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Tagging multiple emotional stimuli : negative valence has little benefit

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Watson, Derrick G. and Blagrove, Elisabeth. (2012) Tagging multiple emotional stimuli : negative valence has little benefit. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Vol.38 (No.3). pp. 785-803. ISSN 0096-1523

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0026730

Abstract

Six experiments examined the influence of emotional valence on the tagging and enumeration of multiple targets. Experiments 1, 5 and 6 found that there was no difference in the efficiency of tagging/enumerating multiple negative or positive stimuli. Experiment 2 showed that, when neutral-expression face distractors were present, enumerating negative targets was faster overall, but was only more efficient for small numbers of targets. Experiments 3 and 4 determined that this negative target advantage was most likely caused by increased attentional guidance to negatively-valenced stimuli and was not based on simple visual feature differences. The findings suggest that a multiple-target negative stimulus advantage will only occur under conditions of attentional competition, and for relatively small numbers of targets. The results are discussed in relation to theories of multiple- and single-item processing, threat-priority mechanisms, and the types of representations that support different attentional tasks.

Item Type:

Journal Article

Subjects:

B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology

Divisions:

Faculty of Science > Psychology

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Psychological tests -- Design and construction, Emotions, Facial expression -- Testing, Searching behavior

Journal or Publication Title:

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

Publisher:

American Psychological Association

ISSN:

0096-1523

Official Date:

2012

Dates:

Date	Event
2012	Published

Volume:

Vol.38

Number:

No.3

Page Range:

pp. 785-803

Identification Number:

10.1037/a0026730

Status:

Peer Reviewed

Publication Status:

Published

Access rights to Published version:

Restricted or Subscription Access

References:

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