Cue Valence Research Articles

Black and White as Valence Cues

Replication efforts involving large samples are recommended in helping to determine the reliability of an effect. This approach was taken for a study from Meier, Robinson, and Clore (2004) , one of the first papers in social cognition guided by conceptual metaphor theory, which reported that evaluations were faster when word valence metaphorically matched (e.g., a word with a negative meaning in black) rather than mismatched (e.g., a word with a negative meaning in white) font color. The present investigation was a direct large-scale replication attempt involving 980 participants who completed an experiment using web-based software and were diverse in terms of race, age, and geographical location. Words with a positive meaning were evaluated faster when font color was white rather than black and words with a negative meaning were evaluated faster when font color was black rather than white, replicating the main results of Meier et al. (2004) .

Networks of prospective thoughts: The organisational role of emotion and its impact on well-being

Recent research has shown that many prospective thoughts are organised in networks of related events, but the relational dimensions that contribute to the formation of such networks are not fully understood. Here, we investigated the organisational role of emotion by using cues of different valence for eliciting event networks. We found that manipulating the emotional valence of cues influenced the characteristics of events within networks, and that members of a network were more similar to each other on affective components than they were to members of other networks. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of events within networks were part of thematic clusters and cluster membership significantly modulated the impact of represented events on current well-being, in part through an intensification of the emotion felt when thinking about these events. These findings demonstrate that emotion contributes to the organisation of future thoughts in networks that can affect people's well-being.

Valenced cues and contexts have different effects on event-based prospective memory.

This study examined the separate influence and joint influences on event-based prospective memory task performance due to the valence of cues and the valence of contexts. We manipulated the valence of cues and contexts with pictures from the International Affective Picture System. The participants, undergraduate students, showed higher performance when neutral compared to valenced pictures were used for cueing prospective memory. In addition, neutral pictures were more effective as cues when they occurred in a valenced context than in the context of neutral pictures, but the effectiveness of valenced cues did not vary across contexts that differed in valence. The finding of an interaction between cue and context valence indicates that their respective influence on event-based prospective memory task performance cannot be understood in isolation from each other. Our findings are not consistent with by the prevailing view which holds that the scope of attention is broadened and narrowed, respectively, by positively and negatively valenced stimuli. Instead, our findings are more supportive of the recent proposal that the scope of attention is determined by the motivational intensity associated with valenced stimuli. Consistent with this proposal, we speculate that the motivational intensity associated with different retrieval cues determines the scope of attention, that contexts with different valence values determine participants’ task engagement, and that prospective memory task performance is determined jointly by attention scope and task engagement.

Emotional valence differentially affects encoding and retrieval of prospective memory in older adults

Studies manipulating emotional valence in prospective memory (PM) have so far revealed inconsistent results. In the present study, two experiments were conducted to systematically disentangle the effects of varying emotional valence in the encoding versus retrieval phase of PM in older adults. Results showed that, while cue valence at retrieval had no influence on PM performance, at encoding both positive and negative valence resulted in reduced PM performance. Findings suggest that emotional valence may have an influence on mnemonic processes at encoding rather than modifying cue detection in aging.

Differential effects of emotional cues on components of prospective memory: an ERP study.

So far, little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms associated with emotion effects on prospective memory (PM) performance. Thus, this study aimed at disentangling possible mechanisms for the effects of emotional valence of PM cues on the distinct phases composing PM by investigating event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants were engaged in an ongoing N-back task while being required to perform a PM task. The emotional valence of both the ongoing pictures and the PM cues was manipulated (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant). ERPs were recorded during the PM phases, such as encoding, maintenance, and retrieval of the intention. A recognition task including PM cues and ongoing stimuli was also performed at the end of the sessions. ERP results suggest that emotional PM cues not only trigger an automatic, bottom-up, capture of attention, but also boost a greater allocation of top-down processes. These processes seem to be recruited to hold attention toward the emotional stimuli and to retrieve the intention from memory, likely because of the motivational significance of the emotional stimuli. Moreover, pleasant PM cues seemed to modulate especially the prospective component, as revealed by changes in the amplitude of the ERP correlates of strategic monitoring as a function of the relevance of the valence for the PM task. Unpleasant pictures seemed to modulate especially the retrospective component, as revealed by the largest old/new effect being elicited by unpleasant PM pictures in the recognition task.

Drinking motives and attentional bias to affective stimuli in problem and non-problem drinkers.

Problem drinking may reflect a maladaptive means of coping with negative emotions or enhancing positive emotions. Disorders with affective symptoms are often characterized by attentional biases for symptom-congruent emotionally valenced stimuli. Regarding addictions, coping motivated (CM) problem gamblers exhibit an attentional bias for negative stimuli, whereas enhancement motivated (EM) problem gamblers exhibit this bias for positive stimuli (Hudson, Jacques, & Stewart, 2013). We predicted that problem drinkers would show similar motive-congruent attentional biases. Problem and non-problem drinkers (n = 48 per group) completed an emotional orienting task measuring attentional biases to positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. As predicted, EM problem drinkers showed an attentional bias for positive information (i.e., reduced accuracy for positively cued trials). However, CM problem drinkers displayed a general distractibility (i.e., reduced accuracy, regardless of cue valence). The results add further support for Cooper et al.'s (1992) motivational model of alcohol use, and indicate potential motivation-matched intervention targets. (PsycINFO Database Record

Attention to Emotional Information in Social Anxiety Disorder With and Without Co-Occurring Depression

Despite the high comorbidity of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), we know little about how persons with co-occurring SAD–MDD compare to their counterparts with pure disorders. In the present study we investigated attention to facial emotional stimuli in adult women with SAD only (n = 18), MDD only (n = 24), co-occurring SAD–MDD (n = 24), and healthy controls (CTL; n = 33). Participants were exposed to angry, sad, neutral, and happy faces for 200 and 1,000 ms as cues in a Posner attention task. We examined patterns of attentional engagement, disengagement, and vigilance-avoidance as a function of cue valence. Across the attentional indices, both the SAD and SAD–MDD groups differed most consistently from the MDD and CTL groups: they exhibited differential patterns of attention to angry, sad, and happy faces, including relatively greater vigilance-avoidance for angry faces. There was little evidence for any MDD-associated biases in attention. Findings suggest that the attentional processing of emotional information in SAD generally overrides the potential influence of co-occurring MDD. Implications for the understanding and treatment of co-occurring SAD–MDD are discussed.

Influences of appearance-behaviour congruity on memory and social judgements

Prior work shows that appearance-behaviour congruity impacts memory and evaluations. Building upon prior work, we assessed influences of appearance-behaviour congruity on source memory and judgement strength to illustrate ways congruity effects permeate social cognition. We paired faces varying on trustworthiness with valenced behaviours to create congruent and incongruent face-behaviour pairs. Young and older adults remembered congruent pairs better than incongruent, but both were remembered better than pairs with faces rated average in appearance. This suggests that multiple, even conflicting, valenced cues improve memory over receiving fewer cues. Consistent with our manipulation of facial trustworthiness, congruity effects were present in the strength of trustworthiness-related but not dominance judgements. Subtle age differences emerged in congruity effects when learning about others, with older adults showing effects for approach judgements given both high and low arousal behaviours. Young adults had congruity effects for approach, prosociality and trustworthiness judgements, given high arousal behaviours only. These findings deepen our understanding of how appearance-behaviour congruity impacts memory for and evaluations of others.

Contrasting losses and gains increases the predictability of behavior by frontal EEG asymmetry.

Frontal asymmetry measured at rest using EEG is considered a stable marker of approach-avoidance behaviors and risk taking. We examined whether without salient cues of attention in the form of losses, predictability is reduced. Fifty-seven participants performed an experiential decision task in a gain-only, loss-only, and mixed (gains and losses) condition. Increased risk taking on the part of individuals with relatively high left frontal activation, as denoted by the Alpha band, was only observed in the task involving both gains and losses. Event-related potential analysis sheds light on the processes leading to this pattern. Left-frontal dominant individuals had increased fronto-central P300 activation following risky compared to safe outcomes, while right-frontal dominant individuals did not show a P300 difference following safe and risky outcomes. This interaction also only emerged when losses were contrasted with gains. The findings highlight the sensitivity of behavioral predictability to cues of valence.

Voice-Sensitive Regions in the Dog and Human Brain Are Revealed by Comparative fMRI

During the approximately 18-32 thousand years of domestication, dogs and humans have shared a similar social environment. Dog and human vocalizations are thus familiar and relevant to both species, although they belong to evolutionarily distant taxa, as their lineages split approximately 90-100 million years ago. In this first comparative neuroimaging study of a nonprimate and a primate species, we made use of this special combination of shared environment and evolutionary distance. We presented dogs and humans with the same set of vocal and nonvocal stimuli to search for functionally analogous voice-sensitive cortical regions. We demonstrate that voice areas exist in dogs and that they show a similar pattern to anterior temporal voice areas in humans. Our findings also reveal that sensitivity to vocal emotional valence cues engages similarly located nonprimary auditory regions in dogs and humans. Although parallel evolution cannot be excluded, our findings suggest that voice areas may have a more ancient evolutionary origin than previously known.

Not so harmless anymore: How context impacts the perception and electrocortical processing of neutral faces

Our first impression of others is highly influenced by their facial appearance. However, the perception and evaluation of faces is not only guided by internal features such as facial expressions, but also highly dependent on contextual information such as secondhand information (verbal descriptions) about the target person. To investigate the time course of contextual influences on cortical face processing, event-related brain potentials were investigated in response to neutral faces, which were preceded by brief verbal descriptions containing cues of affective valence (negative, neutral, positive) and self-reference (self-related vs. other-related). ERP analysis demonstrated that early and late stages of face processing are enhanced by negative and positive as well as self-relevant descriptions, although faces per se did not differ perceptually. Affective ratings of the faces confirmed these findings. Altogether, these results demonstrate for the first time both on an electrocortical and behavioral level how contextual information modifies early visual perception in a top-down manner.

TheXenopusAmygdala Mediates Socially Appropriate Vocal Communication Signals

Social interaction requires that relevant sensory information is collected, classified, and distributed to the motor areas that initiate an appropriate behavioral response. Vocal exchanges, in particular, depend on linking auditory processing to an appropriate motor expression. Because of its role in integrating sensory information for the purpose of action selection, the amygdala has been implicated in social behavior in many mammalian species. Here, we show that two nuclei of the extended amygdala play essential roles in vocal communication in the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. Transport of fluorescent dextran amines identifies the X. laevis central amygdala (CeA) as a target for ascending auditory information from the central thalamic nucleus and as a major afferent to the vocal pattern generator of the hindbrain. In the isolated (ex vivo) brain, electrical stimulation of the CeA, or the neighboring bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), initiates bouts of fictive calling. In vivo, lesioning the CeA of males disrupts the production of appropriate vocal responses to females and to broadcasts of female calls. Lesioning the BNST in males produces an overall decrease in calling behavior. Together, these results suggest that the anuran CeA evaluates the valence of acoustic cues and initiates socially appropriate vocal responses to communication signals, whereas the BNST plays a role in the initiation of vocalizations.

Reduced Specificity of Autobiographical Memory in Traumatized Adolescents: Exploring the Contributions of Impaired Executive Control and Affect Regulation

Reduced specificity of autobiographical memories retrieved to word cues on the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) associated with increased posttraumatic stress in traumatized samples has been already confirmed, though the researches for the adolescents are still not very substantial. Theoretical debates concerning the dominant influences on this effect have focused on affect regulation, whereby specific personal information is avoided more by those experiencing greater distress, versus impaired executive control, whereby increased distress is associated with an inability to set aside inappropriately general responses on the AMT. The present study compared these 2 views using AMT and AMT-R (the reversed version of the AMT) together. All the participants were recruited from a nonclinical and normal middle school. Participants (divided into three groups: high-PTSD, n = 31, low-PTSD, n = 32, and nontraumatic controls, n = 30)were required to generate specific memories response to emotion-related cue words in the AMT, whereas had to generate general memories from the past in the AMT-R. An emphasis on the role of affect regulation would predict that distress would be associated with reduced specificity (as in the standard AMT), whereas emphasis on the role of executive control would predict that this relationship should be reversed. The results indicated that, in contrast with the earlier studies, high-PTSD and low-PTSD groups behaved less specificity than nontraumatic controls and high-PTSD group also had generated less specific memories than low-PTSD group, regardless of cue valence in the AMT. But there were no significant differences of specific memories among the three groups in the AMT-R. The findings suggested that reduced autobiographical memory specificity has been demonstrated in traumatized adolescents in this study, and the results of AMT and AMT-R supported the affect regulation may play a greater role. Moreover, the clinical implications of the current research are discussed.

Inducing symptoms in high symptom reporters via emotional pictures: The interactive effects of valence and arousal

ObjectiveProcessing unpleasant emotional cues induces elevated reporting of physical symptoms, especially in people with high habitual symptom reporting. The present study examined the role of valence and arousal of emotional pictorial cues on this effect. MethodsFemale participants (N=45; 21 high/24 low habitual symptom reporters) viewed six series of emotional pictures with a homogeneous affective content: low arousal/positive, high arousal/positive, low arousal/negative, high arousal/negative-disgust, high arousal/negative-threat and neutral. Heart rate (HR) and skin conductance level (SCL) were recorded during picture viewing and a symptom checklist and valence and arousal ratings were completed after each trial. ResultsHigh habitual symptom reporters reported more symptoms than low habitual symptom reporters overall, but this difference was more pronounced when processing unpleasant high arousing cues. No group differences were found on physiological measures for any of the conditions, while perceived valence and arousal both moderated the relationship between habitual symptom reporting and symptom induction. ConclusionThese findings show an interactive effect of unpleasantness and high arousal on elevated symptom reporting in high habitual symptom reporters, suggesting that different characteristics of emotional cues contribute to a somatic memory activation process leading to the experience of elevated symptoms.

Mothers' amygdala response to positive or negative infant affect is modulated by personal relevance

Understanding, prioritizing and responding to infant affective cues is a key component of motherhood, with long-term implications for infant socio-emotional development. This important task includes identifying unique characteristics of one's own infant, as they relate to differences in affect valence—happy or sad—while monitoring one's own level of arousal. The amygdala has traditionally been understood to respond to affective valence; in the present study, we examined the potential effect of personal relevance on amygdala response, by testing whether mothers' amygdala response to happy and sad infant face cues would be modulated by infant identity. We used functional MRI to measure amygdala activation in 39 first-time mothers, while they viewed happy, neutral and sad infant faces of both their own and a matched unknown infant. Emotional arousal to each face was rated using the Self-Assessment Manikin Scales. Mixed-effects linear regression models were used to examine significant predictors of amygdala response. Overall, both arousal ratings and amygdala activation were greater when mothers viewed their own infant's face compared with unknown infant faces. Sad faces were rated as more arousing than happy faces, regardless of infant identity. However, within the amygdala, a highly significant interaction effect was noted between infant identity and valence. For own-infant faces, amygdala activation was greater for happy than sad faces, whereas the opposite trend was seen for unknown-infant faces. Our findings suggest that the amygdala response to positive or negative valenced cues is modulated by personal relevance. Positive facial expressions from one's own infant may play a particularly important role in eliciting maternal responses and strengthening the mother-infant bond.

Sustained incentive value of heroin-related cues in short- and long-term abstinent heroin users

Models of addiction and addiction memory propose that drug-associated cues elicit incentive effects in drug users, which play an important role in maintenance of drug use and relapse. Incentive effects have been demonstrated for smoking and alcohol-related cues but evidence for heroin-related cues has been inconclusive. Furthermore, it is unknown whether appetitive effects of heroin-related cues persist after prolonged abstinence, although heroin addiction is known to have high relapse rates. Therefore, we investigated implicit and explicit valence of heroin-related cues in dependent users at different stages of abstinence using affective startle modulation. In Study I, 15 current heroin users were measured before and after detoxification. Correspondingly, 15 healthy control participants were tested twice at an interval of 14 days. In Study II, 14 long-term abstinent heroin users were additionally measured in a single session. Implicit processing of drug-related stimuli was assessed using affective startle modulation by pictures of heroin and smoking scenes. Explicit reactions were measured using ratings of valence and craving. In contrast to controls, heroin-dependent participants showed a clear reduction of startle response during heroin-related pictures (p<0.05). Detoxification did not significantly change their startle responses to heroin-cues. No difference between non-detoxified current and long-term abstinent heroin users was found in implicit reactions to heroin-cues, whereas explicit measures differed between both groups (all p<0.05). After detoxification and even after prolonged abstinence, heroin cues still exert implicit appetitive effects in heroin users. This implies that drug-induced adaptations of reward circuits are long-lasting, resulting in a highly stable addiction memory.

When colors backfire: The impact of color cues on moral judgment

This article investigates if and how the valence of color cues affects moral acceptability of (un)desirable consumer behaviors. Study 1 uses colors with definite differences in terms of valence, namely, red and green. Study 2 applies an evaluative conditioning paradigm to endow initially neutral colors with negative versus positive valences. We find an ironic color effect: undesirable behaviors become more acceptable when presented with negatively valenced colors. In general, respondents find (un)desirable behaviors more acceptable when a background color is of the same valence rather than neutral or opposite in valence. Implications for promotion and prevention campaigns are discussed.

Examining the Effects of Cue Valence and Attention Load on Prospective Memory

Previous research has shown that emotion can affect memory. The current study examines the influence of target cues’ valence on prospective memory performance under both nondivided and divided attention loads. We predict that positive and negative valence words will lead to better prospective memory performance than neutral words. Understanding exactly how target cue valence impacts prospective remembering is vital in the future research and design of memory aids.

The factor structure of the Autobiographical Memory Test in recent trauma survivors.

The objective of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), which is widely used to measure overgeneral autobiographical memory in individuals with depression and a trauma history. Its factor structure and internal consistency have not been explored in a clinical sample. This study examined the psychometric properties of the AMT in a sample of recent trauma survivors (N = 194), who completed the AMT 2 weeks after a trauma. Participants were also assessed with structured clinical interviews for current acute stress disorder and current and past major depressive disorder. Confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory were used to analyze the AMT in the whole sample. The factor structure of the AMT was also compared for (a) individuals with and without lifetime major depressive disorder and (b) individuals with current (posttrauma) major depressive disorder and/or acute stress disorder versus those with neither disorder. In all of these analyses, the AMT with cues of positive and negative valence had a 1-factor structure, which replicates work in nonclinical samples. Based on analyses of the whole sample, scores from the AMT had a reliability estimate of .72, and standard error of measurement was lowest for people who scored low on memory specificity. In conclusion, the AMT measures 1 factor of memory specificity in a clinical sample and can yield reliable scores for memory specificity. More psychometric studies of the AMT are needed to replicate these results with similar and other clinical populations.

Feedback-related negativity encodes outcome uncertainty in the gain domain but not in the loss domain

Outcome uncertainty plays an important role in decision making. The present study used event-related potentials (ERP) combined with a simple gambling task to investigate the time course of outcome uncertainty processing in the gain and the loss domains. Behaviorally, participants showed a preference for the uncertain option in the gain domain, whereas they showed no such preference in the loss domain. In ERP analyses, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) amplitudes mirrored the behavioral results: for gains, cue-elicited FRN amplitudes were more negative for uncertain than for certain cues, whereas for losses, cue-elicited FRN amplitudes for certain cues and uncertain cues were not different. In contrast, the P300 amplitude was sensitive to the valence of cues (gains or losses) but not to the uncertainty of the outcome. These results suggest that the outcome uncertainty is rapidly and differentially processed in the gain and loss domains.