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Updated: May 29, 2026
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Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition
Published on: February 1, 2012
Affective privilege: asymmetric interference by emotional distracters
1Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University Durham, NC, USA.
Frontiers in Psychology
|September 29, 2011
Summary
Affectively salient stimuli, like emotional distracters, capture attention across tasks, but their impact depends on task relevance and congruence. Emotional distracters show asymmetric interference, prioritizing emotional processing.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Affective Science
Background:
- Affectively salient stimuli are theorized to capture attention and disrupt cognition.
- Assumptions include transcending task boundaries and asymmetric emotional-cognitive processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test if emotional distracters disrupt cognition regardless of task relevance.
- To investigate the asymmetry of interference between emotional and cognitive processing.
Main Methods:
- Adapted a face-word Stroop protocol.
- Manipulated distracter relevance, affective salience, and task-relevance of emotional features.
Main Results:
- A three-way interaction showed interdependent effects of distracter relevance, congruence, and salience.
- Task-relevant congruent distracters facilitated performance; incongruent ones impaired it, depending on target features and task.
- Task-irrelevant emotional distracters caused costs similar to task-relevant non-emotional distracters.
Conclusions:
- Affectively salient stimuli exhibit asymmetric cross-task interference.
- Emotional stimuli are prioritized in human information processing, supporting existing theories.
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