Cognitive Science & Psychology Division, ULAB

Extant research has continually indicated that emotion moderates attention such that attention can be caught, maintained, and/or intensified towards a given emotional object (Mrkva, Westfall, & Van Boven, 2019). However, sparse research has investigated the reverse— whether attention can intensify emotion. To examine the bidirectionality of the relationship between emotional intensity and voluntary attention, we conducted a replication of the Mrkva et al. study on visual attention and emotional intensity. We hypothesized that participants would perceive target images as more emotionally intense than control images, and that their post-search ratings of emotional intensity for each target image would be higher than their pre-search ratings. Each participant was instructed to search for a specific image in a randomized sequence with varying emotional valence in separate trials per participant (Mrkva et al., 2019). Our primary outcome measures were the participants’ self-reported intensity of their emotional reaction to each image as well as their perception of the inherent emotional intensity of each image. Additionally, our secondary measures included ratings of the extent to which participants liked each image and how distinct they perceived the images to be. Our results ultimately supported our hypothesis, suggesting that directed attention towards an image enhances its perceived emotional intensity and distinctiveness. Examining whether attention can affect emotions poses practical significance, as it will allow us to better explore and understand how the objects that we pay attention to can impact our emotions in day-to-day life.