The Effects Of High And Low Hierarchies Of Needs On Emotional Attentional Bias

It is generally believed that emotion-related stimuli have the potential to guide highly automated cognitive processes.According to the attentional network model proposed by Posner & Petersen(1990),attentional bias mainly occurs in the following two stages of attention:(1)Early attentional directed input;(2)Attentional detachment in late stage.Many studies have shown that the attentional bias of healthy people to positive stimuli occurs at the early stage of the attentional process,namely the directed input process.According to the evaluation theory of emotion,the stimuli that are more closely related to the individual’s needs are more likely to produce the directed input of attention in the early stage of attention.Therefore,this research adopts the classic special clueing paradigm,and combining individual event related potential technology to investigate human health the psychological process of the attention bias to emotional stimuli and neural mechanisms,and combining with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,stimulation and individual demand of general relevance(high vs.low demand)affect emotional attention bias.In Experiment 1,the spatial cuing paradigm was used,and an in-subject design of 2(high level of need vs.low level of need)× 2(effective cue vs.ineffective cue)was used.The hierarchy of needs is divided into two groups:high level and low level.The pictures of high level mainly refer to the picture stimuli related to the third level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs(the need for belonging and love)and above.Low-level images mainly refer to the first and second levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,namely,the pictorial stimuli related to physiological and safety needs.Effectiveness depends on the location of the target stimulus and the detection stimulus.If the location of the target stimulus is on the same side as that of the detection stimulus,it is an effective cue.On the other hand,if the two positions are opposite,it is invalid.The attentional bias score of different groups can be calculated to judge the attentional bias of different groups of detection stimuli.In other words,the average response time of the invalid cue group is subtracted from the average response time of the effective cue group.The more regular the score,the greater the attentional bias.The results show that the main effects of hierarchy of needs and effectiveness are significant,the interaction between them is significant,and the difference of attention bias scores is significant.The attentional bias score of the low-need group was significantly higher than that of the high-need group.More importantly,the response time of the low-need group was significantly longer than that of the high-need group under the invalid cue condition.These results indicated that participants had attentional bias to low-demand emotional stimuli,which mainly occurred during attentional disengagement.In experiment 2,event-related potential technique and spatial cueing paradigm were used.An in-subject design of 2(high demand situation vs.low demand situation)× 2(effective cue vs.ineffective cue)was used.In Experiment2,we controlled the need situation.For the same emotional picture(money picture),we controlled the high need(self-esteem need)or low need(physiological need)through the guide language.N2 pc is a lateralized component,reflecting spatial selective attention to the target stimulus,and N2 pc is smaller when the target appears in a different position than the target in the previous experiment.N1 is sensitive to motivation-related stimuli,such as emotional images.Positive images can cause greater N1 amplitude than neutral images,and its enhancement also reflects early visual processing and attention.The behavioral results of Experiment 2 showed that the attentional bias score of low-demand situation was significantly higher than that of high-demand situation,which was consistent with the results of Experiment 1.These ERP results of Experiment 2 showed that the average amplitudes of N2 pc and N1 in the low-demand situation were larger than those in the high-demand situation,indicating that the participants had a greater attentional bias to the stimulus in the low-demand situation.Moreover,the amplitude of N2 pc in the effective prompt condition was larger than that in the invalid prompt group,indicating the validity of the prompt.According to the results,the subjects had attentional bias to the pictures in the low-demand situation,and the attentional bias occurred in the directed input stage of attention.In conclusion,the following conclusions can be drawn in this study:(1)Healthy people have a greater attentional bias to low-level stimuli,and the dynamic attributes of low-level stimuli are higher than those of high-level stimuli;(2)The attentional bias of healthy individuals to low level of needs may occur in the early stage of the attentional process,that is,the directed input stage;(3)Hierarchy of needs may be one of the independent properties of stimulus emotions.