Brosch Tobias, Sander David, Pourtois Gilles, Scherer Klaus R
Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Psychol Sci. 2008 Apr;19(4):362-70. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02094.x.
There is much empirical evidence for modulation of attention by negative -- particularly fear-relevant -- emotional stimuli. This modulation is often explained in terms of a fear module. Appraisal theories of emotion posit a more general mechanism, predicting attention capture by stimuli that are relevant for the needs and goals of the organism, regardless of valence. To examine the brain-activation patterns underlying attentional modulation, we recorded event-related potentials from 20 subjects performing a dot-probe task in which the cues were fear-inducing and nurturance-inducing stimuli (i.e., anger faces and baby faces). Highly similar validity modulation was found for the P1 time-locked to target onset, indicating early attentional capture by both positive and negative emotional stimuli. Topographic segmentation analysis and source localization indicate that the same amplification process is involved whether attention orienting is triggered by negative, fear-relevant stimuli or positive, nurturance-relevant stimuli. These results confirm that biological relevance, and not exclusively fear, produces an automatic spatial orienting toward the location of a stimulus.
有大量实证证据表明，负面——尤其是与恐惧相关的——情绪刺激会对注意力产生调节作用。这种调节作用通常用恐惧模块来解释。情绪评估理论提出了一种更普遍的机制，预测与有机体的需求和目标相关的刺激会吸引注意力，而不论其效价如何。为了研究注意力调节背后的大脑激活模式，我们记录了20名受试者在执行点探测任务时的事件相关电位，其中线索是诱发恐惧和诱发养育之情的刺激（即愤怒面孔和婴儿面孔）。在与目标开始时间锁定的P1中发现了高度相似的有效性调节，表明正面和负面情绪刺激都会在早期吸引注意力。地形分割分析和源定位表明，无论是由负面的、与恐惧相关的刺激还是正面的、与养育之情相关的刺激触发注意力定向，都涉及相同的放大过程。这些结果证实，生物学相关性而非仅仅是恐惧，会产生对刺激位置的自动空间定向。
