The effects of emotion on attention: A review of attentional processing of emotional information

Abstract

This review considers evidence from cognitive experimental investigations of attentional processing of emotional information. The review contrasts findings from the general population with those from populations selected for clinical disorder or vulnerability to it. Concepts critical for appreciation of this literature are presented and major cognitive theories are summarised, evaluated and compared. Empirical data are organised by type of attentional function, covering filtering (dichotic listening, emotional Stroop), search (visual search), cuing (attentional probe, spatial cuing) and multiple task (RSVP) paradigms. Conclusions are that, consistent with current models, differences in an “evaluative system” appear to lie at the heart of the phenomena reviewed and attentional biases to emotional material reflect the responsiveness of this system. If so, desensitising its over-reactivity would be the best approach to ameliorating the negative consequences of attentional biases in psychopathology. To do so requires greater understanding of how and on what basis the “evaluation” is conducted. A possible way forward is suggested.

Keywords:

• Attention
• Emotion
• Anxiety
• Cognition
• Information processing

Acknowledgements

I am most grateful to Brendan Bradley, Colin MacLeod, Andrew Mathews, Karin Mogg, Charles Spence, Nick Yeung, reviewers Manuel Calvo, Ernst Koster, Jan DeHouwer and one anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments on previous drafts.

Notes

¹Note that this is a chronological pattern of vigilance and avoidance proposed in the literature to account for the apparent absence of anxiety-related biases in more strategic cognitive processes such as explicit memory (Mathews & MacLeod, 1994). It is distinct from the vigilance-avoidance hypothesis related to threat intensity discussed earlier.

²I use the terms “valid” (or “invalid”) throughout to denote trials on which targets appear at cued (or opposite cued) locations, irrespective of predictive validity (i.e., the overall ratio within the task of valid to invalid trials). This usage is debated among attention researchers.

³The phenomenon identified by Posner (1980) such that cued locations loose their attentional advantage after a certain time has elapsed, becoming inhibited relative to uncued locations. The effect is thought to represent an adaptive attentional mechanism whereby novel locations are prioritised for attentional processing over recently attended ones.