The Effect Of Two-way-emotional Condition On Attention Breadth

Emotion is one of the most important factors that affect attention breadth. Attention breadth can be affected by two directions of emotional sources. One is from the person with emotional affect. The other is from the processing of materials with emotional value. Current researches on the effect of each direction on attention breadth have been enough to come to very consistent conclusions. But seldom research has been found which combined the two directions (we called it "two-way emotional conditions"). So we attempt to investigate the effect of two-way-emotional condition on attention breadth by inducing different levels of emotion valence or motivation and using emotional flanker paradigm. Both the two emotion dimensions can cause top-down effect on attention breadth, so we also attempt to further investigate which effect is more dominant.The study included three experiments, Experiment1used the emotional flanker paradigm to verify the conclusion that comparing to positive faces, negative faces can narrow attention focus and reduce the attention breadth. On the basis of experiment1, in Experiment2, we aim to explore the effect of two-way-emotional condition on attention breadth by inducing high motivation levels of positive and negative emotions and using the emotional flanker paradigm. In Experiment3, we aim to explore the effect of two-way-emotional condition on attention breadth by inducing low motivation levels of positive emotion and still using the emotional flanker paradigm. The main findings of this study are as follows:1) In the two-way emotional condition, if the positive or negative emotion induced is of high levels of motivation (approach or withdraw), then comparing to the affect of emotional material, the top-down effect of emotional induction is more dominant.2) In the two-way emotional condition, if the positive emotion induced is of low levels of motivation (approach), then comparing to the affect of emotion induction, the top-down effect of emotional material is more dominant.