Peng Ming, Cai Mengfei, Zhou Renlai
aDepartment of Psychology, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing bSchool of psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan cBeijing Key Lab of Applied Experimental Psychology, School of Psychology dState Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University eCenter for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing, China fDepartment of Psychology, West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, West Virginia, USA.
Neuroreport. 2015 Dec 2;26(17):1056-60. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0000000000000467.
Attentional load may be increased by task-relevant attention, such as difficulty of task, or task-irrelevant attention, such as an unexpected light-spot in the screen. Several studies have focused on the influence of task-relevant attentional load on task-irrelevant emotion processing. In this study, we used event-related potentials to examine the impact of task-irrelevant attentional load on task-irrelevant expression processing. Eighteen participants identified the color of a word (i.e. the color Stroop task) while a picture of a fearful or a neutral face was shown in the background. The task-irrelevant attentional load was increased by regularly presented congruence trials (congruence between the color and the meaning of the word) in the regular condition because implicit sequence learning was induced. We compared the task-irrelevant expression processing between the regular condition and the random condition (the congruence and incongruence trials were presented randomly). Behaviorally, reaction times for the fearful face condition were faster than the neutral faces condition in the random condition, whereas no significant difference was found in the regular condition. The event-related potential results indicated enhanced positive amplitudes in P2, N2, and P3 components relative to neutral faces in the random condition. In comparison, only P2 differed significantly for the two types of expressions in the regular condition. The study showed that attentional load increased by implicit sequence learning influenced the late processing of task-irrelevant expression.
注意力负荷可能会因与任务相关的注意力（如任务难度）或与任务无关的注意力（如屏幕上意外出现的亮点）而增加。几项研究聚焦于与任务相关的注意力负荷对与任务无关的情绪加工的影响。在本研究中，我们使用事件相关电位来考察与任务无关的注意力负荷对与任务无关的表情加工的影响。18名参与者在背景中呈现恐惧或中性面孔图片的同时识别一个单词的颜色（即颜色斯特鲁普任务）。在常规条件下，通过定期呈现一致试验（单词颜色与意义之间的一致）增加与任务无关的注意力负荷，因为会诱发内隐序列学习。我们比较了常规条件和随机条件（一致和不一致试验随机呈现）下与任务无关的表情加工情况。行为学上，在随机条件下，恐惧面孔条件下的反应时间比中性面孔条件下更快，而在常规条件下未发现显著差异。事件相关电位结果表明，在随机条件下，相对于中性面孔，P2、N2和P3成分中的正向波幅增强。相比之下，在常规条件下，两种表情类型仅在P2上存在显著差异。该研究表明，内隐序列学习增加的注意力负荷影响了与任务无关表情的后期加工。
