Emotion and attention interaction: a trade-off between stimuli relevance, motivation and individual differences

Abstract

Mounting evidence suggests that the neural processing of emotional stimuli is prioritized. However, whether the processing of emotional stimuli is dependent on attention remains debatable. Several studies have investigated this issue by testing the capacity of emotional distracters to divert processing resources from an attentional main task. The attentional load theory postulates that the perceptual load of the main task determines the selective processing of the distracter. Although we agree with this theory, we also suggest that other factors could be important in determining the association between the load of the main task and distracter processing, namely, (1) the relevance of the to-be ignored stimuli and (2) the engagement in the main task due to motivation. We postulate that these factors function as opposite forces to influence distracter processing. In addition, we propose that this trade-off is modulated by individual differences. In summary, we suggest that the relationship between emotion and attention is flexible rather than rigid and depends on several factors. Considering this perspective may help us to understand the divergence in the results described by several studies in this field.

Keywords: attention; emotion; individual differences; motivation; stimuli relevance.

Figure 1

Graphic representation of the theoretical proposal. The gray line represents the relationship between the load of the main task, the allocation of resources for the processing of the emotional distracters and the allocation of resources for the processing of the main task. The resources available for processing of the distracters is expected to diminish (or even be abolished) as the load of the main task increases. The blue line represents the modulation caused by the increase in the engagement in the task due to motivation and the orange line represents the modulation by the increase in the relevance of the to-be ignored stimuli. Both the engagement in the main task due to motivation and the relevance of the to-be ignored stimuli may vary from individual to individual.