Natural selective attention: Orienting and emotion

By Margaret M. Bradley. Psychophysiology, 2008

938 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The foundations of orienting and attention are hypothesized to stem from activation of defensive and appetitive motivational systems that evolved to protect and sustain the life of the individual. Motivational activation initiates a cascade of perceptual and motor processes that facilitate the selection of appropriate behavior. Among these are detection of significance, indexed by a late centro-parietal positivity in the event-related potential, enhanced perceptual processing, indexed by a initial cardiac deceleration, and preparation for action, indexed by electrodermal changes. Data exploring the role of stimulus novelty and significance in orienting are presented that indicate different components of the orienting response habituate at different rates. Taken together, it is suggested that orienting is mediated by activation of fundamental motivational systems that have evolved to support survival.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0a2e090158de52786b285f677d60a12b3ecf8459

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In Cognitive Neuroscience

Citations in the corpus

Measuring Emotions in Real Time (2015, background): “…research also shows that emotions influence our level of attention (which is referred to as motivational activation) wherein it “initiates a cascade of sensory and motor processes including mobilization of resources, enhanced perceptual processing, and preparation for action” (Bradley 2009, p. 1).”
An Appraisal-Driven Componential Approach to the Emotional Brain (2018, neutral): “Whether a theory refers to stimulus significance primarily in terms of (a) pleasure and arousal (e.g., Bradley, 2009); (b) biological and evolutionary considerations (e.g., LeDoux, 1989; Öhman & Mineka, 2001); (c) primary appraisal (e.g., Lazarus, 1991); (d) dynamics of appraisal checks (e.g.,…”
Threat and defense: From anxiety to approach (2014, background): “Today, the OR is regarded as reflecting a heightened deployment of attentional resources to survival-relevant stimuli (Bradley, 2009).”
Emotion and the motivational brain (2009, background): “On the basis of these and other autonomic data involving picture repetition, it was suggested (Bradley, 2009) that the late positive potential is a broad index of motivational ‘‘significance’’.”
Media Effects: Theory and Research. (2016, background): “Stimulus-driven automatic attention is already present in infants and is less contingent on audience factors than sustained attention is (Bradley 2009, Valkenburg & Vroone 2004).”
The electrodermal system (2007, background): “, Bradley, M. M., & Hamm, A. O. (1993). Looking at pictures: affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactions.”