Freeze or Flee? Negative Stimuli Elicit Selective Responding

Autor/inn/en	Estes, Zachary; Verges, Michelle
Titel	Freeze or Flee? Negative Stimuli Elicit Selective Responding
Quelle	In: Cognition, 108 (2008) 2, S.557-565 (9 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0010-0277
DOI	10.1016/j.cognition.2008.03.003
Schlagwörter	Stimuli; Evaluative Thinking; Reaction Time; Emotional Response; Language Processing + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Anreizsystem; Reaktionsvermögen; Emotionales Verhalten; Sprachverarbeitung
Abstract	Humans preferentially attend to negative stimuli. A consequence of this automatic vigilance for negative valence is that negative words elicit slower responses than neutral or positive words on a host of cognitive tasks. Some researchers have speculated that negative stimuli elicit a general suppression of motor activity, akin to the freezing response exhibited by animals under threat. Alternatively, we suggest that negative stimuli only elicit slowed responding on tasks for which stimulus valence is irrelevant for responding. To discriminate between these motor suppression and response-relevance hypotheses, we elicited both lexical decisions and valence judgments of negative words and positive words. Relative to positive words (e.g., kitten), negative words (e.g., spider) elicited slower lexical decisions but faster valence judgments. Results therefore indicate that negative stimuli do not cause a generalized motor suppression. Rather, negative stimuli elicit selective responding, with faster responses on tasks for which stimulus valence is response-relevant. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10