The Effect Of Attentional Load And Emotion Stimulus On College Students' Attention Distribution And Shifts

The relationships between attentional load,attention and emotions have long been a hot topic in psychology.The individuals' ability of controlling attentional load may contribute to appropriate distribution of attention resource,thus improving working productivity.Under the influence of emotion stimuli,Individuals' attention on current task will be disrupted and redirected on that emotion,particularly for the emotion contains negative information.Therefore,the research on association between attentional load and emotions has critical implication for individuals' attention distribution and reallocation.There were two sections in current study.And each section contained two experiments.The participants were primarily comprised of college students.In study 1,the experiment A was a 2(attentional load: high,low)× 3(emotional words: positive,negative,neutral)within-subject design.The experiment A examined the influence of attentional load on attention distribution by using emotional words as relevant stimulus.The experiment B had identical experimental design to experiment A,which explored the influence of attentional load on attention distribution by using emotional faces with different emotions as relevant stimulus.In study 2,the experiment C was a 2(attentional load : high,low)× 3(emotional words: positive,negative,neutral)× 3(cue: relevant,irrelevant,non)within-subject design.The experiment C investiged the effect of attentional load on attention shifts by using emotional words as target stimulus.The experiment D had the similar experimental design to experiment C,which explored the impact of attentional load on attention shifts by using pictures showing different emotions as target stimulus.Conclusions :First,under high attentional load condition,college students' ability of distributing and shifting attention resources was significantly lower than under low attentional load;Second,emotional words had no significantly impact on attention distribution and shifts;Third,emotional faces effected attention distribution differently,the negative facial expression got the most amount of attention,and followed by neutral facial expression,then positive facial expression;Fourth,emotional pictures effected attention shifts differently,college students could shift the attention to negative emotion pictures quickly,and followed by neutral emotion pictures,then positive emotion pictures;Fifth,cues effected attention shifts differently,with the valid cues,college students were best at shifting attention,followed by invalid cues,then non cues;Sixth,college students showed attentional bias(which reflected attentional facilitation)toward negative emotion information.