Individual differences in visual and auditory processing of emotional material

• Authors: Anna Zagórska , Małgorzata Fajkowska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Presented studies investigated the specificity of visual and auditory modalities in attentional processing of emotion, and its association with temperamental dimensions and trait-like attentional control (AC). During preliminary study 30 participants were presented with the paper-pencil visual search task (Emotional Faces Attentional Test) and emotional prosody detection tasks (Emotional Prosody Test). Results revealed visual happiness superiority and auditory sadness superiority. During the main study, in addition to attentional performance, 51 subjects were administrated two questionnaires: EPQ-R and Attentional Control Scale. Introducing individual differences into analysis limited the general pattern of modality distinctiveness in attentional processing of emotional stimuli obtained in the preliminary study. Findings for all personality traits studied separately showed that Extraversion and low Neuroticism were associated with the visual sadness superiority. Whereas interactional analysis indicated effective visual threat processing in extraverts with good AC and effective friendly prosody detection when Neuroticism and AC remain in inverse relationship. Hence, we have found that processing emotional targets in both modalities is associated with temperament dimensions and their interactions with attentional control. Additionally, findings from both studies suggest that general psychological laws might be challenged by individual differences.

Keywords

EN

temperament; attention; emotional facial expression; emotional prosody

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 46
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 174-180

Dates

published

2015-06-01

online

2015-05-22

Contributors

author

Anna Zagórska

• Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, 19/31 Chodakowska St., 03-815 Warsaw, Poland

author

Małgorzata Fajkowska

• Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 1 Jaracza St., 00-378 Warsaw, Poland

References

• Bishop, S.J., Duncan, J., Brett, M., & Lawrence, A.D. (2004). Prefrontal cortical function and anxiety: Controlling attention to threat-related stimuli. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 184-188.[PubMed][Crossref]
• Bond, N.W., & Siddle, D.A. (1996). The preparedness account of social phobia: Some data and alternative explanations. In R.M. Rapee (Ed.), Current Controversies in the Anxiety Disorders (pp. 291-316). New York: Guilford Press.
• Bryan, K. (1989). Right Hemisphere Language Battery. Leicester: Far Communications.
• Corbetta, M., & Shulman, G.L. (2002). Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 201-215.[PubMed]
• Depue, R.A., & Collins, P.F. (1999). Neurobiology of the structure of personality: dopamine, facilitation of incentive motivation, and extraversion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 491-569.
• DeNeve, K.M., & Cooper, H. (1998). The happy personality: A metaanalysis of 137 personality traits and subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 197-229.[WoS]
• Derryberry, D. (2002). Attention and voluntary self-control. Self and Identity, 1, 105-111.
• Derryberry, D., & Reed, M.A. (1994). Temperament and attention: Orienting toward and away from positive and negative signals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 1128-1139.
• Derryberry, D., & Reed, M.A. (2001). Attentional control, trait anxiety, and the regulation of irrelevant response information. Manuscript.
• Derryberry, D. & Reed, M.A. (2002). Anxiety-related attentional biases and their regulation by attentional control. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 225-236.
• Derryberry, D., & Reed, M.A. (2003). Information processing approaches to individual differences in emotional reactivity. In R.J. Davidson, K.R. Scherer, & H.H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 681-697). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition& Emotion, 6, 169-200.[Crossref]
• Ekman, P., & Friesen, W.V. (1976). Measuring facial movements. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 1, 56-75.
• Eysenck, H.J., & Eysenck, S.B. (1994). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire: Comprising the EPQ-Revised (EPQ-R) and EPQ-R Short Scale. San Diego, CA: EdITS.
• Fajkowska, M. (2013). Personality coherence and incoherence: A perspective on anxiety and depression. Clinton Corners, NY: Eliot Werner Publications.[WoS]
• Fajkowska, M., & Krejtz, I. (2006).Temperament, lęk i uwagowe przetwarzanie informacji emocjonalnych [Temperament, anxiety and attentional processing of emotional stimuli]. In M. Fajkowska, M. Marszał-Wiśniewska, & G. Sędek (Eds.), Podpatrywanie myśli i uczuć. Zaburzenia i optymalizacja procesów emocjonalnych i poznawczych. Nowe kierunki badań (pp. 45-62). Gdańsk: GWP.
• Fajkowska, M., & Eysenck, M.W. (2008). Personality and cognitive performance. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 39, 178-191.
• Fajkowska, M., & Derryberry, D. (2010). Psychometric properties of Attentional Control Scale: The preliminary study on a Polish sample. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 41, 1-7.[Crossref]
• Foa, E.B., & McNally, R.J. (1986). Sensitivity to feared stimuli on obsessive-compulsives: A dichotic listening analysis. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 10, 477-485.[Crossref]
• Fox, E. (1994). Attentional bias in anxiety: A defective inhibition hypothesis. Cognition & Emotion, 8, 165-195.[Crossref]
• Fox, E. (2002). Processing emotional facial expressions: The role of anxiety and awareness. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 2, 52-63.
• Fox, E. (2008). Emotion Science. Cognitive and Neuroscientific Approaches to Understanding Human Emotions. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillian.
• Fox, E., Russo, R., & Georgiou, G.A. (2005). Anxiety modulates the degree of attentive resources required to process emotional faces. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 5, 396-404.
• Gainotti, G. (2000). Neuropsychological theories of emotion. In J.C. Borod (Ed.), Neuropsychology of Emotion (pp. 214-136). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Gomez, R., Gomez, A., & Cooper, A. (2002). Neuroticism and extraversion as predictors of negative and positive emotional information processing: Comparing Eysenck’s, Gray’s and Newman’s theories. European Journal of Personality, 16, 333-350.[Crossref]
• Hansen, C.H., & Hansen, R.D. (1988). Finding the face in the crowd: An anger superiority effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 917-924.[Crossref]
• Horstmann, G. (2003). What do facial expressions convey: Feeling states, behavioral intentions, or action requests? Emotion, 3, 150-166.[PubMed][Crossref]
• Huebner, R.R., & Izard, C.E. (1988). Mothers’ responses to infants’ facial expressions of sadness, anger, and physical distress. Motivation and Emotion, 12, 185-196.[Crossref]
• Hutcherson, C.A., Goldin, P.R., Ramel, W., McRae, K., & Gross, J.J. (2008). Attention and emotion influence the relationship between extraversion and neural response. Scan, 3,71-79. Izard, C.E. (1977). Human Emotions. New York: Plenum Press.
• Johnstone, T., & Scherer, K.R. (2000). Vocal communication of emotion. In M. Lewis & J.M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions, 2nd ed. (pp. 220-235). New York: Guilford Press.
• Juslin, P., & Laukka, P. (2003). Communication of emotions in vocal expression and music performance: different channels, same code? Psychological Bulletin, 129, 770-814.
• Lieberman, M.D. (2000). Introversion and working memory: central executive differences. Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 479-86.[Crossref]
• Lieberman, M.D., & Rosenthal, R. (2001). Why introverts can’t always tell who likes them: multitasking and nonverbal encoding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 294-310.[Crossref]
• Lucas, R.E., & Fujita, F. (2000). Factors influencing the relation between extraversion and pleasant affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1039-1056.[Crossref]
• Łojek, E. (2007). Bateria Testów do Badania Funkcji Językowych i Komunikacyjnych Prawej Półkuli Mózgu, RHLB-PL. [Test battery to assess linguistic and communications functions of the right hemisphere]. Warszawa: Pracownia Testów Psychologicznych Polskiego Towarzystwa Psychologicznego.
• Mathews, A., & MacLeod, C. (1985). Selective processing of threat cues in anxiety states. Behavioral Research Methods, 23, 317-323.
• Öhman, A., Lundqvist, D., & Esteves, F. (2001). The face in the crowd revisited: A threat advantage with schematic stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 381-396.[Crossref]
• Pinkham, A., Griffin, M., Baron, R., Sasson, N., & Gur, R. (2010). The Face in the Crowd Effect: Anger Superiority When Using Real Faces and Multiple Identities. Emotion, 10, 141-146.[WoS][PubMed][Crossref]
• Posner, M.I., & Petersen, S.E. (1990). The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25-42.[WoS][Crossref][PubMed]
• Posner, M.I., & Rothbart, M.K. (1998). Attention, self-regulation and consciousness. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 353, 1915-1927.
• Rusting, C.L., & Larsen, R.J. (1998). Personality and cognitive performance of affective information. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 200-213.[Crossref]
• Scherer, K.R. (1986). Vocal affect expression: A review and a model for future research. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 143-165.
• Siegman, A., & Boyle, S. (1993). Voices of fear and anxiety and sadness and depression: The effects of speech rate and loudness on fear and anxiety and sadness and depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 430-437.[Crossref]
• Strelau, J. (2000). Temperament [Temperament]. In J. Strelau (Ed.), Psychologia. Podręcznik akademicki. Tom 2: Psychologia ogólna (pp. 683-719). Gdańsk: GWP Styles, E.A. (2006). The psychology of attention, 2nd ed. New York: Psychology Press.
• Szymura, B. (2007). Temperament uwagi [Temperament of attention]. Kraków: Universitats.
• Trimmer, C.G., & Cuddy, L.L. (2008). Emotional intelligence, not music training, predicts recognition of emotional speech prosody. Emotion, 8, 838-849.[PubMed][Crossref]
• Wallbott, H.G., & Scherer, K.R. (1986). Cues and channels in emotion recognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 690-699. [Crossref]

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/ppb-2015-0023