Is the emotional blink just an attentional blink in disguise?
| Author(s) | Lompado, Alyssa | |
| Date Accessioned | 2020-04-17T13:25:15Z | |
| Date Available | 2020-04-17T13:25:15Z | |
| Publication Date | 2019 | |
| SWORD Update | 2020-02-06T17:02:11Z | |
| Abstract | In the attentional blink (AB) paradigm, participants attempt to report two targets in a rapidly presented stream of distractors. Emotion induced blindness (EIB) is similar, except that the first target (T1) is replaced by a task-irrelevant, emotional distractor. In both cases, awareness of the second target suffers because attention is captured by T1 (AB) or the emotional distractor (EIB). An important theoretical question is whether attention capture is mediated by the same underlying mechanisms in both paradigms. In the case of EIB, some researchers have suggested that emotional stimuli are processed by a specialized system involving rapid activation of a subcortical pathway targeting the amygdala. This system is not only automatic but acts much faster than the geniculostriate pathway used by task relevant targets in the AB. The claim that attention is captured more rapidly in EIB than AB appears to be supported by a recent finding that lag 1 sparing does not occur in EIB (Kennedy and Most, 2015). Lag 1 sparing refers to relatively unimpaired performance for second targets appearing immediately after the first target. The absence of lag sparing in EIB might reflect the rapid perceptual suppression resulting from specialized processing of emotional pictures. The current study examined this issue using behavioral and ERP measures to directly compare lag 1 performance for EIB and a matched AB paradigm. We replicated the finding of no lag 1 sparing in EIB, but this was also the case for the AB, as well as the neutral distractor control in EIB. Furthermore, the ERP components associated with the emotional distractors in EIB and T1 in AB appeared remarkably similar. These findings show that an absence of lag 1 sparing in EIB cannot be used as an empirical signature of different mechanisms that differentiate the two paradigms. | en_US |
| Advisor | Hoffman, James E. | |
| Degree | M.A. | |
| Department | University of Delaware, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.58088/bam4-ds63 | |
| Unique Identifier | 1151008338 | |
| URL | http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/25991 | |
| Language | en | |
| Publisher | University of Delaware | en_US |
| URI | https://search.proquest.com/docview/2377935239?accountid=10457 | |
| Title | Is the emotional blink just an attentional blink in disguise? | en_US |
| Type | Thesis | en_US |