The effect of cognitive load in emotional attention and trait anxiety: An eye movement study

Berggren, Nick; Koster, Ernst H. W.; Derakshan, Nazanin · 2012 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2011.618450

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Summary

This study investigates whether the attentional processing of emotional information, particularly threat, is automatic and independent of cognitive resources, or if it is modulated by cognitive load and trait anxiety. Addressing a debate in the literature regarding the automaticity of emotion processing, the authors employed a visual search paradigm combined with eye-tracking to disentangle early attentional capture from later cognitive processing stages. The research specifically examined how concurrent cognitive load affects the detection of emotional targets and disengagement from emotional distractors, while also assessing individual differences based on trait anxiety levels. The experiment involved 63 participants who performed a visual search task where they identified an "odd-one-out" face among eight others. Stimuli included angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions arranged in various target/crowd combinations. Cognitive load was manipulated by requiring participants to count backwards in threes during half of the trials. Data collection included manual reaction times and detailed eye-movement metrics, such as time to fixate the target, dwell time on crowd faces, and target processing efficiency. Participants were categorized into high- and low-trait anxiety groups based on median splits of their anxiety scores. Results indicated that emotional information generally captured attention more strongly than neutral information. However, cognitive load significantly increased the time taken to fixate targets and slowed manual reaction times, suggesting that initial attentional orienting is not entirely immune to resource competition. Crucially, eye-tracking data revealed that while load slowed initial fixation, it actually improved target processing efficiency in displays where both target and crowd were emotional, likely by reducing post-target fixations on distractors. This finding highlighted discrepancies between manual response data and eye-movement data, demonstrating that load affects different stages of processing differently. Regarding trait anxiety, high-anxious individuals exhibited significantly longer reaction times and took more time to fixate targets under cognitive load compared to low-anxious individuals, who showed minimal performance costs. High-anxious participants also made more fixations on crowd faces after locating the target. The study concludes that while emotional stimuli possess inherent saliency, their processing is not fully automatic and is influenced by cognitive load, particularly in the stages involving working memory and target maintenance. The findings underscore the necessity of using eye-tracking alongside behavioral measures to accurately interpret attentional biases, as manual responses alone can mask underlying processing efficiencies. Furthermore, the results provide support for theories suggesting that high trait anxiety is associated with greater vulnerability to cognitive interference, leading to performance costs under load that are not present in low-anxious individuals.

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