Emotional distractor images disrupt target processing in a graded manner.

Abstract

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Emotion on May 16 2022 (see record 2022-64181-001). In the article "Emotional Distractor Images Disrupt Target Processing in a Graded Manner" by Jonathan M. Keefe and David H. Zald (Emotion, advance online publication, August 27, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000893), there were errors in the reporting of nonresponse rate and accuracy data. Nonresponse rate was underreported for the data in the Lag 2 condition, resulting in incorrect analysis of variance values for this portion of the Results section as well as incorrect Lag 2 t-test values in Table 1 and incorrect Lag 2 values in Figure 2A. Additionally, error bars for the accuracy data in Figure 2B were mistakenly calculated with data including excluded trials, resulting in larger estimates of standard error of the mean. These corrections do not affect the interpretation of any inferential statistics and in fact increased the effect of lag and distractor valence upon both of these measures. Therefore, no conclusions of the study are altered. All versions of this article have been corrected.] The emotional attentional blink (EAB), also referred to as emotion-induced blindness, refers to a transient impairment in the ability to discriminate a single target when it is presented closely in time to an emotional distractor. Although the EAB has typically been characterized as representing a complete loss of target information due to attentional capture by the emotional distractors, it is unclear whether the impact of the emotional distractor is in fact discrete or graded. Here, we tested whether the emotional distractor of the EAB interfered with target processing in a continuous or all-or-none manner by measuring changes in both reaction time (RT) and target-vividness ratings in addition to target-discrimination accuracy. Rapid sequences of landscape images were presented centrally, and participants reported the orientation of a ± 90° rotated target as quickly and accurately as possible. Replicating the classic EAB phenomenon, we found a strong impairment in target discrimination when an emotional distractor shortly preceded the target, and we also found a moderate impairment when the target preceded an emotional distractor. This decrement in accuracy at short lags was accompanied by increases in RT to the target as well as lower ratings of subjective target vividness even when the target was detected, indicating that emotional distractors impacted target processing in a lag-dependent, graded manner. We argue that these results are consistent with an interactive race model of the competition between stimulus representations in the conflict between top-down and bottom-up attentional mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).