Is threat the only modulator of attentional selectivity? Redefining the Easterbrook hypothesis

Frontiers in Psychology

Thomas A. Sørensen¹ 

关键词: attention;    short-term memory;    emotion;    arousal;    Easterbrook hypothesis;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01020

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

A repeated finding in the emotion literature is that threatening stimuli are capable of capturing attention in some way; that is, the observer narrows their attentional focus on the objects of threat in their environment. While this finding makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, a key question is: which particular mechanism is responsible for the modulation of such attentional selectivity? The common interpretation of Easterbrook's (1959) hypothesis suggests that the mechanism in question is arousal, although Easterbrook himself described the mechanism as the drive or motivation to withdraw. According to the Yerkes–Dodson's law, the relationship between arousal and performance resembles an inverted U-shape curve with a moderate level of arousal being associated with an optimal level of performance (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908).

【 授权许可】

CC BY