Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, 6229 ER, Maastricht, Netherlands.
Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2022 Dec;22(6):1250-1263. doi: 10.3758/s13415-022-01025-9. Epub 2022 Jul 25.
Stimuli that evoke emotions are salient, draw attentional resources, and facilitate situationally appropriate behavior in complex or conflicting environments. However, negative and positive emotions may motivate different response strategies. For example, a threatening stimulus might evoke avoidant behavior, whereas a positive stimulus may prompt approaching behavior. Therefore, emotional stimuli might either elicit differential behavioral responses when a conflict arises or simply mark salience. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate valence-specific emotion effects on attentional control in conflict processing by employing an adapted flanker task with neutral, negative, and positive stimuli. Slower responses were observed for incongruent than congruent trials. Neural activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex was associated with conflict processing regardless of emotional stimulus quality. These findings confirm that both negative and positive emotional stimuli mark salience in both low (congruent) and high (incongruent) conflict scenarios. Regardless of the conflict level, emotional stimuli deployed greater attentional resources in goal directed behavior.
在复杂或冲突的环境中，引发情绪的刺激物是显著的，会吸引注意力资源，并促进情境适当的行为。然而，消极和积极的情绪可能会激发不同的反应策略。例如，威胁性的刺激可能会引起回避行为，而积极的刺激可能会促使接近行为。因此，当出现冲突时，情绪刺激可能会引发不同的行为反应，或者只是标记显著度。本研究使用功能磁共振成像技术，通过采用带有中性、负性和正性刺激的改编版 Flanker 任务，研究了效价特异性情绪对冲突处理中的注意控制的影响。与一致试验相比，不一致试验的反应速度较慢。背侧前扣带皮层的神经活动与冲突处理有关，而与情绪刺激质量无关。这些发现证实，负性和正性情绪刺激在低（一致）和高（不一致）冲突情况下都标记显著度。无论冲突水平如何，情绪刺激在目标导向行为中都部署了更多的注意力资源。
