Emotional arousal amplifies the selectivity of visual selective attention

UnrestrictedIn 3 experiments 111 young adults (ages 18-30) performed a letter identification task to test the hypothesis that emotional arousal increases attention to high priority stimuli and inhibits attention to low priority stimuli. A circular array of letters was briefly presented to each subject following exposure to negative arousing or neutral sounds. Contrast level of the letters was manipulated to make some letters higher in priority. The results support the arousal-biased competition hypothesis, as exposure to emotionally arousing sounds increased identification rates for high priority letters and decreased identification rates for low priority letters. Yet this effect was limited to inter-stimulus intervals (ISI) from 750 to 3000 milliseconds (ms)