Facilitation and interference of the automatic information processing on a reaction time task to threat-relevant stimuli

  1. Marcos Malmierca, José Luis
  2. Redondo Lago, Jaime Mauro
Revista:
Psicothema

ISSN: 0214-9915

Ano de publicación: 2005

Volume: 17

Número: 2

Páxinas: 332-337

Tipo: Artigo

Outras publicacións en: Psicothema

Resumo

Facilitación e interferencia del procesamiento automático de la información sobre una tarea de tiempo de reacción ante estímulos amenazantes. El objetivo de este experimento era estudiar si los estímulos amenazantes reciben procesamiento automático cuando son presentados eficazmente enmascarados en un paradigma de priming. El prime consistió en un rostro con expresión amenazante (A) y una cara con expresión neutra como estímulo irrelevante de amenaza (N). Los mismos estímulos fueron utilizados como target (o máscara), dando lugar a cuatro condiciones de enmascaramiento (A/A, N/N, A/N y N/A). Además, el target fue utilizado como un estímulo imperativo para una tarea de tiempo de reacción (TR). Treinta y dos sujetos fueron expuestos a 10 ensayos de cada condición de enmascaramiento con una asincronía del estímulo (SOA) de 34 milisegundos (ms). Otros tantos sujetos recibieron los mismos ensayos, pero con un SOA de 51 ms. Los resultados demuestran que la presentación eficazmente enmascarada de los estímulos amenazantes produce facilitación o interferencia con la tarea de TR, dependiendo de si el target (máscara) consiste en un estímulo relevante o irrelevante de amenaza.

Referencias bibliográficas

  • Ekman, P. and Friesen, W.V. (1975). Unmasking the face. A guide to recognizing emotions from facial cues. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
  • Esteves, F., Dimberg, U. and Öhman, A. (1994). Automatically elicited fear: conditioned skin conductance responses to masked facial expressions. Cognition and Emotion, 8, 393-413.
  • Esteves, F. and Öhman, A. (1993). Masking the face: recognition of emotional facial expressions as a function of the parameters of backward masking. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 34, 1-18.
  • Hansen, C.H. and Hansen, R.D. (1988). Finding the face in the crowd: an anger superiority effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 917-924.
  • Hansen, C.H. and Hansen, R.D. (1994). Automatic emotion: attention and the facial efference. In P.M. Niederthal and S. Kitayama (Eds.): The heart’s eye: emotional influences in perception and attention (pp. 217-243). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
  • Holender, D. (1986). Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: a survey and appraisal. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 9, 1-66.
  • Jennings, J.R. (1987). Editorial policy on analysis of variance with repeated measures. Psychophysiology, 24, 474-475.
  • Kirk, R.E. (1968). Experimental design: procedures for the behavioral sciences. Belmont: Brooks/Cole.
  • Marcel, A.J. (1983a). Conscious and unconscious perception: experiments on visual masking and word recognition. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 197-237.
  • Marcel, A.J. (1983b). Conscious and unconscious perception: an approach to the relations between phenomenal experience and perceptual processes. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 238-300.
  • Merike, P.M. and Reingold, E.M. (1992). Measuring unconscious perceptual processes. In R.F. Bornstein and T.S. Pittman (Eds.): Perception without awareness (pp. 55-80). New York: Guilford Press.
  • Mogg, K. and Bradley, B. (1995). Tachistoscopic applications of Micro Experimental Laboratory (MEL) used with IBM PC compatibles: stimulus and response timing issues. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 4, 512-515.
  • Öhman, A. (1979). The orienting response, attention and learning: an information-processing perspective. In H.D. Kimmel, E.H. Van Olst and J.F. Orlebeke (Eds.): The orienting reflex in human (pp. 55-80). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.
  • Öhman, A. (1986). Face the beast and fear the face: animal and social fears as prototypes for evolutionary analyses of emotion. Psychophysiology, 23, 123-145.
  • Öhman, A. (1992). Orienting and attention: preferred preattentive processing of potentially phobic stimuli. In B.A. Campbell, H. Hayne and R. Richardson (Eds.): Attention and information processing in infants and adults: perspectives from human and animal research (pp. 263-295). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Öhman, A. (1993). Fear and anxiety as emotional phenomena: clinical phenomenology, evolutionary perspectives and information processing mechanisms. In M. Lewis and J.M. Haviland (Eds.): Handbook of emotions (pp. 511-536). New York: Guilford.
  • Öhman, A. (1997). As fast as the blink of an eye: evolutionary preparedness for preattentive processing of threat. In P.J. Lang, R.F. Simons and M. Balaban (Eds.): Attention and orienting: sensory and motivational processes (pp. 165-184). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Öhman, A. (1999). Distinguishing unconscious from conscious emotional processes. Methodological considerations and theoretical implications. In T. Dalgleish and M. Power (Eds.): Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 321-352). Chichester, U. K.: Wiley.
  • Öhman, A., Hamm, A. and Hugdahl, K. (2000). Cognition and the autonomic nervous system: orienting, anticipation and conditioning. In J.T. Cacioppo, L.G. Tassinary and G.G. Berntson (Eds.): Handbook of psychophysiology (pp. 533-575). New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Öhman, A. and Soares, J.J.F. (1993). On the automaticity of phobic fear: conditioned skin conductance responses to masked phobic stimuli. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 121-132.
  • Öhman, A. and Soares, J.J.F. (1994). Unconscious anxiety: phobic responses to masked stimuli. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 231-240.
  • Parra, C., Esteves, F., Flykt, A. and Öhman, A. (1997). Pavlovian conditioning to social stimuli: backward masking and the dissociation of implicit and explicit cognitive processes. European Psychologist, 2, 106-117.
  • Rodgers, K., Schneider, W., Pitcher, E. and Zuccoloto, A. (1996). MEL proffesional: language reference guide. Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools.
  • Ruiz-Padial, E., Sánchez, M.B., Thayer, J.F. and Vila, J. (2002). Modulación no consciente de la respuesta cardiaca de defensa por imágenes fóbicas. Psicothema, 14, 739-745.
  • Saban, S. and Hugdahl, K. (1999). Nonaware classical conditioning to pictorial facial stimuli in a between-groups paradigm. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 34, 19-29.
  • Schneider, W. (1996). MEL professional: user guide. Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools.
  • Schneider, W., Dumais, S.T. and Shiffrin, R.M. (1984). Automatic and control processing and attention. In R. Parasuraman and D.R. Davis (Eds.): Varieties of attention (pp. 1-27). New York: Academic Press.
  • Shiffrin, R.M. (1988). Attention. In R.C. Atkinson, R.J. Herrnstein, G. Lindzey and R.D. Luce (Eds.): Stevens´handbook of experimental psychology, vol. 2: Learning and cognition (pp. 739-811). New York: Wiley.
  • Shiffrin, R.M. and Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127-190.
  • Stone A., Valentine T. and Davis R. (1991). Face recognition and emotional valence: processing without awareness by neurologically intact participants does not simulate covert recognition in prosopagnosia. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 1, 183-191.
  • Stroop, J.R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643-662.