ArticlePsychological science2013
Emotional distractors can enhance attention.
Article in Psychological science, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- In search of convergent regional brain abnormality in cognitive emotion regulation: A transdiagnostic neuroimaging meta-analysis.Human brain mapping · 2022Pooled it
- A comparative study on executive function of adolescent athletes in different winter sports.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Out of sight, out of mind: Spatial cueing reduces the attentional cost of emotional distractors in emotion-induced blindness.Journal of vision · 2025Article
- Characterizing the effects of emotional distraction on sustained attention and subsequent memory: A novel emotional gradual onset continuous performance task.Behavior research methods · 2025Article
- Haptic feedback as affective amplifier: enhanced fear perception affects cognitive performance and avoidance actions in VR height exposure.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- High task demand in dual-target paradigm redirects experimentally increased anxiety to uphold goal-directed attention.Perception · 2024Article
- Task-irrelevant valence-preferred colors boost visual search for a singleton-shape target.Psychological research · 2024Article
- On the relationship between emotions and cognitive control: Evidence from an observational study on emotional priming Stroop task.PloS one · 2023Observational
- Aging and distractor resistance in working memory: Does emotional valence matter?BMC psychology · 2022Article
- Suppression of alpha-band power underlies exogenous attention to emotional distractors.Psychophysiology · 2022Article
- No sound is more distracting than the one you're trying not to hear: delayed costs of mental control of task-irrelevant neutral and emotional sounds.BMC psychology · 2022Article
- Neutral and threatening distracter word stimuli are unnecessarily stored in working memory but do not differ in their degree of working memory storage.Biological psychology · 2021Article
- Computational modelling of attentional bias towards threat in paediatric anxiety.Developmental science · 2021Article
- Effects of a Brief Mindfulness-Based Attentional Intervention on Threat-Related Perceptual Decision-Making.Mindfulness · 2021Article
- Influence of Attention Control on Implicit and Explicit Emotion Processing of Face and Body: Evidence From Flanker and Same-or-Different Paradigms.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- Age differences in the neural response to emotional distraction during working memory encoding.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2018Article
- Prolonged Interruption of Cognitive Control of Conflict Processing Over Human Faces by Task-Irrelevant Emotion Expression.Frontiers in psychology · 2017Article
- Attention to emotional stimuli in borderline personality disorder - a review of the influence of dissociation, self-reference, and psychotherapeutic interventions.Borderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation · 2016Review
- Exogenous (automatic) attention to emotional stimuli: a review.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2014Review
Corrections and comments
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4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The deleterious effects of emotional distractors on attention have been well demonstrated. However, it is unclear whether emotional distractors inevitably disrupt task-relevant attention. In the research reported here, the impact of the valence and arousal of distracting emotional stimuli and individual differences in anxiety on task-relevant processing were examined using multilevel modeling. Consistent with prior literature, results showed that high-arousal negative distractors, compared with positive and neutral distractors, were associated with poorer task-relevant attention. However, low-arousal negative distractors were associated with better task-relevant performance than were positive and neutral distractors. Furthermore, these effects were accentuated by individual differences in worry. These findings challenge assumptions that distraction and worry must be minimized for augmented attentional performance. Overall, these results emphasize the importance of taking into account emotional dimensions of arousal and valence as well as individual differences in anxiety when examining attention in the presence of emotional distractors.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.