Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize: Anger and Visual Attention to Threats and Rewards
Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize: Anger and Visual Attention to Threats and Rewards
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DOI：
10.1177/0956797610375450
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发表时间：
2010-08-01
影响因子：
8.2
通讯作者：
Taylor, Holly A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ford, Brett Q.;Tamir, Maya;Taylor, Holly A.
人们的情绪状态会影响他们在环境中关注的焦点。例如，恐惧将人们的注意力集中在威胁上，而兴奋可能将人们的注意力集中在奖励上。这项研究考察了愤怒对威胁和奖励的明显视觉注意力的影响。愤怒是一种与接近动机相关的不愉快的情绪。如果情绪对视觉注意力的影响取决于效价，那么我们预计愤怒会将人们的注意力集中在威胁上。然而，如果情绪对视觉注意力的影响取决于动机，我们预计愤怒会将人们的注意力集中在奖励上。使用眼动仪，我们研究了愤怒、恐惧、兴奋和中性情绪状态对参与者对威胁、奖励和控制图像的明显视觉注意的影响。我们发现，愤怒会增加对奖励信息的视觉注意力，但不会增加对威胁信息的视觉注意力。这些发现表明，愤怒会增加对潜在奖励的关注，并表明情绪对视觉注意力的影响是动机驱动的。
People's emotional states influence what they focus their attention on in their environment. For example, fear focuses people's attention on threats, whereas excitement may focus their attention on rewards. This study examined the effect of anger on overt visual attention to threats and rewards. Anger is an unpleasant emotion associated with approach motivation. If the effect of emotion on visual attention depends on valence, we would expect anger to focus people's attention on threats. If, however, the effect of emotion on visual attention depends on motivation, we would expect anger to focus people's attention on rewards. Using an eye tracker, we examined the effects of anger, fear, excitement, and a neutral emotional state on participants' overt visual attention to threatening, rewarding, and control images. We found that anger increased visual attention to rewarding information, but not to threatening information. These findings demonstrate that anger increases attention to potential rewards and suggest that the effects of emotions on visual attention are motivationally driven.