The Effect of Emotion on Attention

• Main Author: 田偲妤
• Other Authors: 高淑芳
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/80773459039157689396

碩士 === 國立新竹教育大學 === 教育心理與諮商學系碩士班 === 104 === This study was to examine the effect of positive and negative emotions on selective, divided and sustained attentions. A between-subjects design was used in that 181 college students were randomly assigned to one of happiness, surprise, fear, sadness and neutral groups. Subjects in each group watched a given video and asked to make an image or recall an experience to raise a related emotion. Subjects were then presented randomly and asked to complete selective, divided, and sustained attention tasks. At the end of the experiment, subjects were asked to fill a report of emotion state. The obtained data (reaction rate, reaction time and sensitivity) were analyzed by T-tests, one-way ANOVAs, and two-way ANOVAs. The main results of this study are as follows: (1) No significant emotional effect was found on the measures of reaction rate, reaction time, and sensitivity for all three attention tasks. (2) Subjects can effectively distinguish target or not, rather than through attempts to response to increase their hits. (3) Subjects detected targets better than rejected non-targets in selective attention. On the contrary, subjects rejected non-targets better than detected targets in sustained attention. (4) Subjects slowed down for about 42 milliseconds on incongruent trials than congruent trials in selective attention, due to the interference of peripheral irrelevant stimuli. (5) In divided attention, compared to auditory stimuli, visual stimuli were easier to detect, but also prone to false reactions. (6) In divided and sustained attentions, subjects responded faster in false reactions than hit reactions, which indicates that false reactions should pertain to impulsive ones. Finally, (7) In divided attention, people have better sensitivities in detecting visual stimuli than auditory stimuli.