Voluntary modulation of mental effort affects the attentional retraction induced by angry faces
Poster No:
755
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Daniela Ballotta1, Riccardo Maramotti1, Eleonora Borelli1, Fausta Lui1, Giuseppe Pagnoni1
Institutions:
1University of Modena & Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Several studies have shown that approach and avoidance arm movements are facilitated by positive and negative emotional stimuli, respectively (Fox et al., 2001). We have previously found that negative stimuli affect attentional allocation in a paradoxical way, whereby the initial transient phase of attentional capture by the negative stimulus is quickly followed by a withdrawal of the attentional spotlight away from it and towards the observer (Ballotta et al., submitted). Here we used an fMRI paradigm to investigate whether an additional voluntary investment of cognitive effort could offset this automatic attentional retraction induced by angry faces.
Methods:
28 healthy female subjects (age 21.4 ± 2.2 years) took part in the study. An angry (neg) or a happy (pos) face from a set of 72 items (Lundwist et al., 1998) was displayed on the back wall of a virtual corridor. Volunteers were asked to respond as fast as possible to a target stimulus (a red sphere) appearing 350 ms after the face and perceptually closer either to the observer (observer-close, OC) or to the face stimulus (stimulus-close, SC), while gaze had to be maintained on the face stimulus (Figure 1). Crucially, participants were asked to execute the task either "with maximum exertion" (EXR) or "as relaxed as possible" (RLX) in different blocks of trials. Functional data were acquired with a 3T scanner and an EPI sequence (TR=1500 ms; 320 volumes x 4 sessions; 47 axial slices; 3x3x2.7mm voxels; 0.3mm gap). For both EXR and RLX blocks, we modelled the effect of valence and target location on reaction times (RTs) using a shifted log-normal distribution, whose parameters were estimated with a Bayesian approach. Functional data of each participant were preprocessed and analysed using AFNI. A mixed-effects group analysis was performed, yielding whole-brain t-maps, which were thresholded at a family-wise alpha<0.05. In this presentation, we will focus mainly on the interaction effect of target location and invested effort for negative faces, on both RTs and imaging data.
Results:
RTs were significantly faster in the EXR condition (mean = 232.3 ms), compared to the RLX one (mean = 269.2 ms). An interaction effect of valence and target position was observed for the RLX condition, but not for the EXR one. This result was led by a reduction in the RT difference between the OC and SC conditions for negative faces in the EXR (mean effect = 9.1 ms, SEM = 8.2 ms) compared to the RLX condition (mean effect = 18.2 ms, SEM = 11.8 ms) (Figure 2, left side). The corresponding contrast, (OC-SC)/EXR > (OC-SC)/RLX for negative faces, revealed significant clusters of activation in the bilateral fusiform face complex (FFC), V2 and V3, bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS), bilateral inferior frontal gyrus/anterior insula (IFG/AI), and pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA; Figure 2, right side).
Conclusions:
The reduced RTs difference between the negative OC and SC conditions, for EXR compared to RLX, suggests that the automatic attentional retraction induced by angry faces may be weakened by the voluntary investment of additional mental effort. The neural substrates of this effect include attentional (pre-SMA, IPS), face (FFC), and salience (IFG/AI) processing areas.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotional Perception 1
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Executive Function, Cognitive Control and Decision Making 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Bayesian Modeling
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Attention: Visual
Keywords:
Emotions
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Perception
Other - attention;effort
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Ballotta, D. et al. How angry faces scare away attention: a behavioral and fMRI study. Submitted.
Lundwist, D. et al. (1998). The Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces-KDEF [CD-ROM]. Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Psychology section, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.