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Freeze or flee? : negative stimuli elicit selective responding

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Estes, Zachary, 1973- 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
Date:	22 April 2008
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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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/76