingly become a topic of discussion in the field, an integrative approach towards biased versus flexible emotional attentional processes remains absent. In the present paper, we advance a novel and integrative view of conceptualizing potentially aberrant affective attention patterns in depression as a function of the current contextual features. We propose that flexible emotional attention takes place as a result of attention prioritization towards goal-relevant emotional stimuli depending upon the current context of the individual. Specifically, the roles of context, distal and proximal goals, and approach and avoidance motivation processes are considered in a unified manner. The empirical, clinical, and interventional implications of this integrative framework provide a roadmap for future psychological and neurobiological experimental and translational research.

Reward History Modulates the Processing of Task-Irrelevant Emotional Faces in a Demanding Task

The aim of the current study was to examine how reward-associated emotional facial distractors could capture attentional resources in a demanding visual task using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the learning phase, a high- or low-reward probability was paired with angry, happy, or neutral faces. Then, in the test phase, participants performed a face-irrelevant task with no reward at stake, in which they needed to discriminate the length of two lines presented in the center of the screen while faces that were taken from the learning phase were used as distractors presented in the periphery. The behavioral results revealed no effect of distractor emotional valence since the emotional information was task-irrelevant. The ERP results in the test phase revealed a significant main effect of distractor emotional valence for the parieto-occipital P200 (170-230 ms); the mean amplitudes in both the angry- and happy-face conditions were more positive than the neutral-face condition. Moreover, we found that the high-reward association enhanced both the N170 (140-180 ms) and EPN (260-330 ms) relative to the low-reward association condition. Finally, the N2pc (270-320 ms) also exhibited enhanced neural activity in the high-reward condition compared to the low-reward condition. The absence of emotional effects indicated that task-irrelevant emotional facial stimuli did not impact behavioral or neural responses in this highly demanding task. However, reward-associated information was processed when attention was directed elsewhere, suggesting that the processing of reward-associated information worked more in an automatic way, irrespective of the top-down task demand.

Emotional stimuli similarly disrupt attention in both visual fields

People often need to filter relevant from irrelevant information. Irrelevant emotional distractors interrupt this process. But does the degree to which emotional distractors disrupt attention depend on which visual field they appear in? We thought it might for two reasons: (1) people pay slightly more attention to the left than the right visual field, and (2) some research suggests the right-hemisphere (which, in early visual processing, receives left visual field input) has areas specialised for processing emotion. Participants viewed a rapid image-stream in each visual field and reported the rotation of an embedded neutral target preceded by a negative or neutral distractor. We predicted that the degree to which negative (vs. neutral) distractors impaired target detection would be larger when targets appeared in the left than the right stream. This hypothesis was supported, but only when the distractor and target could appear in the same or opposite stream as each other (Experiments 2a-b), not when they always appeared in the same stream as each other (Experiments 1a-1b). However, this effect was driven by superior left-stream accuracy following neutral distractors, and similar left- and right-stream accuracy following negative distractors. Emotional distractors therefore override visuospatial asymmetries and disrupt attention, regardless of visual field.

Subcortical contributions to salience network functioning during negative emotional processing

Core regions of the salience network (SN), including the anterior insula (aINS) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), coordinate rapid adaptive changes in attentional and autonomic processes in response to negative emotional events. In doing so, the SN incorporates bottom-up signals from subcortical brain regions, such as the amygdala and periaqueductal gray (PAG). However, the precise influence of these subcortical regions is not well understood. Using ultra-high field 7-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging, this study investigated the bottom-up interactions of the amygdala and PAG with the SN during negative emotional salience processing. Thirty-seven healthy participants completed an emotional oddball paradigm designed to elicit a salient negative emotional response via the presentation of random, task-irrelevant negative emotional images. Negative emotional processing was associated with prominent activation in the SN, spanning the amygdala, PAG, aINS, and dACC. Consistent with previous research, analysis using dynamic causal modelling revealed an excitatory influence from the amygdala to the aINS, dACC, and PAG. In contrast, the PAG showed an inhibitory influence on amygdala, aINS and dACC activity. Our findings suggest that the amygdala may amplify the processing of negative emotional stimuli in the SN to enable upstream access to attentional resources. In comparison, the inhibitory influence of the PAG possibly reflects its involvement in modulating sympathetic-parasympathetic autonomic arousal mediated by the SN. This PAG-mediated effect may be driven by amygdala input and facilitate bottom-up processing of negative emotional stimuli. Overall, our results show that the amygdala and PAG modulate divergent functions of the SN during negative emotional processing.

The binding of negative emotional stimuli with spatial information in working memory: A possible role for the episodic buffer

Introduction

Remembering where negative events occur has undeniable adaptive value, however, how these memories are formed remains elusive. We investigated the role of working memory subcomponents in binding emotional and visuo-spatial information using an emotional version of the object relocation task (EORT).

Methods

After displaying black rectangles simultaneously, emotional pictures (from the International Affective Pictures System) appeared sequentially over each rectangle. Participants repositioned the rectangles as accurately as possible after all stimuli had disappeared. During the EORT encoding phase, a verbal trail task was administered concurrently to selectively interfere with the central executive (CE). The immediate post-encoding administration of an object feature-report task was used to interfere with the episodic buffer (EB).

Results

Only the EB-interfering task prevented the emotion-enhancing effect of negative pictures. The latter effect was not observed with a concurrent executive task.

Discussion

Overall, our findings suggest that pre-attentive automatic processes are primarily involved in binding emotional and visuo-spatial information in the EB.

Intertemporal Decision-making and Risk Decision-making Among Habitual Nappers Under Nap Sleep Restriction: A Study from ERP and Time-frequency

Sleep restriction affects people's decision-making behavior. Nap restriction is a vital subtopic within sleep restriction research. In this study, we used EEG to investigate the impact of nap sleep restriction on intertemporal decision-making (Study 1) and decision-making across risky outcomes (Study 2) from ERP and time-frequency perspectives. Study 1 found that habitual nappers restricting their naps felt more inclined to choose immediate, small rewards over delayed, large rewards in an intertemporal decision-making task. P200s, P300s, and LPP in our nap-restriction group were significantly higher than those in the normal nap group. Time-frequency results showed that the delta band (1 ~ 4 Hz) power of the restricted nap group was significantly higher than that of the normal nap group. In Study 2, the nap-restriction group was more likely to choose risky options. P200s, N2s, and P300s in the nap deprivation group were significantly higher than in the normal nap group. Time-frequency results also found that the beta band (11 ~ 15 Hz) power of the restricted nap group was significantly lower than that of the normal nap group. The habitual nappers became more impulsive after nap restriction and evinced altered perceptions of time. The time cost of the LL (larger-later) option was perceived to be too high when making intertemporal decisions, and their expectation of reward heightened when making risky decisions-believing that they had a higher probability of receiving a reward. This study provided electrophysiological evidence for the dynamic processing of intertemporal decision-making, risky decision-making, and the characteristics of nerve concussions for habitual nappers.

Attentional capture in emotion comparison is orientation independent

Recent findings on emotion comparison show a typical pattern of motor reactivity rising from attentional capture. When pairs of emotional faces are presented simultaneously, the most intense emotional face is recognized faster (Emotional Semantic Congruency-ESC effect). Furthermore, a global response speed advantage for emotional pairs with positive rather than negative average emotion intensity is observed (i.e., emotional size effect), with the choice for the happiest face resulting in a faster response than the choice for the angriest face within the pair (i.e., the happiness advantage). In two experiments, we asked whether these effects are orientation dependent, and thus linked to whether face processing is holistic or part-based. Participants were asked to choose the angriest/happiest face in emotional pairs displayed either in upright or inverted orientation and including (Experiment 1) or not including (Experiment 2) a neutral face. Beyond an overall facilitation for upright relative to inverted pairs, results showed orientation independent ESC and emotional size effects. Furthermore, the happiness advantage was present in emotional pairs of Experiment 2 but not in emotional pairs of Experiment 1, independently from face orientation. Together, results suggest that attentional capture in emotion comparison is immaterial on the type of face processing, being orientation invariant.

What can the eyes tell us about atypical sexual preferences as a function of sex and age? Linking eye movements with child-related chronophilias

Visual attention plays a central role in current theories of sexual information processing and is key to informing the use of eye-tracking techniques in the study of typical sexual preferences and more recently, in the study of atypical preferences such as pedophilia (prepubescent children) and hebephilia (pubescent children). The aim of this theoretical-empirical review is to connect the concepts of a visual attention-based model of sexual arousal processing with eye movements as indicators of atypical sexual interests, to substantiate the use of eye-tracking as a useful indirect measure of sexual preferences according to sex and age of the stimuli. Implications for research are discussed in terms of recognizing the value, scope and limitations of eye-tracking in the study of pedophilia and other chronophilias in males and females, and the generation of new hypotheses using this type of indirect measure of human sexual response.