Evaluation and Recall of Valenced Stimuli as a Function of Spatial Positions

<p>Meier and Robinson (2004) had subjects identify pleasant and unpleasant words presented individually either at the top or bottom of a computer screen. Subjects identified pleasant words faster when they appeared at the top of the screen and unpleasant words faster whey they appeared at the bottom of the screen. The authors discussed this finding in terms of metaphors noting that in language good things are often allocated upwards (e.g. “things are looking up for me”) and bad things downwards e.g. (“I’m down in the dumps”). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether this relationship between affective stimuli and visual space occurs automatically (implicitly) or whether explicit processing of affective stimuli is required. A second aim was to investigate if memory for affective words is influenced by spatial location. In Experiments 1 and 2 subjects were shown pleasant and unpleasant words presented either at the top or bottom of a computer screen. Half the words were coloured green and half coloured purple. Subjects had to identify the colour as quickly as possible. No significant interaction between stimulus valence and spatial position was found, nor did recall interact with spatial position. In Experiment 3 subjects had to explicitly identify the valence of the words shown either at the top or bottom of the screen. It was predicted that positive stimuli would be explicitly evaluated faster and recalled more accurately when shown at the top of the screen, with the opposite holding true for negative stimuli. Participants were quicker to identify positive words at the top of the screen. Recall did not interact with spatial position. Overall the results of this study were broadly supportive of the hypothesis for explicit evaluation but not so for implicit evaluation or recall.</p>

Evaluation and Recall of Valenced Stimuli as a Function of Spatial Positions

<p>Meier and Robinson (2004) had subjects identify pleasant and unpleasant words presented individually either at the top or bottom of a computer screen. Subjects identified pleasant words faster when they appeared at the top of the screen and unpleasant words faster whey they appeared at the bottom of the screen. The authors discussed this finding in terms of metaphors noting that in language good things are often allocated upwards (e.g. “things are looking up for me”) and bad things downwards e.g. (“I’m down in the dumps”). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether this relationship between affective stimuli and visual space occurs automatically (implicitly) or whether explicit processing of affective stimuli is required. A second aim was to investigate if memory for affective words is influenced by spatial location. In Experiments 1 and 2 subjects were shown pleasant and unpleasant words presented either at the top or bottom of a computer screen. Half the words were coloured green and half coloured purple. Subjects had to identify the colour as quickly as possible. No significant interaction between stimulus valence and spatial position was found, nor did recall interact with spatial position. In Experiment 3 subjects had to explicitly identify the valence of the words shown either at the top or bottom of the screen. It was predicted that positive stimuli would be explicitly evaluated faster and recalled more accurately when shown at the top of the screen, with the opposite holding true for negative stimuli. Participants were quicker to identify positive words at the top of the screen. Recall did not interact with spatial position. Overall the results of this study were broadly supportive of the hypothesis for explicit evaluation but not so for implicit evaluation or recall.</p>

The fear factor : effects of implicit and explicit processing on the emotional enhancement of memory

This thesis examines whether implicit and explicit processing of emotional facial expressions affects the emotional enhancement of memory (EEM). On the basis that explicit processing is associated with relative reductions in amygdala activation and arousal, I predicted that fearful faces, in particular, would lead to a robust EEM effect following encoding with implicit, but not explicit processing. Participants were shown a series of facial expressions (happy, fearful, angry, and neutral) in an "indirect" and a "direct" task designed to elicit implicit and explicit processing, respectively. Later they underwent a recognition memory test using the Remember-Know paradigm. Fearful faces exhibited a unique pattern whereby indirect encoding led to an enhanced subjective sense of recollection, whereas direct encoding prevented an increase in recollection that was observed for all other emotions. These findings may reflect interactions among amygdalar/arousal thresholds and levels of processing (LOP) effects on recognition memory.

The fear factor : effects of implicit and explicit processing on the emotional enhancement of memory

This thesis examines whether implicit and explicit processing of emotional facial expressions affects the emotional enhancement of memory (EEM). On the basis that explicit processing is associated with relative reductions in amygdala activation and arousal, I predicted that fearful faces, in particular, would lead to a robust EEM effect following encoding with implicit, but not explicit processing. Participants were shown a series of facial expressions (happy, fearful, angry, and neutral) in an "indirect" and a "direct" task designed to elicit implicit and explicit processing, respectively. Later they underwent a recognition memory test using the Remember-Know paradigm. Fearful faces exhibited a unique pattern whereby indirect encoding led to an enhanced subjective sense of recollection, whereas direct encoding prevented an increase in recollection that was observed for all other emotions. These findings may reflect interactions among amygdalar/arousal thresholds and levels of processing (LOP) effects on recognition memory.

Deep Brain Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus Selectively Modulates Emotion Recognition of Facial Stimuli in Parkinson’s Patients

: Background: Diminished emotion recognition is a known symptom in Parkinson (PD) patients and subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) has been shown to further deteriorate the processing of especially negative emotions. While emotion recognition generally refers to both, implicit and explicit processing, demonstrations of DBS-influences on implicit processing are sparse. In the present study, we assessed the impact of STN-DBS on explicit and implicit processing for emotional stimuli. Methods: Under STN-DBS ON and OFF, fourteen PD patients performed an implicit as well as an explicit emotional processing task. To assess implicit emotional processing, patients were tested with a lexical decision task (LTD) combined with an affective priming paradigm, which provides emotional content through the facial eye region. To assess explicit emotional processing, patients additionally explicitly rated the emotional status of eyes and words used in the implicit task. Results: DBS affected explicit emotional processing more than implicit processing with a more pronounced effect on error rates than on reaction speed. STN-DBS generally worsened implicit and explicit processing for disgust stimulus material but improved explicit processing of fear stimuli. Conclusions: This is the first study demonstrating influences of STN-DBS on explicit and implicit emotion processing in PD patients. While STN stimulation impeded the processing of disgust stimuli, it improved explicit discrimination of fear stimuli.

Response-irrelevant number, duration, and extent information triggers the SQARC effect: Evidence from an implicit paradigm

Spatial–Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) and Spatial–Quantity Association of Response Codes (SQARC) effects are evident when people produce faster left-sided responses to smaller numbers, sizes, and durations and faster right-sided responses to larger numbers, sizes, and durations. SQARC effects have typically been demonstrated in paradigms where the explicit processing of quantity information is required for successful task completion. The current study tested whether the implicit presentation of task-irrelevant magnitude information could trigger a SQARC effect as has been demonstrated previously when task-irrelevant information triggers a SNARC effect. In Experiment 1, participants ( n = 20) made orientation judgements for triangles varying in numerosity and physical extent. In Experiment 2, participants ( n = 20) made orientation judgements for triangles varying in numerosity and for a triangle preceded by a delay of varying duration. SNARC effects were observed for the numerosity conditions of Experiments 1 and 2 replicating Mitchell et al. SQARC effects were also demonstrated for physical extent and for duration. These findings demonstrate that SQARC effects can be implicitly triggered by the presentation of the task-irrelevant magnitude.