Attentional capture by emotional stimuli is modulated by semantic processing.
The attentional blink paradigm was used to examine whether emotional stimuli always capture attention. The processing requirement for emotional stimuli in a rapid sequential visual presentation stream was manipulated to investigate the circumstances under which emotional distractors capture attention, as reflected in an enhanced attentional blink effect. Emotional distractors did not cause more interference than neutral distractors on target identification when perceptual or phonological processing of stimuli was required, showing that emotional processing is not as automatic as previously hypothesized. Only when semantic processing of stimuli was required did emotional distractors capture more attention than neutral distractors and increase attentional blink magnitude. Combining the results from 5 experiments, the authors conclude that semantic processing can modulate the attentional capture effect of emotional stimuli.
Huang
Yang-Ming
YM
Department of Psychology, University of York, York, England. y.huang@psych.york.ac.uk
Baddeley
Alan
A
Young
Andrew W
AW
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D054518:Attentional Blink / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012660:Semantics; D012938:Social Perception