Effect of affective valance on vigilance task performance

Abstract

Human behavior is contingent upon the interactions between the ways we feel and think. The fact that affective and cognitive processes are mutually interactive has been well established for short whiles. Considering the interaction of affect and cognition as inherent the present study examined the effect of affective valence on vigilance task performance. Ninety participants were required to perform a vigilance task of 30 minutes to measure vigilance task performance. Dimensional model of emotion was preferred over traditional discrete model to assess the effect of affective valence conditions (positive, neutral and negative) on vigilance task performance while maintaining the overall arousal level as constant. A 3 (Valence: positive, neutral and negative) × 3 (Block of time period: 10 minute each) mixed factorial design with repeated measures on the last factor was used. Targets and non-targets were presented at a high event rate (30 events per minute). The ratio of target to non-target was 1: 4. Affective valence was manipulated with different set of pictures selected from International Affective Picture System (IAPS). A series of either positively, neutral or negatively valenced stimuli (N= 100) was presented to the participants before participating in the final task. These pictures were selected such that the mean score of valence varied but the mean score of arousal remained constant. No stimuli were repeated. The picture presentation task and vigilance task was developed in SuperLab 4.0. Affective states were recorded through PANAS before and after presentation of the affectively valenced stimuli as well as after completion of the vigilance task. newline