Orientation of visual attention towards emotional facial expressions

Velik broj istraživanja se do sada bavio pitanjem postojanja preferencije u procesiranju emocionalnih podražaja te događa li se to procesiranje automatski i izvan naše svijesti. Cilj ovog eksperimenta je bio ispitati utjecaj emocije prezentiranog lica, strane prezentacije ciljnog podražaja te kongruentnosti prikazivanja emocionalnog lica i ciljnog podražaja na vidnu orijentaciju pažnje. U eksperimentu je sudjelovao 61 sudionik (53% žena i 47% muškaraca). Eksperimentalni nacrt je bio trofaktorski (2 x 2 x 2) s tri nezavisne varijable na dvije razine te jednom zavisnom varijablom. Nezavisne varijable su bile emocionalno lice (ljuto/sretno i neutralno za kontrolu), kongruentnost (kongruentno – kada je ciljni podražaj prikazan s iste strane nakon emocionalnog lica; inkongruentno- kada je ciljni podražaj prikazan sa suprotne strane nakon emocionalnog lica) i strana prezentacije ciljnog podražaja (lijevo/desno) dok je zavisna varijabla bila vrijeme reakcije na ciljni podražaj. Zadatak ispitanika je bio što brže reagirati na pojavu ciljnog podražaja (crne točke) pritiskom odgovarajućih tipki ako se podražaj pojavio s desne odnosno s lijeve strane. Rezultati su pokazali glavni efekt kongruentnosti, te marginalno značajnu interakciju kongruentnost x strana ciljnog podražaja. Vrijeme reakcije je bilo značajno kraće za kongruentne podražaje kada su na istoj strani prezentirani emocionalno lice i ciljni podražaj, a duže u inkongruentnim situacijama. Taj efekt je dobiven samo kada su kongruentni podražaji prezentirani s desne strane vidnog polja. Rezultati ukazuju na važnu ulogu emocionalnih podražaja na orijentaciju vidne pažnje prema istima.The existence of preference while processing emotional stimuli and whether this process occurs automatically and outside our consciousness has been researched a great number of times. The aim of this experiment was to examine the influence of the emotion of the presented face, the side of presentations of the target stimulus, and the congruence of displaying an emotional face and the target stimulus on the visual orientation of attention. 61 participants partook in the experiment (53% women and 47% men). The experimental design was three-factored (2 x 2 x 2) with three independent variables on two levels and one dependent variable. Independent variables were an emotional face (angry/happy and neutral for control), congruence (congruent - when the target stimulus is shown on the same side after the emotional face; incongruent - when the target stimulus is displayed opposite of the emotional face) and the side of presentation of the target stimulus (left / right), while the dependent variable was reaction time to the target stimulus. The task of the participants was to react as fast as they could to the appearance of the target stimulus (a black point) by pressing the corresponding keys if the stimulus appeared on the right or left side. The results have shown the main effect of congruence, and the marginally significant interaction of the side congurence of the target stimulus. The reaction time was significantly shorter for congruent stimuli when emotional face and target stimuli were present on the same side and longer in incongruent situations. This effect was only obtained when the congruent stimuli were presented to the right side of the visual field. The results point to the important role of emotional stimuli for the orientation of visual attention towards them