Anxious anticipation prolongs emotional interference for rapid visual detection.

Abstract

When we view emotionally arousing images, our perception of stimuli that follow soon afterward is transiently impaired—a phenomenon known as emotion-induced blindness. Previous studies have demonstrated that the magnitude and time course of this visual processing impairment is exaggerated by the presence of psychopathology and anxiety-related traits. Here, we tested whether emotional interference on a primary task can be modulated on a more dynamic basis, by the anticipation of unpredictable electric shock. We embedded naturalistic scenes in a 10-Hz rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream, while varying the hedonic content of distractor images (aversive or neutral) and their temporal position (200, 400, and 700 ms) with respect to landscape targets. In Experiment 1, we found that, under typical conditions, aversive distractors induced a temporary visual performance decrement that exhibited a full rebound following a 400-ms distractor-target lag. In Experiment 2, subjects performed an identical RSVP task while under continuous threat of electric shock. We found that threat of unpredictable electric shock prolonged the duration of the emotional interference out to 400 ms and 700 ms, without affecting the overall magnitude of the performance impairment. In Experiment 3, the prolonged emotional interference under threat of unpredictable electric shock persisted at the 400-ms lag despite observed practice effects within subjects.

Blinded by and Stuck in Negative Emotions: Is Psychological Inflexibility Across Different Domains Related?

“…We operationalized emotion-induced blindness as the difference in target detection accuracy following negative vs. neutral distractors, separately for lag 2 and lag 4 trials. This operationalization matches several studies examining whether emotion-induced blindness is sensitive to individual differences (Berenbaum et al, 2018 ; Haddara et al, 2019 ; Most et al, 2005 ; Olatunji et al, 2013 ; Onie & Most, 2017 ). However, other operationalizations also exist, such as using accuracy following negative distractors only (Onie & Most, 2017 ) or comparing accuracy following negative distractors at different lags to index emotional disengagement specifically (Kennedy & Most, 2015 ; Olatunji, 2021 ).…”

“…Consistent with this idea, emotion-induced blindness has been linked with individual differences in difficulty terminating (but not initiating) episodes of worry assessed in daily life in a predominantly Caucasian sample (Berenbaum et al, 2018 ), and with self-reported repetitive negative thinking (using similar measures to the current study; Kennedy & Most, 2015 ; Onie & Most, 2017 , but see Onie & Most, 2021 ). In an experiment with U.S. undergraduates, Haddara et al ( 2019 ) found that emotion-induced blindness persisted at longer latencies (e.g., 400–700 ms) following an anticipatory anxiety induction (i.e., the threat of electric shock). This finding suggests that heightened anxiety—which characterizes episodes of worry and repetitive negative thinking—may make it more difficult for people to flexibly shift their attention away from emotional and towards neutral stimuli.…”

Blinded by and stuck in negative emotions: Is psychological inflexibility across different domains related?

“…We operationalized emotion-induced blindness as the difference in target detection accuracy following negative vs. neutral distractors, separately for lag 2 and lag 4 trials. This operationalisation matches several studies examining whether emotion-induced blindness is sensitive to individual differences (Berenbaum et al, 2018;Haddara et al, 2019;Most et al, 2005;Olatunji et al, 2013;Onie & Most, 2017). However, other operationalisations also exist, such as using accuracy following negative distractors only (Onie & Most, 2017) or comparing accuracy following negative distractors at different lags to index emotional disengagement specifically (Kennedy & Most, 2015;Olatunji, 2021).…”

“…Second, correlations between emotion-induced blindness and psychopathology measures may be state-rather than traitdependent. Research showing that inducing state anxiety prolongs the duration of emotioninduced blindness (Haddara et al, 2019) supports this possibility. Future research should seek to clarify whether associations between emotion-induced blindness and psychopathology measures are state-rather than trait-dependent by measuring state and trait levels of a particular domain within the same sample.…”

“…However, emotion-induced blindness also has flow on effects for attention allocation that may be related to individual differences in cognitive and affective inflexibility. In one example, emotion-induced blindness was found to persist at longer latencies (e.g., 400-700 ms) following an anxiety induction (Haddara et al, 2019). This finding suggests that an inability to flexibly shift attention away from emotional and towards neutral stimuli (i.e., emotion-induced blindness) may be exacerbated by negative affect and therefore be associated with other forms of affective and cognitive inflexibility.…”