Department of Psychological Science, Kwansei Gakuin University (KGU), Nishinomiya, Hyogo, 662-8501, Japan.
Center for Applied Psychological Science (CAPS), Kwansei Gakuin University, Nishinomiya, Hyogo, 662-8501, Japan.
Exp Brain Res. 2024 Jun;242(6):1399-1409. doi: 10.1007/s00221-024-06796-w. Epub 2024 Apr 3.
Previous studies have found that emotional states affect the extent of attention, and the effect has been explained by adaptive views. If the adaptive explanations are true, emotion should modulate attentional focus toward a peripheral stimulus. The present study investigated if emotion affects the focus of attention toward a peripheral target in a visual search paradigm with event-related brain potential (ERP) measurement. In each trial of the experiment, participants performed a visual search task after an emotion (unpleasant, neutral, or pleasant) was induced by presenting an international affective picture system (IAPS) image. We measured N2pc, which is an ERP index reflecting attentional focus toward a peripheral target in a visual search, and compared the amplitudes among the emotion conditions. According to the adaptive view of emotional effects on cognition, this study hypothesized that unpleasant emotion would enhance the focus of attention, and pleasant emotion would inhibit it. These hypotheses predicted that N2pc amplitude would increase with unpleasant emotion and decrease with pleasant emotion. However, this study obtained inconsistent results; N2pc amplitude decreased in the unpleasant condition, and there was no significant effect of pleasant emotion on the ERP. The results suggest that unpleasant emotion inhibited the attentional focusing process. This is the first report to examine how emotion modulates the focus of attention toward a peripheral target in a visual search by using ERP. The findings contribute to understanding the relationship between emotion and cognition.
先前的研究发现情绪状态会影响注意力的广度，而这种影响可以通过适应性观点来解释。如果适应性解释是正确的，那么情绪应该会调节注意力集中在周边刺激上。本研究通过事件相关脑电位（ERP）测量，调查了情绪是否会影响视觉搜索范式中对周边目标的注意力集中。在实验的每一次试验中，参与者在呈现国际情感图片系统（IAPS）图像以引发情绪（不愉快、中性或愉快）后，执行视觉搜索任务。我们测量了 N2pc，它是反映视觉搜索中对周边目标注意力集中的 ERP 指标，并比较了不同情绪条件下的振幅。根据情绪对认知影响的适应性观点，本研究假设不愉快的情绪会增强注意力集中，而愉快的情绪会抑制它。这些假设预测 N2pc 振幅会随着不愉快的情绪增加而增加，随着愉快的情绪减少而减少。然而，本研究得到了不一致的结果；在不愉快的条件下 N2pc 振幅减小，而愉快的情绪对 ERP 没有显著影响。结果表明，不愉快的情绪抑制了注意力集中的过程。这是第一个通过使用 ERP 来检查情绪如何调节视觉搜索中对周边目标的注意力集中的研究报告。这些发现有助于理解情绪和认知之间的关系。
