Is Emotion-induced Blindness Automatic? Zyair Brown, Jessica Moss, & James E. Hoffman

1. Is Emotion-induced Blindness Automatic? Zyair Brown, Jessica Moss, & James E. Hoffman Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, DE Background The inability to report a target that follows a task-irrelevant emotional stimulus is called emotion-induced blindness, or EIB (Most, Chun, Widders & Zald, 2005). Irrelevant emotional pictures capture attention, making it harder to detect subsequent targets. Question: Is the capture of attention by irrelevant emotional pictures completely automatic? In other words, if attention is already allocated to another task when the emotional picture appears, does it still capture attention & suppress awareness for a following target? Results Method Rapid Serial Visual Presentation second target (T2) emotional picture A. In the negative distracter condition, large and comparable EIB effects occur regardless of whether the negative picture is preceded by a target. EIB appears to be automatic. Discussion & Future Research B. The hypothesis that emotion-induced blindness is automatic predicts that EIB will occur even when is it being “blinked” by a preceding relevant target. We verified this prediction. Thus, we conclude that emotion-induced blindness is automatic. Our future research ideas will address whether neutral distracters have a similar automaticity. While negative distracters have emotional salience that captures attention, neutral distracters may have physical salience that also automatically captures attention. The Current Approach We will use the attentional blink task to ensure that attention is allocated to another target when the negative distracter picture appears. The attentional blink (AB) is an inability to identify a second target due to a consumption of attentional resources by an task-relevant initial target (Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992). first target (T1) second target (T2) emotional picture References Kennedy, B. L., Rawding, J., Most, S. B., & Hoffman, J. E. (2014) Emotion-induced blindness reflects competition at early and late processing stages: An ERP study. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 10.3758/s13415-014-0303-x [doi]. Most, S. B., Chun, M. M., Widders, D. M., & Zald, D. H. (2005). Attentional Rubbernecking: Cognitive control and personality in emotion-induced blindness. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,12, 654-651. Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L. & Arnell, K. M. (1992). Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18, 849-860. Acknowledgements A special thanks to Annie Tran and Daniel Charytonowicz for helping us during various parts of the experiment. An additional thanks to the McNair Scholars Program staff, who made conducting this research possible. * Notice that the negative picture follows the target in B above and should be blinked, because attention should be consumed by the T1. If EIB is automatic, however, it will capture attention and suppress the following target. • This diagram shows the experimental condition of the study. • Figure A depicts the T2 only condition. T2 should be suppressed because of EIB from the preceding emotional distractor. • Figure B depicts the Both targets condition. T1 should blink the negative picture, eliminating its ability to suppress T2. • In addition, there were 2 baseline conditions that did not have negative distracters. Participants reported T2 in one condition, and both targets in the other. • Prediction: If emotion-induced blindness is automatic then comparable-sized EIBs should occur in both conditions. Suppose the emotional distractor is presented in the T2 position above. It should be “blinked” because attention is allocated to T1. Will the emotional distractor still have the ability to suppress awareness for a relevant target occurring shorty after it?