Search

As difficulties in managing the anticipation of situations is one of the characteristics of emotional problems, the study of regulatory strategies during anticipatory period anticipation is important. In the present study, attentional patterns during the anticipation period were studied. The ability of those attentional patterns to regulate mood after the event's occurrence was analyzed. An experimental paradigm was designed in which participants repeatedly anticipated emotional information. Attentional patterns in response to emotionally expressive faces (happy and sad) were recorded with an eye tracker. The results showed that the valence of the expected outcomes did affect attentional preferences. Specifically, participants spent more time looking at sad faces when they anticipated a negative rather than a positive outcome. The opposite pattern was found for happy faces. With respect to the ability to regulate the emotions of these attention patterns, it was found that emotions experienced after a negatively anticipated event were independent of previous attention patterns, while happiness experienced after a previously anticipated positive event was found to be related to attentional patterns. Specifically, people who spent more time looking at happy faces during the anticipation of a positive outcome reported higher levels of happiness after the event. In conclusion, these results indicate that during the anticipation of emotional outcomes participants implement attentional strategies, although the emotions associated with experiencing those outcomes were independent of those attentional patterns in the negative anticipation, they were found to magnify positive emotions in positive anticipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect is characterised by a spatial cognitive representation of low numbers to the left side of space and high numbers to the right side of space. This effect has been found using a diversity of stimuli and experimental paradigms. However, the influence of emotional stimuli on this effect remains unclear. In this study, the SNARC effect is analysed in relation to pairs of emotional facial stimuli (happy–neutral, sad–neutral and happy–sad pairs). Gaze patterns of 151 participants were analysed when exposed to a free-viewing eye-tracking paradigm consisting of pairs of emotional faces preceded by small and large numbers. Replicating previous results, a standard SNARC effect was found independently of the emotional expressions of the faces (i.e., there was a significant linear trend of number magnitude in the frequency of first fixations of the gaze to the left side space). However, specific slope analyses revealed that the SNARC effect was influenced by the spatial position of each emotion presented in the emotional pairs. Specifically, the effect disappeared in happy–neutral trials, when the happy faces were allocated in the right position and also in happy–sad trials when two emotional stimuli were simultaneously displayed. The study revealed that the SNARC effect is sensitive to the spatial position of emotional stimuli which further adds to other known limits of the phenomenon. The limitations of the study and its implications in the area of cognition and emotion are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]