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Allocation of Spatial Attention to Emotional Stimuli Depends Upon
Arousal and Not Valence
Julia Vogt, Jan De Houwer, Ernst H. W. Koster, Stefaan Van Damme, and Geert Crombez
Ghent University
Attentional allocation to emotional stimuli is often proposed to be driven by valence and in particular by
negativity. However, many negative stimuli are also arousing leaving the question whether valence or
arousal accounts for this effect. The authors examined whether the valence or the arousal level of
emotional stimuli influences the allocation of spatial attention using a modified spatial cueing task.
Participants responded to targets that were preceded by cues consisting of emotional pictures varying on
arousal and valence. Response latencies showed that disengagement of spatial attention was slower for
stimuli high in arousal than for stimuli low in arousal. The effect was independent of the valence of the
pictures and not gender-specific. The findings support the idea that arousal affects the allocation of
attention.
Keywords: spatial attention, arousal, valence, negativity bias
Numerous studies have found attentional biases to emotional
stimuli, such as facilitated orienting of attention to angry faces
(Fox, Russo, Bowles, & Dutton, 2001) and signals for aversive
events (Koster, Crombez, Van Damme, Verschuere, & De Hou-
wer, 2004). It is still unclear which dimension of emotional events
accounts for such biases. Many researchers assume that attentional
biases are driven by valence, and that they prioritize negative
information (Larsen, in press; Pratto & John, 1991). In line with
this view, Pratto and John (1991) found stronger interference for
negative compared to positive stimuli in a Stroop task. The pref-
erence to allocate attention to negative events is most often ex-
plained by the high relevance of negative stimuli as potential
dangers for the organism.
Emotional stimuli do not differ merely in terms of valence, but
also in terms of arousal (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1997; Russell,
1980). Indeed, many studies on attention for emotional informa-
tion compare negative highly arousing to positive low arousing
stimuli (e.g., Fox et al., 2001; O
¨hman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001). It
could therefore well be that attentional biases are driven by the
arousal level of the stimuli rather than by their valence. Indirect
support for this assumption was found by Buodo, Sarlo, and
Palomba (2002) who showed facilitated allocation of attention to
positive stimuli with high arousal levels such as erotic stimuli in a
dual-task paradigm. More direct evidence was reported by Schim-
mack (2005). In his study, participants had to ignore emotional
pictures that varied in valence and arousal while performing a
nonemotional primary task. Slowest reaction times in this task
emerged when strong arousing pictures were presented, indepen-
dent of the valence of these pictures.
Despite these initial studies, important issues remain unre-
solved. First, the data by Schimmack (2005) do not allow one to
distinguish unambiguously between interference because of atten-
tional processes and interference because of response effects.
According to an attentional explanation, highly arousing pictures
attract attention away from the main task and therefore slow down
responding in the primary task. A response effect explanation, on
the other hand, proposes that highly arousing pictures temporarily
result in a generic slow-down and thus delay all motor responses
(e.g., Algom, Chajut, & Lev, 2004; De Ruiter & Brosschot, 1994).
If this is the case, highly and low arousing pictures might receive
the same amount of attention but differ only in their effects at the
response stage. Therefore, it is necessary to replicate and extend
the findings of Schimmack using attentional paradigms that render
interpretations in terms of response effects less plausible.
Second, it remains unresolved which component of spatial at-
tention is affected by arousal. Spatial attention has received par-
ticular interest in research on attention (e.g., Posner, 1980) and
attentional processing of emotional stimuli (e.g., Fox et al., 2001).
In spatial attention, a distinction can be made between attentional
engagement and disengagement (e.g., Fox et al., 2001; Koster et
al., 2004). Different studies have revealed that spatial attention to
threat is best characterized as a difficulty to disengage from
threatening information (Fox et al., 2001; Yiend & Mathews,
2001). Because threatening stimuli are most of the time highly
arousing, it seems plausible that arousal modulates spatial attention
and that it affects primarily the disengagement component.
The aim of the present study was to examine whether valence or
arousal modulates the allocation of spatial attention in a modified
spatial cueing paradigm. This paradigm allows studying covert
attentional orienting to peripheral cues and has been used to
examine attentional engagement with and disengagement from
emotional stimuli (Fox et al., 2001; Koster et al., 2004). In this task
participants have to detect visual targets presented at the left or
Julia Vogt, Jan De Houwer, Ernst H. W. Koster, Stefaan Van Damme,
and Geert Crombez, Department of Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.
This research was funded by Grant BOF/GOA2006/001 of Ghent Uni-
versity. We thank Jeffrey De Winne for his help in collecting the data and
the Ghent Experimental Psychopathology Group for valuable discussions.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Julia
Vogt, Department of Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2,
B-9000 Ghent (Belgium). E-mail: julia.vogt@UGent.be
Emotion Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association
2008, Vol. 8, No. 6, 880– 885 1528-3542/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0013981
880
right side of a fixation cross. The target is preceded by a visual cue
at the same location (validly cued trials) or opposite location
(invalidly cued trials). Valid cues typically lead to response time
benefits (because of engagement of attention at the validly cued
location), whereas invalid cues lead to response time costs (be-
cause of delayed disengagement of attention from the invalidly
cued location), a difference referred to as cue validity effect.
Studies using this paradigm have shown that emotional cues lead
to a larger cue validity effect than neutral cues (Koster et al., 2004;
Van Damme, Crombez, & Ecclestone, 2004). The paradigm allows
distinguishing between attentional and response effects. If an ef-
fect is caused by a response effect, reactions on both valid and
invalid trials should be retarded (or speeded). In contrast, atten-
tional orienting to cues is evidenced by a modulation of the
difference in reaction times between valid and invalid trials. If a
particular class of emotional cues influences attentional orienting,
this would decrease reaction times on valid trials (engagement) or
increase reaction times on invalid trials (disengagement) for these
particular cues.
In this study we used pictures of the International Affective
Picture System (IAPS; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1999) to ex-
amine the effects of arousal and valence on attentional processing
of emotional stimuli. We chose pictures as cues because pictures
offer a higher ecological validity (Mogg & Bradley, 1999). To test
the effects of valence and arousal independently, we manipulated
the valence (positive or negative) and arousal (high or low) of the
stimuli orthogonally.
Method
Participants
Fifty-three students (31 women) at Ghent University partici-
pated. They took part to fulfill course requirements or were paid
4€. All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and
were naive as to the purpose of the experiment.
Apparatus and Materials
Emotional Pictures
Seventy-three emotional pictures were obtained from the IAPS.
Five additional neutral pictures were selected for the practice
block. The pictures were categorized in four groups according to
valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal level (high vs. low)
based on the normative IAPS ratings. IAPS ratings have been
validated for experimental use in a Flemish student population
(Verschuere, Crombez, & Koster, 2001). Because IAPS ratings
differ between men and women, we selected pictures for men and
women separately based on the gender-specific ratings provided in
the IAPS manual (Lang et al., 1999). This resulted in 10 pictures
for each condition and for each gender: (1) high arousal, negative
(both threatening and disgusting); (2) low arousal, negative
(mostly poverty scenes); (3) high arousal, positive (mainly exciting
sports and erotica); (4) low arousal, positive (both nature and
family scenes). See Appendix for further information.
These pictures were selected based on two criteria: First, the
overall mean of each category for arousal and valence was
matched as closely as possible for the corresponding categories.
For example, the arousal level of the high arousal, negative cate-
gory should match the arousal level of the high arousal, positive
category but the valence level of the low arousal, negative cate-
gory. Second, the mean rating of a picture had to approximate the
mean rating of its category.
In line with previous studies (e.g., Mogg & Bradley, 2002), we
added filler trials with neutral picture cues. The neutral cues had
valence ratings near the midpoint of the rating scale. These ratings
differed to the same extent from the valence ratings of the selected
positive and negative pictures. The mean arousal ratings of the
neutral pictures were, however, more similar to those of the low
arousal pictures than those of the high arousal pictures (see Ap-
pendix). Moreover the number of trials of the neutral cue category
was doubled so that cues with a neutral content were presented
equally often as cues with a positive respectively negative valence
and as high respectively low arousing cues. As such, the data of
these trials cannot be used (nor were they intended to be used) as
a baseline for assessing the effects of valence and arousal. Because
of this, the data of the neutral filler trials were not included in the
analyses (but see Table 1 for the relevant means).
Modified Spatial Cueing Task
The experiment was programmed and presented using the
INQUISIT Millisecond software package (Inquisit 2.0., 2005) on a
Dell Dimension 5000 computer with an 85 Hz, 17-inch CRT
monitor. All stimuli were presented against a black background.
On every trial, a black fixation cross (5 mm high) placed in the
center of a white rectangle (5.2 cm high ⫻6.3 cm wide) was
presented in the middle of the screen. Along with this, two other
white rectangles of the same size were presented, one to the left
and one to the right of the middle rectangle. The middle of each of
these two peripheral rectangles was 9.2 cm from the fixation cross.
Cues and targets were presented within the peripheral rectangles.
Cues consisted of emotional pictures from the IAPS as described
above. The pictures were digitized to a size of 4.8 cm height ⫻6.2
cm width and were presented in full color. Targets consisted of
black squares (0.8 cm ⫻0.8 cm) presented in the center of the
rectangles on the left or right side. Responses were made by
pressing one of two keys (target left: “q”; target right: “5”) with the
left and right index finger on an AZERTY keyboard.
As can be seen in Figure 1, each sequence of a test trial started
with the presentation of the fixation cross and the white rectangles.
Table 1
Mean Reaction Times and Standard Deviations (in ms) as a
Function of Cue Category and Cue Validity
Cue category
Valid Invalid
Cue
validity
indices
M SD M SD M SD
Highly arousing, negative 364 48 403 53 39 31
Highly arousing, positive 364 49 401 56 37 36
Low arousing, negative 370 47 395 60 25 32
Low arousing, positive 364 51 395 52 31 30
Filler 366 48 399 53 33 26
Note. Cue validity indices were calculated by subtracting mean reaction
times on valid trials from mean reaction times on invalid trials.
881
BRIEF REPORTS
After 500 milliseconds, a cue appeared for the duration of 150
milliseconds. Target onset followed immediately after cue offset.
A trial ended after a response was registered or 1,500 milliseconds
had elapsed since the onset of the target. The next trial started after
a pause of 200 milliseconds.
On 75% of the test trials, the cue correctly predicted target
location (validly cued trials). On the remaining 25% of the test
trials, cue location incorrectly predicted target location (invalidly
cued trials). To control for responses to cues instead of targets,
catch trials were presented. On these trials, the cue was not
followed by a target and no response was required. To ensure that
participants maintained fixation at the middle of the screen, digit
trials were presented. On these trials, the fixation cross was fol-
lowed only by a randomly selected digit between 1 and 9 for a
duration of 50 milliseconds. Participants were instructed to report
the digit aloud. Responses were not recorded on digit trials.
Procedure
Instructions and practice phase. Participants were informed
that an attentional task would be presented, and gave a written
informed consent. They were seated approximately 60 cm from
a computer screen. All further instructions were presented on
the computer screen. Participants were asked to respond as
quickly and accurately as possible to the location of the target
by pressing the corresponding key. They were informed that a
cue would precede the presentation of the target and that the cue
would correctly predict the location of the target on most but
not on all trials. Participants were instructed to maintain atten-
tion at the fixation cross. Participants practiced the attentional
task during 12 trials.
Test phase. This phase consisted of 216 trials. These were
192 test trials (32 trials for each of the four cue categories with
an emotional picture as cue and 64 trials with a neutral picture
as cue), 20 catch trials, and 4 digit trials. During the task, each
emotional picture was presented three to four times and each
neutral picture was presented six to seven times. The order of
trials was determined randomly and for each participant sepa-
rately.
Results
Data Preparation
Data from one participant were removed because she gave an
incorrect response on more than 25% of the trials. Trials with
errors were also removed (1.29%). In line with previous studies
using this modified version of the spatial cueing paradigm
(Koster et al., 2004), reaction times (RTs) shorter than 150
milliseconds and longer than 750 milliseconds were excluded
from the analysis (1.05%). Means and standard deviations can
be found in Table 1.
During the test phase, participants responded on 9.21% of the
catch trials. The mean number of responses on highly arousing
(3.53%) and low arousing cues (3.45%) catch trials did not differ
significantly (t⬍1), suggesting that the arousal value of the cues
was not associated with a systematic response bias.
Figure 1. Schematic overview of valid and invalid trials. Cues consisted of pictures. (Note that the target was
present incorrectly at the depiction of the invalid trial).
882 BRIEF REPORTS
Overall Effects
We performed a 2 (valence: positive, negative) ⫻2 (arousal:
high, low), ⫻2 (cue validity: valid, invalid) repeated measures
analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the RTs with gender as
between-subjects factor.
1
Cohen’s dwas calculated to see if the
expected differences had a small (.20), medium (.50) or large (.80)
effect size (Cohen, 1992). There was a strong effect of cue
validity, F(1, 50) ⫽106.75, p⬍.001. Responses were signif-
icantly faster on validly cued trials (M⫽366 ms, SD ⫽47 ms)
than on invalidly cued trials (M⫽399 ms; SD ⫽52 ms). The
main effects of arousal and valence did not reach significance,
Fs⬍1.53.
The predicted interaction of cue validity and arousal, F(1, 50) ⫽
8.03, p⬍.01, d⫽.59, showed that the cue validity effect was
larger for highly arousing than for low arousing cues. The inter-
action between cue validity and valence did not reach significance,
F⬍1, neither did the three-way interaction between cue validity,
valence, and arousal, F⬍1.27.
2
Planned comparisons revealed that on valid trials, participants
responded as fast after highly arousing (M⫽364 ms; SD ⫽47 ms)
than after low arousing cues (M⫽367 ms; SD ⫽48 ms), F(1,
51) ⫽2.41, ns,d⫽.30. On invalid trials, participants reacted
significantly slower after highly arousing cues (M⫽402 ms;
SD ⫽52 ms) than after low arousing cues (M⫽395 ms; SD ⫽54
ms), F(1, 51) ⫽5.90, p⬍.02, d⫽.48. This indicates delayed
disengagement of attention from the highly arousing pictures.
Discussion
The aim of this study was to examine whether the valence or
arousal level of emotional pictures modulates the allocation of
spatial attention. Results can be readily summarized: We found
delayed disengagement of attention from highly arousing pictures
independent of their valence. There was no effect of gender.
Herewith our data replicate and extend the findings of Schimmack
(2005) who demonstrated that highly arousing pictures interfere
with performance on a nonemotional primary task. Our data go
beyond those of Schimmack (2005) in two important ways. First,
in our study, the effect of arousal on the deployment of attention
cannot easily be explained in terms of response effects. Second,
our data provide the first evidence regarding the effect of arousal
and valence on one important component of attention, namely
spatial attention. They highlight that the disengagement compo-
nent of spatial attention is modulated by arousal.
The results of our study add to recent findings on the effects of
highly arousing stimuli. For instance, Most, Smith, Cooter, Levy,
and Zald (2007) showed that erotic and aversive pictures cause an
attentional blink. It thus seems to be the case that arousal modu-
lates different components of attention (see Posner & Rothbart,
2005, or Luck & Vecera, 2002, for an analysis of the different
components of attention). Our data, however, allow only for con-
clusions regarding the allocation of spatial attention. Nonetheless,
the existing findings already challenge theoretical accounts that
focus merely on valence as the underlying dimension of attentional
biases to emotional stimuli (Larsen, in press; Pratto & John, 1991).
In addition, the available data provide an explanation for the fact
that attentive processing of threatening information is particularly
efficient. Usually, these attentional biases to threat are explained as
result of a rough and fast appraisal of threat value (Mogg &
Bradley, 1998; O
¨hman et al., 2001). Findings such as ours suggest
that these biases might be driven not by the threat value as such but
by the high arousal level of threatening stimuli.
The idea that arousal controls attention is in line with general
theories of emotional processing. The work of Lang and colleagues
(e.g., Lang et al., 1997) conceptualizes arousal as an indicator of
relevant events that should be facilitated by attentional processes
for further processing. In line with this reasoning, it has been
shown that highly arousing stimuli lead to activation of the amyg-
dala (e.g., Lewis, Critchley, Rothstein, & Dolan, 2007) that has
been described as a relevance detector (Sander, Grafman, & Zalla,
2003). Following the relevance hypothesis, it makes sense that
highly arousing stimuli lead primarily to a difficulty with disen-
gagement of attention or to interference effects (Schimmack, 2005;
Verbruggen & De Houwer, 2007). Holding of attention at a stim-
ulus as well as interruption of ongoing activities allows the organ-
ism to further process this stimulus and to decide how it has to deal
with it.
The finding that arousal and not negativity accounts for the
attentional biases to emotional stimuli also fits well with motiva-
tional accounts of attentional biases (Derryberry & Tucker, 1994;
Rothermund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008). According to these ac-
counts, a system that responds only to negative events would be
maladaptive as functional behavior requires responding also to
stimuli offering positive consequences. Because arousal provides
an indication of the motivational relevance of both positive and
negative stimuli, it allows both kinds of events to grab attention.
Four potential limitations of our study need to be addressed.
First, the crucial interaction between cue validity and arousal is of
medium size. Such an effect size is comparable to what has been
found in other related studies (see Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin,
Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2007). Second, the
picture sets were not perfectly matched (see Appendix). The
arousal level of the low arousing negative pictures was higher than
the arousal level of the low arousing positive pictures, t(9) ⫽2.82,
p⫽.02, for the male set, and t(9) ⫽3.46, p⬍.01, for the female
set. However, this difference could not have produced the crucial
interaction between arousal and cue validity. Another problem was
that the pleasantness of the positive highly arousing pictures
tended to be higher than the valence of the positive low arousing
pictures in the male picture set, t(9) ⫽2.16, p⫽.059. However,
we also found the significant interaction between arousal and cue
validity in the data of the female participants even though this
problem was not present in the female picture set, t⬍1. Third,
some of the high arousing positive pictures displayed erotic scenes.
Such stimuli could have unique effects on attention. Additional
analyses showed, however, that the same effects were obtained
when trials with erotic pictures were discarded. Finally, an inspec-
1
None of the interactions with gender reached significance, F⬍2.01,
and will not be reported further.
2
We ran the female version of the experiment with an additional sample
of 27 female participants. The same crucial interaction of cue validity and
arousal was found, F(1, 26) ⫽4.20, p⫽.051. The main effects of arousal
and valence, the interaction between cue validity and valence and the
three-way interaction between cue validity, arousal and valence were not
significant, Fs⬍1.
883
BRIEF REPORTS
tion of Table 1 suggests that the effect of arousal on the cue
validity effect was most pronounced for negative pictures cues.
This could indicate that the effect of arousal is not fully indepen-
dent of valence.
3
Such a conclusion is, however, premature. The
fact that the three-way interaction between valence, arousal, and
cue validity was not significant shows that the effect of arousal on
cue validity was not significantly different for negative than for
positive cues. Nevertheless, future research should consider the
possibility that the impact of arousal on spatial attention is more
pronounced for negative stimuli than for other stimuli.
In conclusion, the present study is the first one to show that the
arousal level of emotional stimuli modulates the allocation of
spatial attention independent of the valence of these stimuli. Future
research is needed to further examine the influence of arousal on
other attentional processes (Luck & Vecera, 2002; Posner & Roth-
bart, 2005) and to explore the possibility of a functional relation
between arousal, relevance, and attentional processing.
3
One reviewer noted that the mean reaction times after filler cues did
not seem to differ from the mean reaction times after highly arousing cues
(see Table 1). Because the filler cues were on average less arousing than
the highly arousing cues (see Appendix), this finding could suggest that
stimuli need to have a valence to find an effect of arousal. However, any
comparison between the effects of filler and highly arousing cues should be
interpreted with caution because the filler stimuli were presented twice as
often as the emotional stimuli.
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884 BRIEF REPORTS
Appendix
Overview of the Selected Pictures
An overview of the selected pictures of different subsets for
gender, valence and arousal. The mean valence rating and the
mean arousal rating of the IAPS pictures are in parentheses.
Female, negative/High Arousal: 1052, 1120, 2730, 3500,
6230, 6313, 6350, 6821, 8230, 8480
(Mean Valence ⫽2.20; Mean Arousal ⫽6.98)
Female, negative/Low Arousal: 2490, 2702, 2722, 2800,
3181, 4635, 9090, 9220, 9280, 9830
(Mean Valence ⫽2.79; Mean Arousal ⫽4.38)
Female, positive/High Arousing: 2216, 4572, 4660, 5621,
5629, 5910, 8080, 8185, 8190, 8370
(Mean Valence ⫽7.71; Mean Arousal ⫽6.50)
Female, positive/Low Arousing: 1610, 1620, 1750, 1812,
2304, 2311, 2360, 2370, 5001, 5982
(Mean Valence ⫽7.89; Mean Arousal ⫽3.67)
Female, Filler: 2214, 5510, 5531, 5920, 7006, 7009, 7025,
7034, 7640, 8160
(Mean Valence ⫽4.90; Mean Arousal ⫽4.14)
Male, negative/High Arousal: 3500, 3530, 6230, 6260, 6313,
6350, 6821, 9410, 9810, 9250
(Mean Valence ⫽2.47; Mean Arousal ⫽6.70)
Male, negative/Low Arousal: 2141, 2590, 2750, 2800, 3181,
9090, 9220, 9280, 9421, 9830
(Mean Valence ⫽2.70; Mean Arousal ⫽4.46)
Male, positive/High Arousing: 4002, 4001, 4660, 5621, 5629,
5910, 8080, 8185, 8190, 8370
(Mean Valence ⫽7.50; Mean Arousal ⫽6.69)
Male, positive/Low Arousing: 1610, 1620, 1750, 1812, 2170,
2260, 2311, 2360, 2370, 5760
(Mean Valence ⫽7.19; Mean Arousal ⫽3.59)
Male, Filler: 1230, 1300, 1301, 1945, 2214, 5510, 7006,
7009, 7034, 7640
(Mean Valence ⫽4.83; Mean Arousal ⫽4.04)
Received October 2, 2007
Revision received July 21, 2008
Accepted August 5, 2008 䡲
885
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