The effect of task-irrelevant emotional information on attentional process

1. The effect of task-irrelevant emotional information on attentional process Yang-Ming Huang http://yangming.huang.googlepages.com Louvain-la-Neuve May 2007

3. Background • Task-irrelevant emotional information captures attention and impair task performance Vuilleumier et al. (2001)

4. Background • Task-irrelevant emotional information does not capture attention when processing load is high Pessoa et al. (2002)

5. Goal • To understand how task-irrelevant emotional information affects • Spatial attention • Temporal attention

6. The effect of task-irrelevant emotional information on spatial attentional processing http://www.sinauer.com/wolfe/sampler/figures/index.php

7. Visual Search Task Task-irrelevant colour information impair visual search performance.

8. General Method • IV • Target presence (Yes or No)* • Set size (4, 8 or 16) • Condition (NEU, EMO-T or EMO-D) • DV • Visual search slope

9. Term Explanation • NEU: Task-irrelevant emotional information do not provide information on target location

10. Term Explanation • EMO-T: Task-irrelevant emotional information provides information on target location

11. Term Explanation • EMO-D: Task-irrelevant emotional information provides false information on target location

12. Does task-irrelevant emotional information capture attention? NEU EMO-T EMO-D

14. Does task-irrelevant emotional information capture attention when it is more salient in the display? NEU EMO-T EMO-D

16. Does task-irrelevant emotional information capture attention when the task is more difficult? NEU EMO-T EMO-D

18. SURPRISE TRIAL What if task-irrelevant emotional information is always indicative of target location? NEU EMO-T

19. 65% of the participants got the surprise trial wrong

20. Interim summary • Attentional capture by task-irrelevant emotional information is modulated • Saliency of the emotional information • Strategy

21. The effect of task-irrelevant emotional information on temporal attentional processing http://www.sinauer.com/wolfe/sampler/figures/index.php

22. distractor Q Q Attentional blink task M A P X target U

23. Look for “X” – Difficult version A C L N B P W X Q

24. Look for “X” – Easy version A C L W X B P N Q

25. General Method • IV • Emotionality of the distractor • Number of items between the distractor and the target (Lag) • DV • Percentage of target accuracy filler distractor Lag filler target filler filler

26. Does task-irrelevant emotional information capture attention when semantic processing is required? 89*$#!@ 75 ms tragedy Distractor 82&{/;# banana Target #”;!<%@ <?*$6!@

27. Emotional distractor caused more impairment on target detection

28. Does task-irrelevant emotional information capture attention when perceptual processing is required? 89*$#!@ 75 ms tragedy Distractor 82&{/;# BANANA Target #”;!<%@ <?*$6!@

29. Emotional distractor did not cause more interference on target detection

30. Is semantic processing necessary for emotional distractors to capture more attention? 89*$#!@ 75 ms tragedy Distractor 82&{/;# pear heir mayor prayer spare stair heir Target #”;!<%@ <?*$6!@

31. Emotional distractor did not cause more interference on target detection

32. Possible role of difference in processing load • Processes involved when participants perform the AB task • Task-relevant processing: Semantic, perceptual or phonological judgment task • Task-irrelevant processing: Emotionality of the distractor • It is plausible that task-irrelevant processing only takes place when task-relevant processing requires low load

33. Is this a fruit word? No, move on to the next item Is this a fruit word? 89*$#!@ tragedy Distractor tragedy 82&{/;# banana Target #”;!<%@ <?*$6!@ • Use different types of categorisation task to investigate this possible confound

34. Semantic Fruit or not Perceptual Uppercase or not Phonological Rhymes with “pear” or not Design 75 ms + tragedy #”;!<%@ Judge Words leading to “No” response Emotional and neutral distractor words used in previous experiments Words leading to “Yes” response Semantic: 28 Fruit words Perceptual: 26 Fruit + 2 non-Fruit Phonological: 28 words rhyme with “pear”

36. banana BANANA Semantic Target Perceptual Target Possible role of individual difference • Within-subject manipulation of processing requirement to examine whether or not the results were due to sampling bias 89*$#!@ tragedy Distractor 82&{/;#

37. Perceptual Semantic

38. Interim Summary • Task-irrelevant emotional information do not always capture attention under attentional blink settings • Attentional capture by task-irrelevant emotional information is modulated by semantic processing

39. Conclusion • Task-irrelevant emotional information does not always affect attentional process • Two factors modulates attentional capture by task-irrelevant emotional information • Ease to extract the emotional information • Strategy

40. Alan Baddeley Andy Young Yei-Yu Yeh Yu-Ting Wang Thank you for listening

42. Is semantic information available? • Investigate to what extent the emotional distractors were processed when they did not cause more interference on target detection • Manipulate the semantic association between the distractor and the target word. But participants were told to look for a word in uppercase as in Exp 2

43. 89*$#!@ tragedy Distractor 82&{/;# ROUND Target #”;!<%@ <?*$6!@ Non-semantic associate 89*$#!@ tragedy Distractor 82&{/;# ACCIDENT Target #”;!<%@ <?*$6!@ Semantic associate

44. Neutral distractor Emotional distractor Semantic information was temporarily available and yet emotional distractor did not cause more interference on target detection

45. Why semantic processing requirement is necessary? • Task-relevant semantic information is more durable • Participants are more aware of the semantic information of the distractor

46. Additional Neutral word Filler Additional Neutral word Filler Emo or Neu distractor Emo or Neu distractor Fruit word Fruit word Low awareness High awareness Design

47. Low awareness Results High awareness