Arnell Karen M, Killman Kassandra V, Fijavz David
Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Emotion. 2007 Aug;7(3):465-77. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.7.3.465.
Participants are usually able to search rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams and report a single target, given that RSVP distractors do not typically deplete attention required for target identification. Here, participants performed single target search, but the target was preceded by a to-be-ignored distractor varying in valence and arousal. When the critical distractor was a sexual word, lower target accuracy was observed, particularly at short distractor-target stimulus onset asynchronies, even when participants were shown the critical distractors beforehand and told to ignore them. No reduction in target accuracy was evidenced when the critical distractor was negative, positive, threatening, or emotionally neutral. Target accuracy was predicted by participants' arousal ratings to the critical distractor words and by their memory for them, but not by their valence ratings. Memory for critical distractors mediated the relationship between arousal and target accuracy. The results provide evidence that arousing sexual words involuntarily capture attention and enter awareness at the expense of goal-driven targets, at least in the context of laboratory experiments performed by young university participants for whom sexual material might have high impact and relevance.
参与者通常能够搜索快速序列视觉呈现（RSVP）流并报告单个目标，前提是RSVP中的干扰项通常不会耗尽目标识别所需的注意力。在此，参与者进行单目标搜索，但目标之前有一个需要被忽略的干扰项，其效价和唤醒水平各不相同。当关键干扰项是一个性相关词汇时，观察到目标准确性较低，尤其是在干扰项与目标的刺激开始异步时间较短时，即使参与者事先看到了关键干扰项并被告知忽略它们。当关键干扰项为负面、正面、威胁性或情绪中性时，目标准确性没有降低。目标准确性由参与者对关键干扰项词汇的唤醒评分及其对这些词汇的记忆预测，而不是由其效价评分预测。对关键干扰项的记忆介导了唤醒与目标准确性之间的关系。结果表明，至少在年轻大学参与者进行的实验室实验背景下，刺激性的性相关词汇会不由自主地吸引注意力并进入意识，从而以目标驱动的目标为代价，这些年轻参与者可能会受到性相关材料的高度影响且与之相关。
