Negative emotional photographs are identified more slowly than positive photographs

Abstract

In three experiments, we investigated whether the emotional valence of a photograph influenced the amount of time required to initially identify the contents of the image. In Experiment 1, participants saw a slideshow consisting of positive, neutral, and negative photographs that were balanced for arousal. During the slideshow, presentation time was substantially limited (60 ms), and the images were followed by masks. Immediately following the slideshows, participants were given a recognition memory test. Memory performance was best for positive images and worst for negative images (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, two simultaneous photographs were briefly presented and masked. On a trial-by-trial basis, participants indicated whether the two images were identical or not, thus removing the need for memory storage and retrieval. Again, performance was worst for negative images. The results of Experiment 3 suggested that these valence-based differences were not related attentional effects (Experiment 3). We argue that the valence of an image is detected rapidly and, in the case of negative images, interferes with processing the identity of the scene.

Timing affect: Dimension-specific time-based expectancy for affect.

“…The projections from the amygdala to the visual cortex are magnocellular. Bocanegra and Zeelenberg (2009) and Becker (2012) suggested that these magnocellular projections shift the balance in the visual system from ventral to dorsal processing, because the dorsal visual pathway has primarily magnocellular input, while the ventral path relies on parvocellular input (Maunsell, Nealey, & DePriest, 1990). This serves behavioral motivational functions, because the dorsal pathway translates valence into automatic approach—or avoidance—responses.…”

“…However, conscious taskrule guided behavior-such as the gender classification in our task-requires processing in the ventral visual pathway. Consequently, conscious rule-based processing is slowed down for affective-especially negative-pictures (Becker, 2012;Maljkovic & Martini, 2005). We assume that time-based expectancy results in a temporally specific preemptive activation of the ventral pathway to counteract its anticipated deficit.…”

Emotional Prosody in Interjections: A Case of Non-arbitrariness in Language

“…The results indicate that emotional prosody modulates word processing. There have also been claims that processing differences exist between positive and negative emotions, whereby positive emotions give a processing advantage in different contexts (cf., e.g., Becker, 2012;Nobata, Hakoda, & Ninose, 2010). The present study of positive vs. negative emotions aimed to discover the effects of types (dimensions) of emotion.…”

Interference of Emotional Information in Briefly Presented Scene Arrays

“…In other words, attention is effectively captured by a distracting, task-irrel-evant emotional event, and causes attentional disengagement from the originally attended task (Gupta, Hur, & Lavie, 2016;Nummenmaa, Hyönä, & Calvo, 2006). An emotional event presented prior to, simultaneously with, or even after a neutral event disrupts processing of other neutral events, which has been attributed to an instinctive and involuntary attentional shift toward those emotional events (Becker, 2012;Choisdealbha et al, 2017;Fernández-Martín & Calvo, 2016;Krug & Carter, 2012;Öhman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001;Oca et al, 2012;Sakaki, Gorlick, & Mather, 2011). Likewise, eye movement studies illustrate that initial fixations are more likely to land on emotional information (Adolphs, Tranel, & Buchanan, 2015;Calvo & Lang, 2005), and that semantic details of emotional information can be picked up even in peripheral vision (Bocanegra & Zeelenberg, 2009;Calvo et al, 2008).…”