title: Eye spy with my little eye: Motivational relevance of visual stimuli guide eye-movements at different processing stages.
abstract: Visual stimuli may be selected for priority at different stages within the processing stream, depending on how motivationally relevant they are to the perceiver. Here we examine the extent to which individual differences in motivational relevance of task-irrelevant images (spider, crash, baby, food and neutral) guide eye-movements to a simple "follow the cross" task in 96 participants. We found affective images vs. neutral images to be generally more distracting, as shown by faster first saccade latencies and greater deviation in the final landing position from the target cross. The most arousing images (spider and food), compared to neutral images, showed the largest trajectory deviations of the first saccade. Fear of spiders specifically predicted greater deviation in the final landing position on spider images. These results suggest that attentional biases towards arousing and motivationally relevant stimuli may occur at different processing stages.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AL, United Kingdom. Electronic address: e.mcsorley@reading.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Eugene
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: McSorley
authors.affiliation: Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Jayne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Morriss
authors.affiliation: Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Carien M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: van Reekum
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Arousal; Attention; Eye movements; Fear of spiders; Motivational relevance; Threat