The Influence Of Negative Emotion And Anxiety State On Attentional Blink

As a functional illiteracy, Attentional Blink reflects a basic limitations on the understanding of the temporal dynamics of attention. In rapid serial visual presentation classic(RSVP) paradigm, a neutral distractor stimuli is normally used.But emotional distractor stimuli is explored only a single task paradigm, It remains unclear whether negative stimuli as distractors would affect Attentional Blink in the dual-task paradigm. Research shows that high trait anxiety individuals more inclined to pay attention to negative or threatening information. But there is still no unanimous conclusion.It remains unclear whether emotional picture as distractors and anxiety would affect different Attentional Blink.With RSVP the current study paradigm uses negative pictures and neutral pictures as distractors, in order to explore the effects of negative emotional stimuli and different anxiety state on attention.The results show that:(1)When negative pictures is as the distrators, Attentional Blink is the most obvious.(2) When Stimulus Onset Asynchrony(SOA) is for 200 ms,Attentional Blink is the most obvious, when SOA is 600 ms, the Attentional Blink still exists;(3) When low trait anxiety individuals uses neutral picture as distrators, and SOA is 600 ms, Attentional Blink is nearly disappearing. But when negative pictures is used as distractors, Its Attentional Blink is significantly lower than the high trait anxiety individuals’ s.These results indicate that a negative bias can affect Attentional Blink, and200 ms is a key moment of that Attentional Blink occurs. Moreover, due to the high trait anxiety individuals more sensitive to negative stimuli. when the high trait anxiety individuals use negative stimuli as distrators and SOA is for 200 ms, Attention Blink is the most serious.From an evolutionary point of view, when dangerous situations arise,which is important for the individual’s surviving to quickly perceive and react in nature. Also, attention of the low trait anxiety individuals’ s is easier to be distracted compared to high trait anxiety individuals’ s. The stronger the individuals’ s anti-interference ability is, the better for it to concentrate upon target tasks.