The influence of emotional scenes and attentional bias on visual working memory: Insights from a 3-back task.
The present study investigated the effects of emotional valence—specifically, negative, positive, and neutral affective content—on visual working memory performance under conditions of sustained cognitive demand. Participants (N = 127), all university students from Saudi Arabia, completed a cultural...
| Publicado en: | Memory & Cognition Vol. 54; no. 6; pp. 2436 - 2453 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Aug2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=196093720&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 196093720 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0090502X MEG jtl: Memory & Cognition issn: 0090502X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Aug2026 vid: 54 iid: 6 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 196093720 10.3758/s13421-026-01882-6 ppf: 2436 ppct: 17 formats: tig: atl: The influence of emotional scenes and attentional bias on visual working memory: Insights from a 3-back task. aug: au: Alotaibi, Albandri S. affil: https://ror.org/02f81g417 Department of Psychology, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia su: Saudi Arabia Task performance Arousal (Physiology) Emotions College students Cognition Attentional bias Pearson correlation (Statistics) Data analysis Multiple regression analysis Descriptive statistics Friedman test (Statistics) Statistics Short-term memory Visual perception Reaction time Data analysis software sug: subj: Task performance Arousal (Physiology) Emotions College students Cognition Saudi Arabia Attentional bias Pearson correlation (Statistics) Data analysis Multiple regression analysis Descriptive statistics Friedman test (Statistics) Statistics Short-term memory Visual perception Reaction time Data analysis software keyword: 3-back task Decision bias (criterion c) Emotional valence Negative emotion Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology Visual working memory 3-back task Decision bias (criterion c) Emotional valence Negative emotion Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology Visual working memory ab: The present study investigated the effects of emotional valence—specifically, negative, positive, and neutral affective content—on visual working memory performance under conditions of sustained cognitive demand. Participants (N = 127), all university students from Saudi Arabia, completed a culturally adapted version of the 3-back task in which images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) were categorized by emotional valence and presented in homogeneous blocks. The primary aim was to examine whether emotional content modulates core aspects of working memory, including accuracy, reaction time, perceptual sensitivity (d′), and decision bias (criterion c), particularly when continuous updating is required. Results indicated a significant advantage for negative stimuli in terms of accuracy, with participants demonstrating higher performance in this condition relative to both neutral and positive blocks. Conversely, reaction times were fastest in the positive condition, though no evidence of a speed–accuracy trade-off was observed. Sensitivity, as indexed by d′, remained statistically equivalent across conditions; however, criterion c analyses revealed a more conservative response tendency in the positive condition. Age was negatively correlated with accuracy in the negative condition, suggesting early-emerging shifts in emotion–cognition dynamics. These findings are discussed in relation to cultural context and signal detection theory, with implications for models of affective modulation in visual working memory. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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