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Freeze or flee? : negative stimuli elicit selective responding

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Estes, Zachary and Verges, Michelle. (2008) Freeze or flee? : negative stimuli elicit selective responding. Cognition, Vol.108 (No.2). pp. 557-565. ISSN 0010-0277

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.03.003

Abstract

Humans preferentially attend to negative stimuli. A consequence of this automatic vigilance for negative valence is that negative words elicit slower responses than neutral or positive words on a host of cognitive tasks. Some researchers have speculated that negative stimuli elicit a general suppression of motor activity, akin to the freezing response exhibited by animals under threat. Alternatively, we suggest that negative stimuli only elicit slowed responding on tasks for which stimulus valence is irrelevant for responding. To discriminate between these motor suppression and response-relevance hypotheses, we elicited both lexical decisions and valence judgments of negative words and positive words. Relative to positive words (e.g., kitten), negative words (e.g., spider) elicited slower lexical decisions but faster valence judgments. Results therefore indicate that negative stimuli do not cause a generalized motor suppression. Rather, negative stimuli elicit selective responding, with faster responses on tasks for which stimulus valence is response-relevant.

Item Type:

Journal Article

Subjects:

B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology

Divisions:

Faculty of Science > Psychology

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Adversive stimuli, Reflexes

Journal or Publication Title:

Cognition

Publisher:

Elsevier

ISSN:

0010-0277

Official Date:

22 April 2008

Dates:

Date	Event
22 April 2008	["eprint_fieldopt_dates_date_type_available" not defined]

Volume:

Vol.108

Number:

No.2

Page Range:

pp. 557-565

Identification Number:

10.1016/j.cognition.2008.03.003

Status:

Peer Reviewed

Access rights to Published version:

Open Access

Description:

Version accepted by publisher (post-print, after peer review, before copy-editing)

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