Anticipation selectively enhances interference exerted by pictures of negative valence

Recent evidence suggests that anticipation of negatively valenced pictures strongly increases interference exerted by the actual presentation of these pictures, while anticipation of positively valenced pictures leaves the impact of the actual presentation of positive pictures unaffected. However, there is some ambiguity as to whether anticipation of negative valence generally increases the impact of all emotional stimuli, or whether the effect of anticipation is specific for stimuli of negative valence. In the present experiments, different anticipation conditions were contrasted that differed with respect to the specificity of the information on which anticipations could be based. The data show that all anticipation conditions that entailed the possibility of the presentation of unpleasant stimuli selectively enhanced the impact of negatively valenced stimuli without affecting the impact of positively valenced stimuli.