Fear and the focus of attention

Philosophers have not been very preoccupied by the link between emotions and attention. The few that did (de Sousa, 1987) never really specified the relation between the two phenomena. Using empirical data from the study of the emotion of fear, we provide a description (and an explanation) of the links between emotion and attention. We also discuss the nature (empirical or conceptual) of these links. Keywords: emotion, attention, fear, conceptual analysis, anxiety, amygdala

Philosophical Studies (forthcoming), 2022

This paper first demonstrates that recognition of the diversity of ways that emotional responses modulate ongoing attention generates what I call the puzzle of emotional attention, which turns on recognising that distinct emotions (e.g., fear, happiness, disgust, admiration etc.) have different attentional profiles. The puzzle concerns why this is the case, such that a solution consists in explaining why distinct emotions have the distinct attentional profiles they do. It then provides an account of the functional roles of different emotions, as tied to their evaluative themes, which explains and further elucidates the distinctive attentional profiles of different emotions, so solving the puzzle of emotional attention. Following that, it outlines how such attentional profiles are reflected in the character of emotional experience and its attentional phenomenology. The resulting picture is a more detailed account of the connections between emotion and attention than is currently on offer in the philosophical literature.

Guilford Press eBooks, 2013

Archives italiennes de biologie, 2010

The idea that fearful stimuli are automatically detected i.e. without attention, is challenged by the hypothesis that detection of threatening stimuli is facilitated by the involuntary, stimulus-driven recruitment of attentional resources. In order to clarify this question, we studied spiders detection in arachnophobic individuals by means of an iconic version of the Attentional Blink Task (AB). The experiment consisted of two tasks: 1) Probe detection within a rapid sequence of distractors, including a Critical Distractor (CD); 2) Probe detection and identification of the CD (Target). In this case, the close temporal proximity of CD-Target and Probe typically produces the so-called AB effect, that is the decrease of Probe visibility, due to competition for limited attentional resources. In both tasks, CD-Target was either a spider (50%) or an innocuous animal shape (50%), and Probe (a rabbit icon) was presented at one out of 3 possible lags from the CD-Target. At lag I (100 ms), ar...

2011

Snakes are thought as fear-relevant stimuli (biologically prepared to be associated with fear) which can lead to an enhanced attentional capture when compared fear-irrelevant stimuli. Inherent limitations related to the key-press behaviour might be bypassed with the measurement of eye movements, since they are more closely related to attentional processes than reaction times. An eye tracking technique was combined with the flicker paradigm in two studies. A sample of university students was gathered. In both studies, an instruction to detect changes between the pair of scenes was given. Attentional orienting for the changing element in the scene was analyzed, as well the role of fear of snakes as a moderator variable. The results for both studies revealed a significant shorter time to first fixation for snake stimuli when compared to control stimuli. A facilitating effect of fear of snakes was also found for snakes, presenting the highly fear participants a shorter a time to first f...

Visual Cognition, 2005

Academia Letters, 2021