title: Explicit and implicit emotional processing in peripheral vision: A saccadic choice paradigm.
abstract: We investigated explicit and implicit emotional processing in peripheral vision using saccadic choice tasks. Emotional-neutral pairs of scenes were presented peripherally either at 10, 30 or 60° away from fixation. The participants had to make a saccadic eye movement to the target scene: emotional vs neutral in the explicit task, and oval vs rectangular in the implicit task. In the explicit task, pleasant scenes were reliably categorized as emotional up to 60° while performance for unpleasant scenes decreased between 10° and 30° and did not differ from chance at 60°. Categorization of neutral scenes did not differ from chance. Performance in the implicit task was significantly better for emotional targets than for neutral targets at 10° and this beneficial effect of emotion persisted only for pleasant scenes at 30°. Thus, these findings show that explicit and implicit emotional processing in peripheral vision depends on eccentricity and valence of stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Experimental Psychopathology, Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, 10, Place du Cardinal Mercier, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Electronic address: fabien.dhondt@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Fabien
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: D'Hondt
authors.affiliation: SCALab, UMR CNRS 9193, Université de Lille, Faculté de Médecine Pôle Recherche-5ème Etage, 1 Place de Verdun, 59045 Lille Cedex, France. Electronic address: sebastien.szaffarczyk@univ-lille2.fr.
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Szaffarczyk
authors.affiliation: SCALab, UMR CNRS 9193, Université de Lille, Faculté de Médecine Pôle Recherche-5ème Etage, 1 Place de Verdun, 59045 Lille Cedex, France; EP Neurosciences, UFR de Biologie, Université de Lille, SN4-1, 59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France. Electronic address: Henrique.Sequeira@univ-lille1.fr.
authors.forename: Henrique
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sequeira
authors.affiliation: SCALab, UMR CNRS 9193, Université de Lille, Faculté de Médecine Pôle Recherche-5ème Etage, 1 Place de Verdun, 59045 Lille Cedex, France. Electronic address: Muriel.BOUCART@chru-lille.fr.
authors.forename: Muriel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boucart
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Emotion; Eye movement; International affective picture system; Peripheral vision; Visual scenes