The effects of task-irrelevant threatening stimuli on orienting- and executive attentional processes under cognitive load.

ABSTRACT: Human visual attention is biased to rapidly detect threats in the environment so that our nervous system can initiate quick reactions. The processes underlying threat detection (and how they operate under cognitive load), however, are still poorly understood. Thus, we sought to test the impact of task-irrelevant threatening stimuli on the salience network and executive control of attention during low and high cognitive load. Participants were exposed to neutral or threatening pictures (with moderate and high arousal levels) as task-irrelevant distractors in near (parafoveal) and far (peripheral) positions while searching for numbers in ascending order in a matrix array. We measured reaction times and recorded eye-movements. Our results showed that task-irrelevant distractors primarily infl

SUBMITTER: Zsido AN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9299041 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature