Three experiments evaluated whether facial expression can modulate the allocation of focused attention. Identification of emotionally expressive target faces was typically faster when they were flanked by identical (compatible) faces compared with when they were flanked by different (incompatible) faces. This flanker compatibility effect was significantly smaller when target faces expressed negative compared with positive emotion (see Experiment 1A); however, when the faces were altered to disrupt emotional expression, yet retain feature differences, equal flanker compatibility effects were observed (see Experiment 1B). The flanker-compatibility effect was also found to be smaller for negative target faces compared compatibility with neutral target faces, and for both negative and neutral target faces compared with positive target faces (see Experiment 2). These results suggest that the constriction of attention is influenced by facial expressions of emotion.

Our central goal is to provide a definition of boredom in terms of the underlying mental processes that occur during an instance of boredom. Through the synthesis of psychodynamic, existential, arousal, and cognitive theories of boredom, we argue that boredom is universally conceptualized as "the aversive experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity." We propose to map this conceptualization onto underlying mental processes. Specifically, we propose that boredom be defined in terms of attention. That is, boredom is the aversive state that occurs when we (a) are not able to successfully engage attention with internal (e.g., thoughts or feelings) or external (e.g., environmental stimuli) information required for participating in satisfying activity, (b) are focused on the fact that we are not able to engage attention and participate in satisfying activity, and (c) attribute the cause of our aversive state to the environment. We believe that our definition of boredom fully accounts for the phenomenal experience of boredom, brings existing theories of boredom into dialogue with one another, and suggests specific directions for future research on boredom and attention.

Distinct complex brain systems support selective attention and emotion, but connections between them suggest that human behavior should reflect reciprocal interactions of these systems. Although there is ample evidence that emotional stimuli modulate attentional processes, it is not known whether attention influences emotional behavior. Here we show that evaluation of the emotional tone (cheery/dreary) of complex but meaningless visual patterns can be modulated by the prior attentional state (attending vs. ignoring) used to process each pattern in a visual selection task. Previously ignored patterns were evaluated more negatively than either previously attended or novel patterns. Furthermore, this emotional devaluation of distracting stimuli was robust across different emotional contexts and response scales. Finding that negative affective responses are specifically generated for ignored stimuli points to a new functional role for attention and elaborates the link between attention and emotion. This finding also casts doubt on the conventional marketing wisdom that any exposure is good exposure.

Gaze direction signals another person's focus of interest. Facial expressions convey information about their mental state. Appropriate responses to these signals should reflect their combined influence, yet current evidence suggests that gaze-cueing effects for objects near an observed face are not modulated by its emotional expression. Here, we extend the investigation of perceived gaze direction and emotional expression by considering their combined influence on affective judgments. While traditional response-time measures revealed equal gaze-cueing effects for happy and disgust faces, affective evaluations critically depended on the combined product of gaze and emotion. Target objects looked at with a happy expression were liked more than objects looked at with a disgust expression. Objects not looked at were rated equally for both expressions. Our results demonstrate that facial expression does modulate the way that observers utilize gaze cues: Objects attended by others are evaluated according to the valence of their facial expression.

No abstract