Effects of stimulus emotional content on gaze pattern: an eye-tracking study

Resumen

When stimuli with negative, positive, and without emotional content compete for attention, the attentional system prioritizes negative stimuli in early stages of processing, serving as a survival mechanism in response to potential threats. However, the persistence or reversal of this attentional bias towards positive stimuli during later processing stages remains unclear. To address this question, we used eye tracking technology to examine how the simultaneous presentation of stimuli, encompassing negative and positive emotional content alongside emotionally neutral stimuli, while controlling for the presence of humans, neutral (humans in non-emotional activities), and control stimuli (inanimate objects), affects both early and late attentional patterns in observers. These effects were tested in a free-viewing task involving a sample of 122 participants (64 men, 58 women) without affective disorders, data were taken between 2022 and 2023. Our results showed that negative stimuli elicited quicker initial fixation and a higher count of first fixations compared to positive, neutral, and control stimuli. Moreover, negative stimuli led to longer fixation durations and greater overall number of fixations than positive and non-emotional stimuli. Notably, emotional stimuli consistently exhibited a higher attentional preference over non-emotional stimuli, and stimuli featuring human faces, even devoid of emotional context, garnered greater attentional preference than inanimate objects.

Publicación
Submitted for publication
Andrés Castellanos-Chacón
Andrés Castellanos-Chacón
Asistente de Investigación 2019-2024 / Supervisión de enseñanza 2019-2024 / Psicología | supervisión 2017-2018

Asistente de investigación en el Laboratorio de Evolución y Comportamiento Humano desde 2019, y practicante de investigación entre 2017 y 2018.

Juan David Leongómez
Juan David Leongómez
Profesor Asociado

Mis intereses de investigación incluyen los procesos de selección de pareja y la comunicación vocal en humanos, con una aspiración hacia la comprensión de la musicalidad. También estoy interesado en bioacústica y psicoacústica, así como en estadística y programación en .

Milena Vásquez-Amézquita
Milena Vásquez-Amézquita
Profesora Asociada / Co-supervisión PhD 2015-2018 / Supervisión Postdoc 2021-2022

Profesora Asociada e investigadora en Neurociencia de la Universidad El Bosque. Interesada en investigación sobre los mecanismos cognitivos que subyacen a los trastornos del estado de ánimo y la conducta sexual.

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