CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF EMOTION AND ATTENTION

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A Center for Psychophysiological Research in Emotion and Attention (CPSEA) is proposed. P.J. Lang will serve as its director, and the primary research and administrative site will be at the University of Florida, Gainesville. The broad aim of the center is to study emotional stimulus processing in all its directly measurable manifestations--e.g., as patterns of physiological reactivity (visceral, neuromuscular, and electrocortical), affective reports, and behavior. An important further aim is to assess emotional reactivity as it interacts with attentional demands--as attention is modulated by stimulus characteristics, task, and context. Proposed research will examine how affective responding varies with different channels of sensory input, instructions, symbolic or virtual representation, and medium of presentation. Findings are interpreted both in the terms of current theoretical views of the brain as an organ for information processing and in the context of developing knowledge of the brain's functional electro-chemistry and anatomy. Our intention is to facilitate research broadly in the field of emotion; to encourage through shared methods and findings, the development of emotion studies as replicable natural science within this country and internationally; and furthermore, to support and encourage the application of the acquired new, basic scientific knowledge in the practical arenas of mental health and the study of social problems.