Isoluminant figure-ground emotional stimuli reveal the crucial role of the magnocellular visual system in exogenous (automatic) attention

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Isoluminant figure-ground emotional stimuli reveal the crucial role of the magnocellular visual system in exogenous (automatic) attention Luis Carretié1*, Sandra Hoyos1, María J. García-Rubio1, Dominique Kessel1, Manuel Tapia1, Almudena Capilla1, Jacobo Albert2 and Sara López-Martín3 1 Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Psicología, Spain 2 Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Psicología, Spain 3 Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Although not systematically explored, the role of the magnocellular visual processing system in exogenous (automatic) attention seems to be crucial according to several indirect data, particularly when captured by emotional stimuli. Thus, “magnocellular-balanced” emotional distracters such as moving, low-pass filtered (in terms of spatial frequency) or peripherally presented, elicit enhanced behavioral and/or neural indices of attentional capture while the individual is engaged in a resource consuming task. The present experiment specifically explored this issue by presenting emotional (spiders) and neutral distracters (wheels), which were either isoluminant and colored (red figure over green ground, both with the same luminosity), to which the magnocellular system is mostly blind, or heteroluminant and colorless (black figure over grey background), to which the magnocellular system is specially sensitive, to 34 participants while they performed a digit categorization task. Event-related potentials recorded during this task revealed emotional > neutral significant differences in the case of heteroluminant distracters, but not in the case of isoluminant distracters. This effect was produced early (approximately at 100 milliseconds from stimulus onset) and was maximal at parietal scalp areas. Source localization algorithms signaled dorsal visual areas (particularly, posterior parietal cortex at BA40), previously linked to reorienting, as the origin of this effect. Present results suggest a key role of the magnocellular system at least in the initial brain response to emotional / biologically salient distracters and, in line with previous studies, support its crucial involvement in exogenous attention. * This research was supported by grants PSI2011-26314 (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) and CEMU-2012-004 (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). Keywords: Attention, emotion, Posterior parietal cortex, Event-related potentials, Magnocellular, isoluminant stimuli Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Emotional and Social Processes Citation: Carretié L, Hoyos S, García-Rubio MJ, Kessel D, Tapia M, Capilla A, Albert J and López-Martín S (2015). Isoluminant figure-ground emotional stimuli reveal the crucial role of the magnocellular visual system in exogenous (automatic) attention. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00065 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Prof. Luis Carretié, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Psicología, Madrid, Spain, carretie@uam.es Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Luis Carretié Sandra Hoyos María J García-Rubio Dominique Kessel Manuel Tapia Almudena Capilla Jacobo Albert Sara López-Martín Google Luis Carretié Sandra Hoyos María J García-Rubio Dominique Kessel Manuel Tapia Almudena Capilla Jacobo Albert Sara López-Martín Google Scholar Luis Carretié Sandra Hoyos María J García-Rubio Dominique Kessel Manuel Tapia Almudena Capilla Jacobo Albert Sara López-Martín PubMed Luis Carretié Sandra Hoyos María J García-Rubio Dominique Kessel Manuel Tapia Almudena Capilla Jacobo Albert Sara López-Martín Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.