“Distracters” do not always distract: visual working memory for angry faces is enhanced by incidental emotional words

Jackson, Margaret C., Linden, David Edmund Johannes ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5638-9292 and Raymond, Jane E. 2012. “Distracters” do not always distract: visual working memory for angry faces is enhanced by incidental emotional words. Frontiers in Psychology 3 , 437. 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00437

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Abstract

We are often required to filter out distraction in order to focus on a primary task during which working memory (WM) is engaged. Previous research has shown that negative versus neutral distracters presented during a visual WM maintenance period significantly impair memory for neutral information. However, the contents of WM are often also emotional in nature. The question we address here is how incidental information might impact upon visual WM when both this and the memory items contain emotional information. We presented emotional versus neutral words during the maintenance interval of an emotional visual WM faces task. Participants encoded two angry or happy faces into WM, and several seconds into a 9 s maintenance period a negative, positive, or neutral word was flashed on the screen three times. A single neutral test face was presented for retrieval with a face identity that was either present or absent in the preceding study array. WM for angry face identities was significantly better when an emotional (negative or positive) versus neutral (or no) word was presented. In contrast, WM for happy face identities was not significantly affected by word valence. These findings suggest that the presence of emotion within an intervening stimulus boosts the emotional value of threat-related information maintained in visual WM and thus improves performance. In addition, we show that incidental events that are emotional in nature do not always distract from an ongoing WM task.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG) Medicine Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute (NMHRI)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > R Medicine (General) R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	emotion, working memory, distraction, faces, facilitation, angry face, threat
Additional Information:	Pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher's policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/1664-1078/ (accessed 25/02/2014). This Document is Protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. it is reproduced with permission.
Publisher:	Frontiers Research Foundation
ISSN:	1664-1078
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	03 May 2023 07:55
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/43237

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