Proactive Control of Emotional Distraction: Evidence From EEG Alpha Suppression.

ABSTRACT: Biased attention towards emotional stimuli is adaptive, as it facilitates responses to important threats and rewards. An unfortunate consequence is that emotional stimuli can become potent distractors when they are irrelevant to current goals. How can this distraction be overcome despite the bias to attend to emotional stimuli? Recent studies show that distraction by irrelevant flankers is reduced when distractor frequency is high, even if they are emotional. A parsimonious explanation is that the expectation of frequent distractors promotes the use of proactive control, whereby attentional control settings can be altered to minimize distraction before it occurs. It is difficult, however, to infer proactive control on the basis of behavioral data alone. We therefore measured neural indices

SUBMITTER: Murphy J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7461792 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature