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Trait Anxiety Influences Negative Affect-modulated Distribution of Visuospatial Attention
Gursimran Kaur1, Rakshita Anand2, Mrinmoy Chakrabarty1
1Dept. of Social Sciences and Humanities, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110020, India.
Neuroscience
|December 9, 2022
Summary
Trait anxiety influences how disgust primes spatially shift visual attention. Higher anxiety correlates with greater spatial attention shifts towards disgust cues. This highlights anxiety
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Visuospatial attention is crucial for processing visual information.
- Emotions are known to impact attentional performance.
- The spatial distribution of attention and its modulation by emotion, particularly in relation to anxiety, remains an area of investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if emotional primes modulate the spatial distribution of visual attention.
- To examine the association between individual differences in trait anxiety and emotion-modulated attention.
- To determine if disgust primes specifically affect attention gradients based on anxiety levels.
Main Methods:
- Participants (n=28) performed a visual discrimination task.
- Task-irrelevant face emotion primes (Neutral, Disgust, Scrambled) were presented before target stimuli.
- Attention gradients were calculated to measure the spatial distribution of attention relative to emotion primes.
Main Results:
- Disgust primes significantly modulated attention gradients, with effects varying by trait anxiety levels.
- Higher trait anxiety scores were associated with a negative correlation in attention gradients, indicating spatial shifts.
- Neutral and Scrambled primes did not show specific effects or associations with anxiety levels.
- State anxiety did not correlate with emotion-cued attention gradients.
Conclusions:
- Individual trait anxiety levels influence the spatial distribution of visual attention in response to negative, arousing emotion signals like disgust.
- Findings suggest anxiety-related biases in visual attention towards emotionally relevant stimuli.
- Results have implications for understanding affective states and disorders impacting visual behavior.
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