Neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor words
Exogenous or automatic attention to emotional distractors has been observed for emotional scenes and faces. In the language domain, however, automatic attention capture by emotional words has been scarcely investigated. In the current event-related potentials study we explored distractor effects el...
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doaj-dbbd717abd72460aad92fad0d9f109ef2020-11-24T22:23:38ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782015-01-01610.3389/fpsyg.2015.00024120236Neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor wordsJosé Antonio Hinojosa0Francisco eMercado1Jacobo eAlbert2Jacobo eAlbert3Paloma eBarjola4Irene ePeláez5Cristina eVillalba-García6Luis eCarretié7Universidad Complutense of MadridUniversidad Rey Juan CarlosUniversidad Complutense of MadridUniversidad Autónoma of MadridUniversidad Rey Juan CarlosUniversidad Rey Juan CarlosUniversidad Complutense of MadridUniversidad Autónoma of MadridExogenous or automatic attention to emotional distractors has been observed for emotional scenes and faces. In the language domain, however, automatic attention capture by emotional words has been scarcely investigated. In the current event-related potentials study we explored distractor effects elicited by positive, negative and neutral words in a concurrent but distinct target distractor paradigm. Specifically, participants performed a digit categorization task in which task-irrelevant words were flanked by numbers. The results of both temporo-spatial principal component and source location analyses revealed the existence of early distractor effects that were specifically triggered by positive words. At the scalp level, task-irrelevant positive compared to neutral and negative words elicited larger amplitudes in an anterior negative component that peaked around 120 ms. Also, at the voxel level, positive distractor words increased activity in orbitofrontal regions compared to negative words. These results suggest that positive distractor words quickly and automatically capture attentional resources diverting them from the task where attention was voluntarily directed.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00024/fullWord ProcessingemotionEvent-related potentialsAnterior N1positive distractors |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
José Antonio Hinojosa Francisco eMercado Jacobo eAlbert Jacobo eAlbert Paloma eBarjola Irene ePeláez Cristina eVillalba-García Luis eCarretié |
spellingShingle |
José Antonio Hinojosa Francisco eMercado Jacobo eAlbert Jacobo eAlbert Paloma eBarjola Irene ePeláez Cristina eVillalba-García Luis eCarretié Neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor words Frontiers in Psychology Word Processing emotion Event-related potentials Anterior N1 positive distractors |
author_facet |
José Antonio Hinojosa Francisco eMercado Jacobo eAlbert Jacobo eAlbert Paloma eBarjola Irene ePeláez Cristina eVillalba-García Luis eCarretié |
author_sort |
José Antonio Hinojosa |
title |
Neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor words |
title_short |
Neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor words |
title_full |
Neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor words |
title_fullStr |
Neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor words |
title_full_unstemmed |
Neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor words |
title_sort |
neural correlates of an early attentional capture by positive distractor words |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Psychology |
issn |
1664-1078 |
publishDate |
2015-01-01 |
description |
Exogenous or automatic attention to emotional distractors has been observed for emotional scenes and faces. In the language domain, however, automatic attention capture by emotional words has been scarcely investigated. In the current event-related potentials study we explored distractor effects elicited by positive, negative and neutral words in a concurrent but distinct target distractor paradigm. Specifically, participants performed a digit categorization task in which task-irrelevant words were flanked by numbers. The results of both temporo-spatial principal component and source location analyses revealed the existence of early distractor effects that were specifically triggered by positive words. At the scalp level, task-irrelevant positive compared to neutral and negative words elicited larger amplitudes in an anterior negative component that peaked around 120 ms. Also, at the voxel level, positive distractor words increased activity in orbitofrontal regions compared to negative words. These results suggest that positive distractor words quickly and automatically capture attentional resources diverting them from the task where attention was voluntarily directed. |
topic |
Word Processing emotion Event-related potentials Anterior N1 positive distractors |
url |
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00024/full |
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