Is emotional Stroop interference linked to affective responses? Evidence from skin conductance and facial electromyography.

In two experiments, we examined affective responses and attentional bias toward threat. We compared three dimensions of affective responses (subjective, expressive, physiological) to negative and neutral stimuli in high and low anxious participants and examined whether these responses correlated with attentional interference in an emotional Stroop task. We used an evaluative conditioning procedure to manipulate the affective value of stimuli subsequently used in a Stroop task. We measured facial EMG (Experiment 1), skin conductance (Experiment 2), and subjective evaluations (both experiments). High anxious participants displayed Stroop interference from negatively conditioned stimuli. Both high and low anxious participants showed increased facial expressions and physiological arousal to negatively conditioned stimuli during the Stroop task. Findings suggest that differences between high and low anxious participants are more important in the cognitive processing of threat than affective reactions to threat.