The Influence Of The Simplified Images Of Fear-relevant Stimuli And Perceptual Load On Attentional Capture Effect

The ability to quickly and efficiently detect fear-relevant stimuli is the behavior of individual survival.The attentional capture preferential effect of the fear-relevant stimuli at psychological and behavior in the the attention procession has always been a hot spot in the field of psychology.Numerous studies have demonstrated that negative emotional stimuli can process automatically.In the real life,the fear-relevant stimuli that people faced are not always clear and definite,with the reduction of the sharpness of fear-relevant stimulus,weather the simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli capture attention preferentially and process automatically or not? Thus,the research was designed to explore the effect of simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli and perceptual load to attentional capture.Three experiments were included in the research,they all applied visual search paradigm.The experiment1 selected animal pictures as experiment materials(the fear-relevant animal pictures and neutral animal pictures),at the same time,the sharpness of stimuli were manipulated,implemented 2(the sharpness of stimuli:clear、simplified)×3(the type of distractors: fear-relevant、fear-irrelevant、no distractor)ANOVAs were carried out to explore the preferential processing of the simplistic images of fear-relevant.The experiment target of experiment2 is similar to experiment1,selected simplistic animals images as experiment materials,manipulated task introduction,implemented 2(task introduction: yes、no)×2(the type of distractors : fear-relevant 、 no distractor)ANOVAs.The experiment3 manipulated the variable of perceptual load,implemented 2(the sharpness of stimuli:clear 、 simplified)×2(perceptual load: high 、 low)×3(the type of distractors:fear-relevant、fear-irrelevant、no distractor)ANOVAs were carried out to examine the attention capture effect of the simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli at different perceptual load conditions.Under the conditions of these experiments,we can draw the following conclusions:(1)the sharpness of stimuli have an effect on participants’ attention,to some extent,simplistic images increased the difficulty of stimulus discrimination and taken up more cognitive resources.(2)The distractors have an important influence on participants’ attention,the fear-relevant distractors interfere participants’ searching to the target stimulus,as well as the fear-irrelevant distractors,but the fear-relevant distractors can capturemore attention than the fear-irrelevant distractors.(3)Comparing with the simplified images of fear-irrelevant stimuli,the reaction time of participants were longer and capture more attention when the distractors are the images of fear-irrelevant stimuli at simplified condition,it shows that the simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli can also initiate preferential processing.(4)The amount of attentional capture of the simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli at different perceptual load conditions are no significant differences,it shows that the simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli are not restricted by perceptual load,can automatically process.