Fear selectively modulates visual mental imagery and visual perception

Emotions have been shown to modulate low-level visual processing of simple stimuli. In this study, we investigate whether emotions only modulate processing of visual representations created from direct visual inputs or whether they also modulate representations that underlie visual mental images. Our results demonstrate that when participants visualize or look at the global shape of written words (low-spatial-frequency visual information), the prior brief presentation of fearful faces enhances processing, whereas when participants visualize or look at details of written words (high-spatial-frequency visual information), the prior brief presentation of fearful faces impairs processing. This study demonstrates that emotions have similar effects on low-level processing of visual percepts and of internal representations created on the basis of information stored in long-term memory.