Automatic Attention Research Articles

Effect of negative emotional stimuli on working memory: Impact of voluntary and automatic attention.

Emotions are known to influence cognitive performance, particularly working memory (WM) in both its aspects, processing, and maintenance. One explanatory mechanism might be that negative stimuli capture attentional resources, leaving fewer resources for attentional maintenance and processing of information in WM. However, this attentional capture was only investigated using WM tasks in which participants were explicitly asked to process negative items. The aim of this paper was to determine whether explicit processing of emotional stimuli is necessary to impair WM performance, or if their mere presence is enough to capture attention. For this purpose, participants performed a complex span task in which they alternated between memorizing a series of neutral words and processing either emotional images or neutral ones. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to explicitly process emotional images, whereas in Experiment 2, emotional images were presented without any processing being required. In both experiments, we observed a decrease in memory performance when the images were negative compared to neutral. Whether or not voluntary processing is involved, emotional images seem to capture attentional resources, which in turn leads to a decline in memory performance. These results were discussed in relation to attentional theories and the influence of emotion on the specific mechanisms of WM.

Emojis and affective priming in visual word recognition

ABSTRACT Emojis are frequently used in digital communication to supplement the lack of non-verbal cues, but their integration during reading has not been thoroughly examined. This study explores the interplay between language and emotion by testing the influence of emotional valence and face-status of emojis on visual word recognition. Two online experiments were conducted with 92 native English-speaking university students, examining priming effects between congruent (e.g. delicious) and incongruent (e.g. hate) prime-target pairs, varying the face-status of the emoji prime (face vs. non-face) and the valence (positive vs. negative) of the word target. Irrespective of valence, face emojis demonstrated a processing advantage over non-face emojis, implying automatic attention capture. Additionally, the results revealed an interaction between prime-target congruency and valence, with a facilitatory effect for positive, but not negative, items, suggesting a valence-specific mechanism of affective priming in the lexical decision task. The research suggests that the rapid integration of emoji content occurs during the early stages of visual word recognition, with heightened attentional sensitivity to both face-like and positive stimuli when reading digital communications.

Visual spatial attention to sexual stimuli

Visual events of high salience are thought to automatically attract visual processing resources to their location. Hence, we should expect that stimuli with sexual content should trigger such a movement of visual resources. However, evidence for such an allocation of visual resources is sparse and rather contradictory. In two studies we tested this hypothesis. Using a dot-probe task, Experiment 1 showed that targets occurring at the location of a briefly presented and uninformative cue (hence engaging “exogenous” attention) with sexual content were responded to more rapidly than those that occurred at the location of the neutral cue - thus confirming that sexual stimuli can attract automatic attention to their location. However, the effect was small and had a low level of reliability. No consistent gender differences were found. In Experiment 2, we examined whether this cueing effect remained even for low-visibility cues. No cueing effects were found, but the task manipulation also abolished the cueing effect for high visibility cues. While the study supports the notion of spatial allocation of visual resources to sexual stimuli, it highlights that this effect is not robust or reliable, and discusses the implications of this.

Effector-independent Representations Guide Sequential Target Selection Biases in Action.

Previous work shows that automatic attention biases toward recently selected target features transfer across action and perception and even across different effectors such as the eyes and hands on a trial-by-trial basis. Although these findings suggest a common neural representation of selection history across effectors, the extent to which information about recently selected target features is encoded in overlapping versus distinct brain regions is unknown. Using fMRI and a priming of pop-out task where participants selected unpredictable, uniquely colored targets among homogeneous distractors via reach or saccade, we show that color priming is driven by shared, effector-independent underlying representations of recent selection history. Consistent with previous work, we found that the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) was commonly activated on trials where target colors were switched relative to those where the colors were repeated; however, the dorsal anterior insula exhibited effector-specific activation related to color priming. Via multivoxel cross-classification analyses, we further demonstrate that fine-grained patterns of activity in both IPS and the medial temporal lobe encode information about selection history in an effector-independent manner, such that ROI-specific models trained on activity patterns during reach selection could predict whether a color was repeated or switched on the current trial during saccade selection and vice versa. Remarkably, model generalization performance in IPS and medial temporal lobe also tracked individual differences in behavioral priming sensitivity across both types of action. These results represent a first step to clarify the neural substrates of experience-driven selection biases in contexts that require the coordination of multiple actions.

The influence of single-session reward-based attentional bias modification on attentional biases towards threat as measured by the N2pc component.

Attentional biases toward threatening faces have repeatedly been studied in the context of social anxiety, with etiological theories suggesting exacerbated biases as a possible cause for the latter. To counteract these postulated effects, research has focused on the concept of attentional bias manipulation (ABM), in which spatial contingencies between succeeding stimuli are traditionally employed in training paradigms designed to deliberately shift automatic attention processes away from threat-related stimuli. The ABM research field has been faced with various methodological challenges, such as inconsistent results, low reliabilities of dependent variables and a high susceptibility to moderating factors. We aimed to combine several recent approaches to address these issues. Drawing upon theories of value-driven attention, we explored reward-based contingencies in a Dot Probe task to improve the training's efficacy, combined with neurophysiological measures for greater reliability compared to reaction times, while evaluating the moderating effect of explicitness in the instruction. In a healthy sample (N = 60) and within a single session, we found a general attentional bias toward angry faces present across all conditions as indicated by the N2pc, which was, however, marked by large intrinsic lateralization effects, with submeasures exhibiting opposing polarities. This prompted us to explore an alternative, intrahemispheric calculation method. The new N2pc variant showed the attentional bias to have disappeared at the end of the training session within the explicit instruction group. Reliabilities of the main dependent variables were varied from excellent to questionable, which, together with the exploratory nature of the analysis, leaves this result as preliminary.

(No) Effects of a Self-Kindness Intervention on Self-Esteem and Visual Self-Perception: An Eye-Tracking Investigation on the Time-Course of Self-Face Viewing.

Previous research has suggested a favorable impact of self-kindness on subjective well-being. The present experiment investigated the effects of an app-assisted self-kindness intervention for increasing self-esteem and self-face gaze, and for decreasing depression. We explored self-face processing via a time-course analysis of eye-tracking data. Eighty participants (56 female, 24 male; mean age: 23.2 years) were randomly allocated to one of two intervention groups, each receiving daily instructions to enhance either self-kindness or relaxation (active control). Following a one-week intervention period, both groups reported improved self-esteem (p = .035, ηpart2 = .068) and reduced depression (p < .001, ηpart2 = .17). The duration of self-face gaze increased in both groups (p < .001, ηpart2 = .21). Self-face processing was characterized by an early automatic attention bias toward the self-face, with a subsequent reduction in self-face bias, followed in turn by an attentional self-face reapproach, and then a stable self-face bias. We thus identified a complex temporal pattern of self-face inspection, which was not specifically altered by the intervention. This research sheds light on the potential for app-assisted interventions to positively impact psychological well-being, while also highlighting the complexity of self-face processing dynamics in this context. In the future, we propose the inclusion of personalized self-kindness statements, which may amplify the benefits of these interventions.

How far can the self be extended? Automatic attention capture is triggered not only by the self-face.

The preferential processing of self-related information is thought to be driven by its high level of familiarity. However, some behavioral studies have shown that people may exhibit a preference for initially unfamiliar stimuli that have been associated with themselves arbitrarily. One of the key questions that needs to be addressed concerns the role of early attention in the prioritization of newly acquired information associated with the self. Another question is whether both highly familiar as well as new information referring to a subjectively significant person (i.e. close-other) benefits from preferential attentional processing. We aimed to tackle both questions by investigating the neural mechanisms involved in processing extremely familiar stimuli, like one's own face or the face of a close-other, as well as stimuli (abstract shapes) that were newly linked to each person. We used a dot-probe paradigm that allowed us to investigate the early stages of attentional prioritization. Our analysis of the N2pc component unveiled that attention was automatically captured by the self-face, a shape associated with oneself, and the face of the close person. However, a shape associated with the close-other did not elicit the same attentional response, as the N2pc was absent. Thus, both the self-face and information referring to the extended self (self-assigned shape, close-other's face) benefit from preferential early and automatic attentional processing.

Automatic Positive and Negative Emotion Regulation in Adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder

Introduction: Adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) exhibit hypoactivity to positive stimuli and hyperactivity to negative stimuli in terms of neural responses. Automatic emotion regulation (AER) activates triple networks (i.e., the central control network, default mode network, and salience network). Based on previous studies, we hypothesized that adolescents with MDD exhibit dissociable spatiotemporal deficits during positive and negative AER. Methods: We first collected EEG data from 32 adolescents with MDD and 35 healthy adolescents while they performed an implicit emotional Go/NoGo task. Then, we characterized the spatiotemporal dynamics of cortical activity during AER. Results: In Go trials, MDD adolescents exhibited reduced N2 amplitudes, enhanced theta power for positive pictures, and stronger bottom-up information flow from the left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to the right superior frontal gyrus compared to top-down information flow than the controls. In contrast, in NoGo trials, MDD adolescents exhibited elevated P3 amplitudes, enhanced theta power, and stronger top-down information flows from the right middle frontal gyrus to the right OFC and the left insula than the controls. Conclusion: Overall, adolescents with MDD exhibited impaired automatic attention to positive emotions and impaired automatic response inhibition. These findings have potential implications for the clinical treatment of adolescents with MDD.

Attention Bias to Emotional Expression: Variations Based on Anxiety Tendency and Depression Tendency

Background: This study examined whether automatic attention bias toward emotional stimuli differs among individuals with varying anxiety and depression levels in the non-clinical population.Methods: A total of 494 participants from the community completed the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). The dot-probe task was conducted to compare attention biases when emotional stimuli appeared before the target versus neutral stimuli did.Results: There were differences in attention bias based on the stimuli types, even among the non-clinical community. The anxiety tendency group showed attention bias towards positive expressions, while the depression tendency group showed attention bias toward negative expressions. The group with anxiety and depression tendencies showed mixed characteristics observed in both the anxiety and depression groups.Conclusions: This study showed that attention bias toward emotional stimuli is an information-processing bias influenced by an individual’s internal state. This study contributes to the understanding of attention bias differences among groups based on anxiety and depression tendencies in non-clinical population of various ages.

Intolerance of uncertainty enhances generalisation of cued conditioned threat: An event-related potential study

Overgeneralisation is one of the aetiologies of anxiety disorders and is closely associated with elevated intolerance of uncertainty (IU) levels. However, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Considering the inconsistency of previous results and the high sensitivity of IU to uncertainty, the present study investigated the effect of IU on threat generalisation in predictable and unpredictable conditions. We compared self-reported unconditioned stimuli (US) expectancy and event-related potentials (ERPs) during generalisation in high IU (n = 34) and low IU (n = 35) participants. The results indicated that high IU was associated with higher US expectancy for generalisation stimuli (GS) than with low IU. At the electrophysiological level, compared to low IU, high IU showed increased P1 to ambiguous GS as well as decreased early late positive potential (LPP) to GS in unpredictable conditions, and no differential response to GS in late LPP in predictable conditions. These findings suggest that IU enhances threat generalisation and may be related to increased early automatic attention to ambiguous stimulus and inadequate late elaborate processing in a high uncertainty context. These findings might contribute to the treatment of mood disorders characterized by high IU.

(176) Unconscious Attention to Sexual Stimuli: An Electroencephalography Study Regarding the Role of Neuroticism and Sexual Excitation/Inhibition

Abstract Introduction Past research has shown that neuroticism is a higher-order vulnerability factor in developing and maintaining emotional disorders and is related to an increased risk of sexual dysfunction. In a recent study, neuroticism was found to impact the automatic attention towards sexual stimuli, but the influence of psychosexual dimensions on such cognitive processes is not fully established. Objective Our aim was to study the mediating role of sexual inhibition/excitation propensity in the relationship between neuroticism and automatic attention to sexual stimuli and also to identify the neuroelectric correlates of this process. Methods We studied 58 individuals (Mage = 23.63; SD = 0.97), who presented either high or low neuroticism levels in the NEO-Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R). Participants also completed the Sexual Inhibition/Excitation Scales (SIS/SES) and event-related potentials (ERP) P1, P2 and N2 were recorded during a modified oddball paradigm containing romantic and sexually explicit pictures. Using parallel mediation analyses, we simultaneously tested the mediating role of sexual inhibition/excitation in the relationship between neuroticism and each ERP of interest. Results Findings revealed an indirect effect of neuroticism on automatic attention, via SIS1, regardless of the type of stimuli. Such indirect effect was only significant for component N2, with increased amplitudes and earlier latencies in participants with high neuroticism. Effect sizes ranged from medium to large. Conclusions These results can be interpreted as a sign of an enhanced emotional response elicited by the exposure to the sexual content. Results also showed that neuroticism predicts sexual inhibition due to threat of performance failure (SIS1), but does not have an effect on sexual excitation (SES) or sexual inhibition due to threat of performance consequences (SIS2). Our findings suggest that automatic attentional mechanisms are closely related to personality and sexual-related domains, and support the relevance of studying non-conscious cognitive phenomena in the context of human sexual behaviour. Disclosure No

Vocabulary and automatic attention: The relation between novel words and gaze dynamics in noun generalization.

Words direct visual attention in infants, children, and adults, presumably by activating representations of referents that then direct attention to matching stimuli in the visual scene. Novel, unknown, words have also been shown to direct attention, likely via the activation of more general representations of naming events. To examine the critical issue of how novel words and visual attention interact to support word learning we coded frame-by-frame the gaze of 17- to 31-month-old children (n = 66, 38 females) while generalizing novel nouns. We replicate prior findings of more attention to shape when generalizing novel nouns, and a relation to vocabulary development. However, we also find that following a naming event, children who produce fewer nouns take longer to look at the objects they eventually select and make more transitions between objects before making a generalization decision. Children who produce more nouns look to the objects they eventually select more quickly following the naming event and make fewer looking transitions. We discuss these findings in the context of prior proposals regarding children's few-shot category learning, and a developmental cascade of multiple perceptual, cognitive, and word-learning processes that may operate in cases of both typical development and language delay. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Examined how novel words guide visual attention by coding frame-by-frame where children look when asked to generalize novel names. Gaze patterns differed with vocabulary size: children with smaller vocabularies attended to generalization targets more slowly and did more comparison than those with larger vocabularies. Demonstrates a relationship between vocabulary size and attention to object properties during naming. This work has implications for looking-based tests of early cognition, and our understanding of children's few-shot category learning.

Automatic Attention to Sexual Images of Men and Women in Androphilic, Ambiphilic, and Gynephilic Women

Attentional resources might be automatically attracted to highly motivational stimuli such as a possible sexual partner. We tested whether attention would be automatically attracted to images of men vs women in women with a self-reported sexual attraction to men (androphilic), women (gynephilic) or to both men and women (ambiphilic) in a dot-probe paradigm. While androphilic women showed a small bias toward the female images, both ambiphilic and gynephilic women showed a strong bias toward the female images. The results show that these early automatic processes of attention are toward women in this sample of ambiphilic women and therefore inconsistent with their self-report sexual preferences.

Automatic attention to sexual stimuli: exploring the role of neuroticism and sexual excitation/inhibition through event-related potentials.

Previous findings have shown that neuroticism is a higher-order vulnerability factor in the development and maintenance of sexual dysfunctions and can have an impact on the attentional processing of sexual stimuli; however, the influence of psychosexual dimensions on the early automatic phases of such cognitive processes has not been established yet. To examine the mediating role of sexual inhibition/excitation propensity in the relationship between neuroticism and automatic attention to visual erotica and to identify the neuroelectric correlates of such a process. We analyzed the answers provided by 58 individuals on the Neuroticism subscale of the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised and the Sexual Inhibition/Excitation Scales. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a modified oddball paradigm containing romantic and sexually explicit pictures. Parallel mediations were performed to simultaneously test the mediating role of sexual inhibition/excitation in the relationship between neuroticism and each ERP. Three early attention ERP components (P1, P2, and N2) were assessed. Findings revealed an indirect effect of neuroticism on automatic attention, via sexual inhibition due to threat of performance failure (SIS1), for romantic and sexually explicit stimuli. This effect was significant only for component N2, which showed increased amplitudes and earlier latencies in participants with high SIS1. Sexual stimuli, due to their emotional valence and arousal potential, might be perceived as virtually threatening by individuals with neuroticism, who may benefit from strategies that decrease hyperarousal and sympathetic activation. This was one of the first studies to analyze neuroelectric activity associated with automatic attention toward sexual stimuli in relation to personality and sexual excitation/inhibition propensity. Nevertheless, the limited number of participants demands caution in generalizing the results. These results provide a better understanding of the relationship between personality and sexual cognition and open new avenues of research in relation to other automatic cognitive phenomena related to human sexual behavior.

Is recovery from left-sided neglect based on changes in automatic attention? An auditory event related potentials study

An automatic spatial attention deficit is the primary deficit in neglect. However, the cognitive processes enabling recovery from neglect have rarely been studied. We used event-related potentials (ERP) to analyze if recovery is based on changes in automatic attention components. Twelve sub-acute patients with left visuospatial neglect were included. They received 3 weeks of intensive treatment. ERPs were recorded using two auditory paradigms: either a tone was presented randomly to the right or left ear (ATP) or as a Posner paradigm (PP) with left to right and vice versa moving cue tones and validly and invalidly cued target tones. Patients improved significantly on neuropsychological tests and neurological scales. For the ATP, no differences were observed related to the side of stimulation, but the auditory PP showed characteristic results, that is, smaller amplitudes for left-sided targets and higher amplitudes for invalid trials. Both paradigms revealed a treatment effect, but no changes were found in the amplitudes for the two target sides, which would be expected if the treatment would affect the automatic attention bias. Recovery from neglect seems not to be associated with changes in the automatic spatial attention bias, arguing that recovery might be due to higher cognitive compensatory processes.

Both low and high spatial frequencies drive the early posterior negativity in response to snake stimuli

Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have shown that snake pictures elicit greater early posterior negativity (EPN) compared to other animal pictures. The EPN reflects early selective visual processing of emotionally significant stimuli. Evidence for the role that high and low spatial frequencies play in the early detection of snakes is still inconsistent. The current study aims to clarify this by studying the effect of high and low spatial frequencies on the elevated EPN for snakes separately. Using a rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, participants viewed images of snakes, spiders and birds in three different conditions of filtered spatial frequencies: high spatial frequency, low spatial frequency, and full spatial frequency (the original image). P1 and mean EPN activity in a time window of 225–300 ms after stimulus onset were measured at the occipital cluster (O1, O2, Oz). The results show smaller P1 amplitudes and shorter P1 latencies in response to full-spectrum snake pictures compared to full-spectrum spider and bird pictures, and an increased EPN in response to snake pictures compared to spider and bird pictures in all three filtering conditions. The EPN in response to full-spectrum snake pictures was larger than the EPN in response to filtered snake images. No difference in EPN was found between the snake pictures in the high and low spatial frequency conditions. The results suggest that the roles of high and low spatial frequencies in early automatic attention to snakes are equally important.

Early hypervigilance and later avoidance: Event-related potentials track the processing of threatening stimuli in anxiety

Avoidance behavior is a core symptom of anxiety disorders that may hinder adaptation. Anxiety disorders are heterogeneous and previous research suggests to decompose anxiety into two dimensions: anxious apprehension and anxious arousal. How these two dimensions are associated with avoidance of and exposure to threatening stimuli, as well as their accompanying neural processes, is barely understood. We examined threat processing using event-related potentials (N1, LPP) from 134 individuals considering the influence of anxiety dimensions. During a two-phase picture-viewing task the participants watched neutral and threatening pictures, which they were instructed to either avoid or attend to during repeated presentations. Results showed that threatening compared to neutral pictures were associated with increased attention allocation (N1) and in-depth processing (LPP), modulated by task-instructions (lower during avoidance). Further, increased anxious apprehension was associated with heightened automatic attention (increased N1), followed by reduced LPP amplitudes for threatening pictures suggesting reduced in-depth processing. During re-exposure, threatening pictures were associated with increased in-depth processing, with no difference between previously avoided and maintained pictures. Together, these results illustrate that avoidance and high anxious apprehension seem to lead to similar neural changes in the processing of aversive images that may conflict with long-term adaptation.

Moral conviction and metacognitive ability shape multiple stages of information processing during social decision-making

Moral conviction has the potential to inspire activism and change, but can also instigate divisiveness and great harm. Moreover, attitudes held with moral conviction are experienced as universal objective truths and are less likely to demonstrate social conformity. Some evidence suggests that holding strong moral views may be a consequence of a cognitive style which includes lower metacognitive sensitivity. This study combined measures of attitudes, moral convictions, psychophysics, and electroencephalography (EEG) to determine how metacognition and moralization influence different stages of information processing during social decision-making, as well as the neural mechanisms underlying these effects. First, 170 participants were asked to indicate their attitudes and moral convictions about specific social issues that are currently important to US college students. Later, a subset of 81 participants completed a perceptual confidence task to assess their metacognition. Then, they underwent EEG while evaluating photographs of protests ostensibly about the same social issues. Prior to each photo, participants were provided with statistical information about social consensus from their peers for each issue. As predicted, stronger moral convictions were associated with lower social conformity. Furthermore, this effect was more pronounced in individuals with lower metacognitive ability. Moralized content was prioritized in multiple stages of information processing, including both early automatic attention and later deliberative stages, with medial frontal negativity (MFN) and early posterior negativity (EPN) predicting reduced conformity. Changes in alpha and high beta power indicated increased attention and engagement for moralized content. Together, results from these complementary methods and levels of analysis both converge to indicate that moralization alters sensitivity to social influence by shifting neural responses to efficiently prioritize information related to moralized beliefs.

The relation between belief in a just world and early processing of deserved and undeserved outcomes: An ERP study

ABSTRACT We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine how quickly people in general, and certain people in particular, process deservingness-relevant information. Female university students completed individual difference measures, including individual differences in the belief in a just world (BJW), a belief that people get what they deserve. They then read stories in which an outcome was deserved, undeserved, or neither deserved nor undeserved (i.e., “neutral”) while their ERPs were recorded with scalp electrodes. We found no overall differentiation between early ERP responses (<300 ms post-stimulus onset) to deserved, undeserved, and neutral outcomes. However, BJW correlated with the difference between early ERP responses to these forms of information (rs from |.44| to |.61|; ps from .018 to < .001). The early nature of our effects (e.g., 96 ms after stimulus onset) suggests individual differences in socially-relevant information processing that begins before conscious evaluation of the stimuli. Potential underlying processes include automatic attention to schema-relevant information and to unexpected (and therefore salient) information and automatic processing of belief-consistent information. Our research underscores the importance of the concept of deservingness in human information processing as well as the utility of ERP technology and robust statistical analyses in investigations of complex social stimuli.

Fearful temperament in middle childhood predicts adolescent attention bias and anxiety symptoms: The moderating role of frontal EEG asymmetry.

The current study provided first analyses of the moderating effect of baseline-to-task frontal EEG asymmetry on the associations between 9-year fearful temperament and adolescent attention bias to threat as well as anxiety symptoms. Participants include a community sample of 122 children (60 boys, 62 girls; Mage = 14.66 years; Range = 11.82-18.13 years). Baseline-to-task frontal EEG asymmetry at age 9 moderated the relation between fearful temperament at age 9 and adolescent anxiety symptoms. Specifically, fearful temperament predicted adolescent anxiety symptoms when children showed greater right activation from baseline to an executive function task, but not greater left activation. Baseline-to-task frontal EEG asymmetry moderated the association between fearful temperament and sustained (i.e., stimulus onset asynchrony is 1250 ms) but not automatic attention bias (i.e., stimulus onset asynchrony is 500 ms). Children with greater left frontal activation from baseline to task more efficiently direct attention away from threat. Adolescent automatic attention bias to threat was related to concurrent anxiety symptoms. These findings illustrate the importance of considering frontal EEG asymmetry to shape how fearful children process threat and to influence their behavioral problems.