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Negative and Positive Bias for Emotional Faces: Evidence from the Attention and Working Memory Paradigms

Authors :
Qianru Xu
Chaoxiong Ye
Simeng Gu
Zhonghua Hu
Yi Lei
Xueyan Li
Lihui Huang
Qiang Liu
Source :
Neural Plasticity, Vol 2021 (2021)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
Hindawi Limited, 2021.

Abstract

Visual attention and visual working memory (VWM) are two major cognitive functions in humans, and they have much in common. A growing body of research has investigated the effect of emotional information on visual attention and VWM. Interestingly, contradictory findings have supported both a negative bias and a positive bias toward emotional faces (e.g., angry faces or happy faces) in the attention and VWM fields. We found that the classical paradigms—that is, the visual search paradigm in attention and the change detection paradigm in VWM—are considerably similar. The settings of these paradigms could therefore be responsible for the contradictory results. In this paper, we compare previous controversial results from behavioral and neuroscience studies using these two paradigms. We suggest three possible contributing factors that have significant impacts on the contradictory conclusions regarding different emotional bias effects; these factors are stimulus choice, experimental setting, and cognitive process. We also propose new research directions and guidelines for future studies.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20905904 and 16875443
Volume :
2021
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Neural Plasticity
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.4f2bddd7fe174247816d12b73805c968
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/8851066