How emotional arousal and valence influence access to awareness.
The effect of emotion on visual awareness is largely unknown. Pairs of natural images were presented side by side on a screen in a binocular rivalry setup. The amount of time that each image of a pair dominated perception was computed. Our results showed: (A) A main effect of arousal: Dominance durations of the more arousing picture of iso-valence pairs were longer. (B) No effect of valence: Dominance durations of pleasant and unpleasant pictures of iso-arousal pairs were similar. (C) An interaction between arousal and valence: The more pleasant picture of iso-arousal pairs of low arousal level dominated conscious perception. The less pleasant picture of iso-arousal pairs of high arousal level dominated conscious perception. Our findings suggest that the emotional content of a stimulus affects the extent to which it dominates awareness. While arousal and valence interactively affect access to awareness, only arousal exerts an independent control of such access.
Sheth
Bhavin R
BR
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-4005, USA. brsheth@uh.edu
Pham
Thuan
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D023882:Dominance, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011594:Psychometrics; D015357:Vision Disparity / Q000502:physiology; D015348:Vision, Binocular / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*