Positive affect increases the breadth of attentional selection

Rowe, Gillian; Hirsh, Jacob B.; Anderson, Adam K. · 2006 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0605198104

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Summary

This study investigates the hypothesis that positive affect broadens the scope of attentional selection, thereby reducing the selectivity of attentional filters. While negative affect is known to constrict attentional focus, the authors propose that positive mood serves the opposite function by enhancing the breadth of both visual and conceptual processing. This theoretical framework aligns with the "broaden-and-build" theory, which suggests that positive emotions increase cognitive flexibility and creative thinking. The research aims to determine if this enhanced creativity stems from a fundamental change in selective attention that affects both external visual perception and internal conceptual representations. To test this hypothesis, the researchers employed a within-subjects design using mood inductions via music to create positive, negative, and neutral affective states. They measured attentional breadth across two distinct cognitive domains. In the conceptual domain, participants performed the Remote Associates Task (RAT), which requires identifying semantically distant associations, serving as an index of semantic access scope. In the visuospatial domain, participants completed the Eriksen flanker task, where they had to selectively attend to a central target while ignoring flanking distractors at varying distances. Performance on this task served as an index of visual selective attention, with increased interference from distractors indicating a broader, less selective attentional scope. The results demonstrated that positive mood significantly enhanced performance on the RAT, with participants solving more remote associate problems compared to those in neutral or sad moods. Conversely, positive mood impaired visual selective attention in the flanker task. Participants in a positive state exhibited greater response slowing when faced with incompatible flanking distractors, particularly those at far distances, indicating that they processed irrelevant spatial information more fully than those in neutral or negative states. Crucially, individual differences analysis revealed a significant correlation during positive mood: participants who showed the greatest breadth in semantic access (high RAT scores) also demonstrated the most pronounced impairment in visual selective attention (high flanker interference). This correlation was absent in neutral and negative mood conditions. These findings support the conclusion that positive affect induces a fundamental shift in the breadth of attentional allocation, loosening inhibitory control to allow for a more diffuse processing style. This broadening facilitates tasks requiring global or creative thinking, such as finding remote associations, but impairs tasks requiring narrow, focused attention, such as filtering out visual distractors. The study provides a unifying framework linking positive affect, attention, and creativity, suggesting that the cognitive benefits of positive mood arise from a relaxed attentional filter that increases the scope of information processing across both perceptual and conceptual domains.

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• affect cognition
• affect mood