Both negative and positive task-irrelevant stimuli contract attentional breadth in individuals with high levels of negative affect

Emotionally-salient stimuli can capture attention to their spatial location, even when they are not relevant to a prescribed task. Here we tested whether they can influence the spatial breadth of attention. Experiment 1 tested whether small task-irrelevant emotionally-salient stimuli contracted attentional breadth when the task required a broad focus, while Experiment 2 tested whether large task-irrelevant emotionally-salient stimuli expanded attentional breadth when the task required a narrow focus. Both experiments compared the effect of negative and positive emotionally-salient images against neutral, and examined the role of participants’ self-reported experiences of negative affect. Both experiments revealed slower responses following large emotionally-salient images, an effect unrelated to attentional breadth. Experiment 1 demonstrated an interaction between accuracy and negative affect, such that individuals with high levels of negative affect were less accurate at identifying global targets following both negative and positive small images, but not following neutral small images. This suggests that these small task-irrelevant emotionally-salient images contracted attentional breadth. Experiment 2 suggested that large task-irrelevant emotionally-salient images did not expand attentional breadth. We discuss how these results cannot be explained by existing models of emotion-based effects on attention and cognition, and the important implications they have for the practicalities of model-testing.