Valence or Arousal? The Effect of Emotions on Attention Mechanisms

Description

Page: 199-205

Shruti Kharade and Padmakumari (Department of Psychology, Christ (Deemed to be University), Bangalore)

Investigating emotion-attention interactions has implications for clinical, educational, and cognitive training settings. Previous studies have indicated the separate roles of valence and arousal (affective components) in influencing attentional mechanisms. However, recent studies have suggested an interactional effect. Thus, the present study investigated the interaction between valence and arousal components and their effect on attentional breadth and attentional flexibility. Sixty-one participants were considered. Experiment 1(n = 31) focused on the effect of the affective components on attentional breadth (measured by reaction time to respond to global targets on the Navon task). Experiment 2 (n = 30) focused on the effect of the affective components on attentional flexibility (measured by reaction time to respond to invalid cues on Posner’s covert attentional orienting task). The study used the Chieti Affective Action Videos (CAAV) database for emotional manipulation to ensure ecological validity. In both experiments, participants were shown CAAV and asked to perform the Navon (experiment 1) or the Posner cueing (experiment 2) tasks. Friedman’s repeated measures nonparametric test was used to calculate the difference in attentional breadth (experiment 1) or attentional flexibility (experiment 2) between the experimental conditions. Experiment 1 reports a significant narrowing of attention in the high arousal conditions (especially the negative high arousal condition). Experiment 2 reported a significant decrease in attentional flexibility in the negative high arousal condition. These findings support the extant literature and discussions related to the discrete- dimensional perspective of emotions. Furthermore, the evolutionary and clinical indications are discussed.