Effects of stimulus emotional content on gaze pattern: An eye-tracking study

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Affective Science

Background:

• The attentional system's bias towards negative stimuli for threat detection is known in early processing.
• It remains unclear if this bias shifts towards positive stimuli in later stages of emotional regulation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate early and late attentional biases towards negative, positive, and neutral stimuli versus control stimuli.
• To determine if a positivity shift occurs in later attentional processing stages.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a free-viewing paradigm with eye-tracking in 122 participants without affective disorders.
• Employed generalized linear mixed models and COM-Poisson for statistical analysis of fixation data.
• Compared attention to negative, positive, neutral (human activities), and control (inanimate objects) stimuli.

Main Results:

• Confirmed a negativity bias in early attention, with faster and longer fixations on negative stimuli.
• Found sustained negativity bias in late attention, showing longer total fixation durations and more fixations on negative stimuli.
• Results contradicted the hypothesis of a positivity shift during emotional regulation.

Conclusions:

• A sustained negativity bias exists across early and late attentional processing stages.
• This bias may represent an adaptive mechanism for threat-related information processing, enhancing learning and preparedness.
• Further research is needed in diverse sociocultural settings and clinical populations.