Abstract
Sustained attention influences early stages of stimulus processing. Emotional stimuli can both enhance attentional engagement via arousal and narrow/broaden attention via valence. The present study adapted a hold/ release paradigm using emotion words to examine arousal vs. valence effects on sustained attention in a category-matching task. Participants (n = 39) were presented with pairs of words and had to decide whether they both matched the target category for each block (negative, positive, or neutral) while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. In an attention-hold condition the first stimulus presented matched the target category and the participant must attend to the second stimulus to decide whether both match. In an attention-release condition the first stimulus does not match the target category. Reaction times (RTs) were faster in the negative and positive target blocks as compared to the neutral target blocks, indicating that the arousal dimension of emotion enhanced attention in both emotion target blocks. When comparing negative and positive target matches directly, faster RTs for negative hits than positive hits were found, indicating narrowing of attention in the negative-target block. Multiple indices of emotion-target blocks enhancing attention to the target stimuli were found in the event-related potential (ERP) data (all p's < .05), particularly in the P3 being enhanced on hold conditions to negative and positive compared to neutral matches. ERP support for the narrowing effect of negative stimuli on attention was not as clear.