Abstract
Previous research has shown that emotional stimuli interfere with ongoing activities. One explanation is that these stimuli draw attention away from the primary task and thereby hamper the correct execution of the task. Another explanation is that emotional stimuli cause a temporary freezing of all ongoing activity. We used a go/ no-go task to differentiate between these accounts. According to the attention account, emotional distractors should impair performance on both go and no-go trials. According to the freezing account, the presentation of emotional stimuli should be detrimental to performance on go trials, but beneficial for performance on no-go trials. Our findings confirm the former prediction: Pictures high in emotional arousal impaired performance on no-go trials.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Algom, D., Chajut, E., & Lev, S. (2004). A rational look at the emotional Stroop phenomenon: A generic slowdown, not a Stroop effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 323–338.
Azevedo, T. M., Volchan, E., Imbiriba, L. A., Rodrigues, E. C., Oliveira, J. M., Oliveira, L. F., et al. (2005). A freezing-like posture to pictures of mutilation. Psychophysiology, 42, 255–260.
Campbell, B. A., Wood, G., & McBride, T. (1997). Origins of orienting and defensive responses: An evolutionary perspective. In P. J. Lang, R. F. Simons, & M. T. Balaban (Eds.), Attention and orienting: Sensory and motivational processes (pp. 41–68). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Estes, Z., & Verges, M. (2008). Freeze or flee? Negative stimuli elicit selective responding. Cognition, 108, 557–565.
Facchinetti, L. D., Imbiriba, L. A., Azevedo, T. M., Vargas, C. D., & Volchan, E. (2006). Postural modulation induced by pictures depicting prosocial or dangerous contexts. Neuroscience Letters, 410, 52–56.
Flykt, A. (2006). Preparedness for action: Responding to the snake in the grass. American Journal of Psychology, 119, 29–43.
Fox, E., Russo, R., Bowles, R., & Dutton, K. (2001). Do threatening stimuli draw or hold visual attention in subclinical anxiety? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 681–700.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1997). Motivated attention: Affect, activation, and action. In P. J. Lang, R. F. Simons, & M. T. Balaban (Eds.), Attention and orienting: Sensory and motivational processes (pp. 97–134). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1999). International Affective Picture System: Instruction manual and affective ratings (Tech. Rep. No. A-4). Gainesville: University of Florida, Center for Research in Psychopathology.
Logan, G. D., & Cowan, W. B. (1984). On the ability to inhibit thought and action: A theory of an act of control. Psychological Review, 91, 295–327.
McKenna, F. P., & Sharma, D. (1995). Intrusive cognitions: An investigation of the emotional Stroop task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 21, 1595–1607.
McKenna, F. P., & Sharma, D. (2004). Reversing the emotional Stroop effect reveals that it is not what it seems: The role of fast and slow components. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 30, 382–392.
Öhman, A., Flykt, A., & Esteves, F. (2001). Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 466–478.
Schimmack, U. (2005). Attentional interference effects of emotional pictures: Threat, negativity, or arousal? Emotion, 5, 55–66.
Verbruggen, F., & De Houwer, J. (2007). Do emotional stimuli interfere with response inhibition? Evidence from the stop signal paradigm. Cognition & Emotion, 21, 391–403.
Verbruggen, F., & Logan, G. D. (2008). Automatic and controlled response inhibition: Associative learning in the go/no-go and stopsignal paradigms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 649–672.
Vogt, J., De Houwer, J., Koster, E. H. W., Van Damme, S., & Crombez, G. (2008). Allocation of spatial attention to emotional stimuli depends upon arousal and not valence. Emotion, 8, 880–885.
Wilkowski, B. M., & Robinson, M. D. (2006). Stopping dead in one’s tracks: Motor inhibition following incidental evaluations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 479–490.
Williams, J. M. G., Mathews, A., & MacLeod, C. (1996). The emotional Stroop task and psychopathology. Psychological Bulletin, 120, 3–24.
Wyble, B., Sharma, D., & Bowman, H. (2008). Strategic regulation of cognitive control by emotional salience: A neural network model. Cognition & Emotion, 22, 1019–1051.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The preparation of the manuscript was supported by GOA Grant BOF/GOA2006/001 from Ghent University.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
De Houwer, J., Tibboel, H. Stop what you are not doing! Emotional pictures interfere with the task not to respond. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 17, 699–703 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.5.699
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.5.699