Philip A. Gable

The role of asymmetric frontal cortical activity in emotion-related phenomena: A review and update

Conceptual and empirical approaches to the study of the role of asymmetric frontal cortical activity in emotional processes are reviewed. Although early research suggested that greater left than right frontal cortical activity was associated with positive affect, more recent research, primarily on anger, suggests that greater left than right frontal cortical activity is associated with approach motivation, which can be positive (e.g., enthusiasm) or negative in valence (e.g., anger). In addition to reviewing this research on anger, research on guilt, bipolar disorder, and various types of positive affect is reviewed with relation to their association with asymmetric frontal cortical activity. The reviewed research not only contributes to a more complete understanding of the emotive functions of asymmetric frontal cortical activity, but it also points to the importance of considering motivational direction as separate from affective valence in psychological models of emotional space.

Approach-Motivated Positive Affect Reduces Breadth of Attention

Research has found that positive affect broadens attention. However, these studies have manipulated positive affect that is low in approach motivation. Positive affect that is high in approach motivation should reduce the breadth of attention, as organisms shut out irrelevant stimuli as they approach desired objects. Four studies examined the attentional consequences of approach-motivated positive-affect states. Results were consistent with predictions. Participants showed less global attentional focus after viewing high-approach-motivating positive stimuli than after viewing low-approach-motivating positive stimuli (Study 1) or neutral stimuli (Study 2). Study 3 found that greater trait approach motivation resulted in less global attentional focus after participants viewed approach-motivating positive stimuli. Study 4 manipulated affect and approach motivation independently. Greater approach-motivated positive affect caused lower global focus. High-approach-motivated positive affect reduces global attentional focus, whereas low-approach-motivated positive affect increases global attentional focus. Incorporating the intensity of approach motivation into models of positive affect broadens understanding of the consequences of positive affect.

The Blues Broaden, but the Nasty Narrows Attentional Consequences of Negative Affects Low and High in Motivational Intensity

Positive and negative affects high in motivational intensity cause a narrowing of attentional focus. In contrast, positive affects low in motivational intensity cause a broadening of attentional focus. The attentional consequences of negative affects low in motivational intensity have not been experimentally investigated. Experiment 1 compared the attentional consequences of negative affect low in motivational intensity (sadness) relative to a neutral affective state. Results indicated that low-motivation negative affect caused attentional broadening. Experiment 2 found that disgust, a high-motivation negative affect not previously investigated in attentional studies, narrowed attentional focus. These experiments support the conceptual model linking high-motivation affective states to narrowed attention and low-motivation affective states to broadened attention.

The motivational dimensional model of affect: Implications for breadth of attention, memory, and cognitive categorisation

Over twenty years of research have examined the cognitive consequences of positive affect states, and suggested that positive affect leads to a broadening of cognition (see review by Fredrickson, 2001). However, this research has primarily examined positive affect that is low in approach motivational intensity (e.g., contentment). More recently, we have systematically examined positive affect that varies in approach motivational intensity, and found that positive affect high in approach motivation (e.g., desire) narrows cognition, whereas positive affect low in approach motivation broadens cognition (e.g., Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2008a; Harmon-Jones & Gable, 2009). In this article we will review past models and present a motivational dimension model of affect that expands understanding of how affective states influence attentional and cognitive breadth. We then review research that has varied the motivational intensity of positive and negative affect and found that affect of low motivational intensity broadens cognitive processes, whereas affect of high motivational intensity narrows cognitive processes.

Neural Activity Underlying the Effect of Approach-Motivated Positive Affect on Narrowed Attention:

Positive affects high in approach motivational intensity narrow attention. The present study extended this recent finding by testing whether a neural activation associated with approach-motivation intensity—relative left frontal-central activity—would underlie the effect of appetitive stimuli on narrowed attention (as measured by local attentional bias). It also tested whether individual differences in approach motivation relate to this attentional narrowing. Results supported predictions, suggesting a common association of relative left frontal hemispheric processing for approach-motivational processes and narrowed attention.

Does Negative Affect Always Narrow and Positive Affect Always Broaden the Mind? Considering the Influence of Motivational Intensity on Cognitive Scope

Research over the last 5 decades has suggested that negative affective states narrow cognitive scope, whereas positive affective states broaden cognitive scope. An examination of this past research, however, reveals that only negative affects of high motivational intensity (e.g., fear, stress) and positive affects of low motivational intensity (e.g., gratitude, amusement) may have been examined. Consequently, over the last 5 years, research has examined positive and negative affects that are low (e.g., sadness) versus high (e.g., desire) in motivational intensity. This research has found that affects of low motivational intensity broaden cognitive scope whereas affects of high motivational intensity narrow cognitive scope, regardless of the positivity or negativity of the affective state.

Late positive potential to appetitive stimuli and local attentional bias.

Predicated on the idea that positive affects high in approach motivation are crucial in goal-directed behaviors, research has found that these positive affects cause narrowed attention. The present research was designed to investigate a possible neurophysiological underpinning of this effect. Previous research has suggested that the late positive potential (LPP) of the event-related brain potential is increased by emotionally arousing stimuli because of the attention-grabbing nature of such stimuli. Other research has suggested that left prefrontal cortical regions are associated with narrowed attention and approach-motivated affect. Integrating these two lines of evidence, the present research examined LPPs to appetitive versus neutral pictures and assessed the relationship of these LPPs to local versus global attentional bias following the picture primes. Results revealed that appetitive in comparison with neutral pictures evoked larger LPP amplitudes bilaterally over central and parietal regions and asymmetrically over frontal regions. Moreover, these LPP amplitudes to appetitive pictures predicted greater locally biased attention caused by the appetitive pictures. These results provide the first evidence that LPPs are associated with the local attentional bias induced by appetitive motivation.

The Effect of Low Versus High Approach-Motivated Positive Affect on Memory for Peripherally Versus Centrally Presented Information

Emotions influence attention and processes involved in memory. Although some research has suggested that positive affect categorically influences these processes differently than neutral affect, recent research suggests that motivational intensity of positive affective states influences these processes. The present experiments examined memory for centrally or peripherally presented information after the evocation of approach-motivated positive affect. Experiment 1 found that, relative to neutral conditions, pregoal, approach-motivated positive affect (caused by a monetary incentives task) enhanced memory for centrally presented information, whereas postgoal, low approach-motivated positive affect enhanced memory for peripherally presented information. Experiment 2 found that, relative to a neutral condition, high approach-motivated positive affect (caused by appetitive pictures) enhanced memory for centrally presented information but hindered memory for peripheral information. These results suggest a more complex relationship between positive affect and memory processes and highlight the importance of considering the motivational intensity of positive affects in cognitive processes.

Attitudes Toward Emotions

The present work outlines a theory of attitudes toward emotions, provides a measure of attitudes toward emotions, and then tests several predictions concerning relationships between attitudes toward specific emotions and emotional situation selection, emotional traits, emotional reactivity, and emotion regulation. The present conceptualization of individual differences in attitudes toward emotions focuses on specific emotions and presents data indicating that 5 emotions (anger, sadness, joy, fear, and disgust) load on 5 separate attitude factors (Study 1). Attitudes toward emotions predicted emotional situation selection (Study 2). Moreover, attitudes toward approach emotions (e.g., anger, joy) correlated directly with the associated trait emotions, whereas attitudes toward withdrawal emotions (fear, disgust) correlated inversely with associated trait emotions (Study 3). Similar results occurred when attitudes toward emotions were used to predict state emotional reactivity (Study 4). Finally, attitudes toward emotions predicted specific forms of emotion regulation (Study 5).

The influence of affective states varying in motivational intensity on cognitive scope.

We review a program of research that has suggested that affective states high in motivationally intensity (e.g., enthusiasm, disgust) narrow cognitive scope, whereas affective states low in motivationally intensity (e.g., joy, sadness) broaden cognitive scope. Further supporting this interpretation, indices of brain activations, derived from human electroencephalography, suggest that the motivational intensity of the affective state predicts the narrowing of cognitive scope. Finally, research suggests that the relationship between emotive intensity and cognitive scope is bi-directional, such that manipulated changes in cognitive scope influence early brain activations associated with emotive intensity. In the end, the review highlights how emotion can impair and improve certain cognitive processes.