Negative Emotional Stimuli Reduce Contextual Cueing but not Response Times in Inefficient Search

Abstract

In visual search previous work has shown that negative stimuli narrow the focus of attention and speed reaction times (RTs). This paper investigates these two effects by first, asking whether negative emotional stimuli narrows the focus of attention to reduce the learning of a display context in a contextual cueing task, and second whether exposure to negative stimuli also reduce RTs in inefficient search tasks. In Experiment 1 participants viewed either negative or neutral images (faces or scenes) prior to a contextual cueing task. In a typical contextual cueing experiment RTs are reduced if displays are repeated across the experiment compared with novel displays that are not repeated. The results showed that a smaller contextual cueing effect was obtained after participants viewed negative stimuli compared to when they viewed neutral stimuli. However, in contrast to previous work, overall search RTs were not faster after viewing negative stimuli (Experiments 2 to 4). The findings are discussed in terms of the impact of emotional content on visual processing and the ability to use scene context to help facilitate search.3

Mechanisms of contextual cueing: A tutorial review

“…This and other findings on the nature of learned context and the limitations of this learning (Assumpção, Shi, Zang, Müller, & Geyer, 2018;Chua & Chun, 2003;Conci, Müller, & von Mühlenen, 2013;Conci & von Mühlenen, 2009;Feldmann-Wüstefeld & Schubö, 2014) may bring us to new fronts in understanding the power and limitations of experience-guided attention. For instance, a promising emerging research area explores the interaction between contextual cueing and emotions and stress (Kunar, Watson, Cole, & Cox, 2014b;Meyer, Quaedflieg, Bisby, & Smeets, 2019), further uncovering the nuances of spatial statistical learning and its relationship to conscious task goals, stimulus salience, and other implicit factors.…”

The influence of attention on value integration

“…One explanation for this could arise from the idea of reciprocal neural interactions between brain areas involved in attention and emotional valuation (Raymond et al 2003). Recent research has begun to examine the interaction that attention has on reward and judgements (Anderson et al 2011, Raymond et al 2003, Fenske et al 2004, Raymond, Fenske & Westoby, 2005, Kunar, Watson, Cole & Cox, 2014), suggesting that brain areas involved in these tasks (e.g. the anterior cingulate and the orbitofrontal cortices) are linked by neural circuitry (Fenske et al 2004, Raymond et al 2003) and are concurrently activated during attention and evaluation tasks (e.g.…”

It is not good to talk: conversation has a fixed interference cost on attention regardless of difficulty

“…They proposed that when participants were actively engaged in a conversation they “dropped” the secondary task entirely (Wickens et al, 2002). Furthermore, previous research has shown that asking a participant to be actively engaged in search (opposed to passively searching the display) leads to an impairment in attentional performance, rather than an improvement (Smilek, Enns, Eastwood, & Merikle, 2006 ; see also Lleras & Von Mühlenen, 2004 , Olivers & Nieuwenhuis, 2005 , Kunar, Watson, Cole, & Cox, 2014 , Watson, Brennan, Kingstone, & Enns, 2010 and Kunar, Ariyabandu, & Jami, 2016 , who showed that actively giving participants a choice led to an increase in RTs and search efficiency). Therefore, if anything, having participants be more engaged in a conversation would predict an impairment in performance, rather than an improvement.…”