Bendall, RCA 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9177-7007, Mohamed, A and Thompson, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7967-7019
2019,
'Emotional real-world scenes impact visual search'
, Cognitive Processing, 20
, pp. 309-316.
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Abstract
Research shows that emotional stimuli can capture attention, and this can benefit or impair performance, depending on the characteristics of a task. Additionally, whilst some findings show that attention expands under positive conditions, others show that emotion has no influence on the broadening of attention. The current study investigated whether emotional real-world scenes influence attention in a visual search task. Participants were asked to identify a target letter embedded in the centre or periphery of emotional images. Identification accuracy was lower in positive images compared to neutral images, and response times were slower in negative images. This suggests that real-world emotional stimuli have a distracting effect on visual attention and search. There was no evidence that emotional images influenced the spatial spread of attention. Instead, it is suggested that findings may provide support for the argument that positive emotion encourages a global processing style and negative emotion promotes local processing.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Schools: | Schools > School of Health and Society > Centre for Health Sciences Research |
| Journal or Publication Title: | Cognitive Processing |
| Publisher: | Springer |
| ISSN: | 1612-4782 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | Dr Robert Bendall |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Jan 2019 15:09 |
| Last Modified: | 16 Feb 2022 00:27 |
| URI: | https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/49624 |
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