Emotional Overshadowing: Pleasant and Unpleasant Cues Overshadow Neutral Cues in Human Associative Learning

Zhu, Jianming; Radulescu, Angela; Bennett, Daniel · 2024 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1007/s42761-024-00270-0

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Summary

This study investigates "emotional overshadowing," a phenomenon where emotionally valenced cues (pleasant or unpleasant) compete with and overshadow neutral cues during human associative learning. While traditional overshadowing research has focused on physical salience (e.g., intensity), this work tests whether emotional valence similarly drives attentional prioritization and learning strength. The authors hypothesized that because emotional stimuli capture attention more effectively than neutral ones, they would form stronger cue-outcome associations when presented in compound stimuli. The research comprised two experiments: an initial exploratory study (N = 50) and a preregistered confirmatory replication (N = 200). Participants completed a probabilistic categorization task using compound "flashcard" stimuli, each consisting of two image cues drawn from the OASIS dataset. The compounds varied in emotional composition: pleasant/neutral, unpleasant/neutral, pleasant/unpleasant, and neutral/neutral. Participants learned the probabilistic association between these compound stimuli and outcome shapes (blue square or yellow triangle) and later reported their confidence in the cue-outcome contingencies for individual images. Data were analyzed using Bayesian mixed-effects regression, utilizing participants' self-reported valence and arousal ratings for each image as predictors. The results provided consistent evidence for emotional overshadowing across both studies. In compounds containing one emotional and one neutral cue, participants formed significantly stronger associations with the emotional cue and weaker associations with the neutral cue. This effect occurred for both pleasant and unpleasant images. Crucially, no overshadowing was observed in compounds where both cues were neutral or where both were emotionally valenced (pleasant/unpleasant). A joint analysis revealed that the magnitude of overshadowing was proportional to the difference in absolute emotional valence between the paired cues, rather than their signed valence or arousal levels. This indicates that attention is captured by the intensity of emotional valence regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Moderating effects of anxiety were found in the exploratory study but failed to replicate. These findings demonstrate that emotional valence functions as a salience factor in associative learning, analogous to physical intensity. The study concludes that attentional capture by emotional cues drives differential learning rates, leading to stronger associations for emotional stimuli within compound contexts. This has significant implications for understanding learning in natural and digital environments, such as social media or gambling, where emotionally charged cues may distort associative learning by overshadowing neutral information. The results bridge research on emotion-attention interactions and associative learning, suggesting that emotional valence is a critical determinant of cue associability.

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