Psychology Department, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
PLoS One. 2009 Nov 19;4(11):e7924. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007924.
It is well known that facial expressions represent important social cues. In humans expressing facial emotion, fear may be configured to maximize sensory exposure (e.g., increases visual input) whereas disgust can reduce sensory exposure (e.g., decreases visual input). To investigate whether such effects also extend to the attentional system, we used the "attentional blink" (AB) paradigm. Many studies have documented that the second target (T2) of a pair is typically missed when presented within a time window of about 200-500 ms from the first to-be-detected target (T1; i.e., the AB effect). It has recently been proposed that the AB effect depends on the efficiency of a gating system which facilitates the entrance of relevant input into working memory, while inhibiting irrelevant input. Following the inhibitory response on post T1 distractors, prolonged inhibition of the subsequent T2 is observed. In the present study, we hypothesized that processing facial expressions of emotion would influence this attentional gating. Fearful faces would increase but disgust faces would decrease inhibition of the second target.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We showed that processing fearful versus disgust faces has different effects on these attentional processes. We found that processing fear faces impaired the detection of T2 to a greater extent than did the processing disgust faces. This finding implies emotion-specific modulation of attention.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Based on the recent literature on attention, our finding suggests that processing fear-related stimuli exerts greater inhibitory responses on distractors relative to processing disgust-related stimuli. This finding is of particular interest for researchers examining the influence of emotional processing on attention and memory in both clinical and normal populations. For example, future research could extend upon the current study to examine whether inhibitory processes invoked by fear-related stimuli may be the mechanism underlying the enhanced learning of fear-related stimuli.
众所周知，面部表情代表着重要的社会线索。在人类表达面部情绪时，恐惧可能被配置为最大化感官暴露（例如，增加视觉输入），而厌恶则可以减少感官暴露（例如，减少视觉输入）。为了研究这些影响是否也扩展到注意力系统，我们使用了“注意力眨眼”（AB）范式。许多研究已经记录到，当一对中的第二个目标（T2）在第一个待检测目标（T1）之后约 200-500 毫秒的时间窗口内呈现时，通常会错过第二个目标（即 AB 效应）。最近有人提出，AB 效应取决于门控系统的效率，该系统有助于将相关输入输入工作记忆，同时抑制不相关的输入。在 T1 分心物之后进行抑制性反应后，会观察到对随后的 T2 的长时间抑制。在本研究中，我们假设处理情绪的面部表情会影响这种注意力门控。恐惧的面孔会增加，但厌恶的面孔会减少对第二个目标的抑制。
方法/主要发现：我们发现，处理恐惧表情与处理厌恶表情对这些注意力过程有不同的影响。我们发现，处理恐惧表情比处理厌恶表情更能损害 T2 的检测。这一发现意味着情绪对注意力的特异性调节。
结论/意义：根据最近关于注意力的文献，我们的发现表明，与处理厌恶相关的刺激相比，处理与恐惧相关的刺激会对分心物产生更大的抑制反应。这一发现对于研究情绪处理对正常和临床人群注意力和记忆的影响的研究人员特别感兴趣。例如，未来的研究可以扩展当前的研究，以检验恐惧相关刺激引起的抑制过程是否是恐惧相关刺激增强学习的机制。
