The Impact Of Task Relevance On Attentional Bias For Fear Faces

The debate over the processing mechanism of visual attention has been long-standing.Recent studies have shown that top-down goal-driven attention can modulate bottom-up stimulus-driven processing.Fear stimuli are closely related to humans' adaptation to survival.Earlier studies have shown that fear faces are prioritized for attention than neutral faces.However,whether the stimulus-driven processing of the fear attentional bias is affected by the current task goal and its neural mechanism deserves our in-depth discussion.This dissertation aims to discuss the impact of fear faces when they appear as task goals and non-task goals.In the current study,we collected electroencephalographic data using the modified version of the spatial cue paradigm.Based on previous research,we used two experiments to explore the two components of the task relevance of fear attentional bias-attention to orientation and attention to disengagement.Behavioral data revealed that in the first experiment which the task was related to emotions,the fear faces in the cued position captured the attention faster than the neutral faces.In addition,when the subjects needed to shift attention from the position of the cued to the target position,the fear faces were attention to detachment delay than in neutral faces.In the second experiment,the task was not related to emotions.The fear distracted faces neither showed attentional orientation nor found attentional detachment delay.The results of ERP revealed that in experiment 1,both N170 and VPP showed significant emotional effects,and the amplitude of fear-induced faces was significantly higher than that of neutral faces;the P1 component only exhibited a clue effect.In experiment 2,the fear faces did not participate in the current task.During the task,the amplitudes of the N170 component and the VPP component did not differ significantly between the fear distracting faces and the neutral distracting faces,and did not show attentional processing bias for the fear faces.Based on the above two experiments,the task relevance can influence the processing bias of fear stimuli.The results also suggested that the effect of top-down control on the attentional bias of fear faces may be occurs in the early stages of attention.