The present study was designed to explore the performance costs of negative emotional stimuli in a vigilance task. Forty participants performed a vigilance task in two conditions: one with task-irrelevant negative-arousing pictures and one with task-irrelevant neutral pictures. In addition to performance, we measured subjective state and frontal cerebral activity with near infrared spectroscopy. Overall performance in the negative picture condition was lower than in the neutral picture condition and the negative picture condition had elevated levels of energetic (...) arousal, tense arousal and task-related thoughts. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between the impact of the negative pictures on tense arousal and task-related thoughts and the impact of the negative pictures on performance . These results provide support for indirect cost models of negative emotional stimuli on target detection performance. (shrink)

It is well-documented that emotional stimuli impact both the cognitive and motor aspects of “goal-directed” behavior. However, how emotional distractors impact motor performance remains unclear. This study aimed to characterize how movement quality was impacted during emotional distractors. We used a modified oddball paradigm and documented the performance of pure movement. Participants were designated to draw a triangle or a polygon, while an emotional stimulus was presented. Speed was assessed using reaction time and movement time. (...) The quality and precision of movement were assessed by calculating the accuracy and root-mean-square error. Compared to drawings of triangles, polygons had higher accuracy under negative stimuli, but lower RMSE under positive stimuli. The results indicate that distracting emotional stimuli impact different aspects of movement quality, with movement complexity influencing accuracy under negative distractors and precision under positive distractors. This study provides further evidence that movement precision is an important feature of emotional embodiment that should be incorporated in future studies. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSpatial cueing paradigms are popular tools to assess human attention to emotional stimuli, but different variants of these paradigms differ in what participants’ primary task is. In one variant, participants indicate the location of the target, whereas in the other they indicate the shape of the target. In the present paper we test the idea that although these two variants produce seemingly comparable cue validity effects on response times, they rest on different underlying processes. Across four studies using (...) both variants and manipulating the motivational relevance of cue content, diffusion model analyses revealed that cue validity effects in location tasks are primarily driven by response biases, whereas the same effect rests on delay due to attention to the cue in identification tasks. Based on this, we predict and empirically support that a symmetrical distribution of valid and invalid cues would reduce cue validity... (shrink)

Lindquist et al. assess the neural evidence for locationist versus psychological construction accounts of human emotion. A wealth of experimental and clinical investigations show that individual differences in emotion and personality influence emotion processing. These factors may also influence the brain's response to emotional stimuli. A synthesis of the relevant neuroimaging data must therefore take these factors into consideration.

The role of cognitive control mechanisms in reducing interference from emotionally salient distractors was investigated. In two experiments, participants performed a flanker task in which target-distractor affective compatibility and cognitive load were manipulated. Differently from past studies, targets and distractors were presented at separate spatial locations and cognitive load was not domain-specific. In Experiment 1, words and faces, were used respectively as targets and distractors, whereas in Experiment 2, both targets and distractors were faces. Findings showed interference from distractor processing (...) only when cognitive load was high. The present findings indicate that, when targets and distractors are presented at different spatial locations, cognitive control mechanisms are involved in preventing interference from positive or negative distractors. The role of stimulus valence and type is also discussed with regard to different patterns of interference observed. (shrink)

Boundary extension is a memory phenomenon in which an individual reports seeing more of a scene than they actually did. We provide the first examination of boundary extension in individuals diagnosed with depression, hypothesising that an overemphasis on pre-existing schema may enhance boundary extension effects on emotional photographs. The relationship between boundary extension and overgeneralisation in autobiographical memory was also explored. Individuals with (n = 42) and without (n = 41) Major Depressive Disorder completed a camera paradigm task utilising (...) positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. Across all participants, positive (d = 0.37) and negative (d = 0.66) stimuli were extended more than neutral stimuli. This effect did not differ between depressed and never-depressed participants. Across all participants, images containing objects were extended more than images containing faces. An association was also evident between extension effects in memory for perceptual space and extensions of autobiographical memory across time. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that the perception of neutral emotion stimuli can be negative rather than absolutely neutral. In the current study, we examined the negative bias of both neutral faces...

BackgroundMethamphetamine addicts can experience severe emotional processing disorders, with abnormal responses to emotional and drug-related stimuli. These aberrant behaviors are one of the key factors leading to relapse. Nevertheless, the characteristics of addicts’ responses to drug-related stimuli and their responses to emotional stimuli remain controversial.Methods52 methamphetamine addicts from China passively viewed three different categories of images: Drug-related; positive emotional; and negative emotional. In the first task, participants completed a 9-point Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) (...) scale, rating the valence of each image. In the second, they performed a cued-action task while electroencephalography (EEG) data were recorded.ResultDrug-related images were rated negatively, with an average rating of 3.57. However, reaction times to drug-related stimuli were significantly faster than for negative stimuli (p = 0.030), and were indistinguishable from positive stimuli (p > 0.99). Similarly, EPN amplitudes evoked by drug-related images were significantly larger than those evoked by negative stimuli (p 0.99). LPP amplitudes evoked by drug-related stimuli were significantly smaller than those evoked by negative (p < 0.001) and positive stimuli (p = 0.004).ConclusionDespite negative self-assessments of drug-related imagery, MA-addicts reaction times were no slower than positive reactions. Similarly, drug-related and positive imagery EPN amplitudes were indistinguishable. Together, these results suggest increased attentional resources were allocated to the processing of drug-related stimuli and the pathways responsible partially overlap with the those recruited in processing positive emotional imagery in addicts. Moreover, in the late stage of visual processing, MA-addicts showed reduced brain activity in response to drug-related stimuli, suggesting reverse inhibition in response preparation and emotional appraisal. These findings may provide a reference for clinicians treating drug-taking behavior and for the development of new models of rehabilitation therapy. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 84-95, January 2022. Emotional stimuli such as images, words, or video clips are often used in studies researching emotion. New sets are continuously being published, creating an immense number of available sets and complicating the task for researchers who are looking for suitable stimuli. This paper presents the KAPODI-database of emotional stimuli sets that are freely available or available upon request. Over 45 aspects including over 25 key set (...) characteristics have been extracted and listed for each set. The database facilitates finding of and comparison between individual sets. It currently contains sets published between 1963 and 2020. A searchable online version allows users to select specific set characteristics and to find matching sets accordingly, as well as to add new published sets. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 84-95, January 2022. Emotional stimuli such as images, words, or video clips are often used in studies researching emotion. New sets are continuously being published, creating an immense number of available sets and complicating the task for researchers who are looking for suitable stimuli. This paper presents the KAPODI-database of emotional stimuli sets that are freely available or available upon request. Over 45 aspects including over 25 key set (...) characteristics have been extracted and listed for each set. The database facilitates finding of and comparison between individual sets. It currently contains sets published between 1963 and 2020. A searchable online version allows users to select specific set characteristics and to find matching sets accordingly, as well as to add new published sets. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNon-suicidal self-injury is commonly used by young adults to regulate emotional responses. Yet, experimental examination of how people who self-injure appraise and respond to emotional stimuli is limited. We examined appraisals of, and responses to, emotive images in young adults who did and did not self-injure, and assessed whether these were impacted by exposure to a stressor. Study 1 examined whether participants differed in their appraisals of emotional images. Study 2 assessed whether appraisals of images changed (...) after exposure to the Trier Social Stress Test. Ratings of emotional valence and arousal were collected in both studies; skin conductance was measured as an indicator of physiological arousal in Study 2. In Study 1 participants reporting NSSI rated positively valenced images as less pleasant than participants not reporting NSSI. In Study 2, after acute stress, participants reporting NSSI displayed dampened physiological reactions to positive images whereas pa... (shrink)

Traditional research on emotion-face processing has primarily focused on the expression of basic emotions using adult emotional face stimuli. Stimulus sets featuring child faces or emotions other than basic emotions are rare. The current study describes the acquisition and evaluation of the Qingdao Preschooler Facial Expression set, a facial stimulus set with images featuring 54 Chinese preschoolers’ emotion expressions. The set includes 712 standardized color photographs of six basic emotions, five discrete positive emotions, and a neutral expression. The (...) validity of the pictures was examined based on 43 adult raters’ online evaluation, including agreement between designated emotions and raters’ labels, as well as intensity and representativeness scores. Overall, these data should contribute to the developmental and cross-cultural research on children’s emotion expressions and provide insights for future research on positive emotions. (shrink)

Spontaneous intrusive recollections are known to follow emotional events in clinical and non-clinical populations. Previous work in our lab has found that women report more SIRs than men after exposure to emotional films, and that this effect is driven entirely by women in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. To replicate and extend this finding, participants viewed emotional films, provided saliva samples for sex hormone concentration analysis, and estimated SIR frequency following film viewing. Women in the (...) luteal phase reported significantly more SIRs than did women in the follicular phase, and SIR frequency significantly correlated with salivary progesterone levels. The results are consistent with an emerging pattern in the literature suggesting that menstrual cycle position of female participants can potently influence findings in numerous cognitive domains. The potential implications of these results for disorders characterized by intrusions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, are also discussed. (shrink)