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Central and Divided Visual Field Presentation of Emotional Images to Measure Hemispheric Differences in Motivated Attention
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Affective bias in visual working memory is associated with capacity.

Weizhen Xie1,2, Huanhuan Li2,3, Xiangyu Ying2

  • 1a Department of Psychology , University of California , Riverside , CA , USA.

Cognition & Emotion
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Summary

Working memory (WM) shows an affective bias, retaining positive emotional content over negative content. This bias is linked to WM capacity, suggesting it

Keywords:
Emotionaffective biascapacityworking memory

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Affective Science

Background:

  • Working memory (WM) is crucial for cognitive tasks, but its interaction with emotional stimuli is not fully understood.
  • Existing theories propose that WM may prioritize emotional information based on motivational principles, such as approaching positivity and avoiding negativity.
  • It remains unclear whether this affective bias in WM is universal or depends on individual differences in WM capacity.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether working memory (WM) maintains emotional information in a biased manner, favoring approach-related positive content over avoidance-related negative content.
  • To determine if this affective bias is independent of WM capacity (overall bias hypothesis) or contingent upon it (capacity-based hypothesis).

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments utilized change localization tasks with emotional (e.g., happy and sad faces) and non-emotional stimuli.
  • Participants estimated the number of items retained for different stimulus types to assess WM capacity and affective bias.
  • WM capacity was indexed by performance on non-emotional stimuli (colors or line-drawing symbols).

Main Results:

  • No significant difference was found in the recall of positive versus negative emotional stimuli.
  • A significant correlation emerged between WM capacity and affective bias.
  • Individuals with higher WM capacity demonstrated a greater tendency to retain positive (happy faces) over negative (sad faces) stimuli.

Conclusions:

  • The findings support the capacity-based hypothesis, indicating that affective biases in WM are influenced by its functional limitations.
  • Working memory exhibits a 'built-in' affective bias, favoring the retention of positive emotional content, particularly in individuals with higher WM capacity.
  • This bias may reflect an adaptive mechanism related to motivational principles of approach and avoidance.