Guiding attention through emotional context and long-term memory
Poster No:
841
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Bo-Cheng Kuo1, Ya-Chen Lin1
Institutions:
1National Taiwan University, Taipei, N/A
First Author:
Co-Author:
Introduction:
Memory and emotion are pivotal in guiding behavior, yet the mechanisms underlying their interaction remain incompletely understood. This study investigated how emotional contexts and long-term memory (LTM) influence anticipatory attention and enhance subsequent target detection. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we tracked the temporal and oscillatory dynamics of these effects.
Methods:
This study consisted of two sessions conducted 24 hours apart: a learning session (Day 1) and a testing session (Day 2). Thirty participants completed three tasks: learning, target detection, and memory recall. On Day 1, participants explored visual scenes and memorized the location of a target object in each scene (100% of scenes contained a target) in the learning session. By the end of the session, participants had established robust scene-target associations. On Day 2, participants performed a target detection task involving previously learned ("old") and unlearned ("new") scenes while EEG was recorded in the testing session. In this task (Figure 1A), cue scenes (old or new scenes) with either negative or neutral contexts were presented for 100 ms. Following a 900 ms interval, probe scenes appeared for 200 ms, containing either a target object or no target. The EEG experiment for the target detection task followed a 2 (emotional context: negative, neutral) x 2 (scene type: old, new) x 2 (response type: target-present, target-absent) within-subjects factorial design. Finally, participants completed a memory recall task to locate the targets in learned scenes and reported their confidence levels. EEG recordings were obtained using a NuAmp amplifier and a 37-electrode cap arranged according to the 10-20 international system. Offline EEG analyses were conducted using the Fieldtrip toolbox in MATLAB (MathWorks) with in-house scripts.
Results:
Neutral contexts associated with LTM effectively guided attention and enhanced target detection performance. While old scenes provided a contextual cue for directing attention in neutral contexts, negative contexts had a stronger influence on attentional processes, particularly when participants encountered new scenes. EEG analyses revealed distinct temporal profiles for these effects (Figure 1B): emotional context exerted early influences (140-490 ms), whereas memory effects emerged later (290-600 ms) following cue scene onset. Time-frequency analysis showed that old scenes, compared to new scenes, elicited a greater decrease in alpha power over frontal, central, and posterior electrodes from 600 ms to 1000 ms after cue scene onset (Figure 2A). Furthermore, we observed a significant interaction between emotional context and scene type (Figure 2B and 2C), with a more pronounced decrease in alpha power over posterior electrodes for old scenes compared to new scenes in neutral contexts, as opposed to negative contexts.
·(A) Illustration of the target detection task. (B) ERP results for the target detection task.
·Time-frequency analysis results for the target detection task.
Conclusions:
Our results highlight the distinct roles of emotional context and LTM in modulating attention, particularly when memory-based cues are less effective and when emotional arousal is low. Exposure to memory-associated scenes provides valid memory-based retrieval cues (Nobre & Stokes, 2019), which facilitate the retrieval process and guide spatial attention (Kensinger & Ford, 2020). In contrast, emotional arousal, particularly in negative contexts, may provide a competitive advantage in attentional processing independently of LTM (Phelps, 2006). These findings suggest that emotional contexts rapidly capture attention, facilitating early sensory processing, whereas memory effects emerge later, with learned object-scene associations reactivated to guide behavior.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotional Learning 2
Learning and Memory:
Long-Term Memory (Episodic and Semantic) 1
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Attention: Visual
Keywords:
Cognition
Electroencephaolography (EEG)
Emotions
Learning
Memory
Other - Attention
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Was this research conducted in the United States?
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel? NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Nobre, A. C., & Stokes, M. G. (2019). Premembering experience: A hierarchy of time-scales for proactive attention. Neuron, 104(1), 132-146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.08.030
Phelps, E. A. (2006). Emotion and cognition: Insights from studies of the human amygdala. Annual Review of Psychology, 57(1), 27-53. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070234