For decades, emotion researchers have debated a series of issues related to the influence of emotionally laden information on the way in which people process and remember information. The present investigation was designed to experimentally test both general (Experiment 1 and 2) and person-specific (Experiment 3) influences of emotionally laden words on attention and memory using a digit-parity task in which participants were asked to make a speeded judgement about the parity of two digits flanking a to-be-ignored, centrally presented word. In Experiment 1, when a sexual, threat, school, or neutral word was presented between the digits, only the sexual words, rated high in arousal value by study participants, disrupted digit-parity performance producing longer digit-parity response times relative to all other word categories. Sexual words were also recalled more often by study participants in a surprise free recall task. Mirroring attention and memory results, an evaluation of skin conductance responses (SCRs) demonstrated that participants showed enhanced SCRs for the sexual words relative to all other word categories. Furthermore, when the sexual words were parsed into positive and negative word categories (Experiment 2), trials in which a sex-negative word was presented between the digits produced the longest digit-parity response times. Participants recalled more sex-negative words than any other word category. Importantly, participants’ taboo ratings predicted attention and memory results. Finally, when words relevant to participants’ fears were presented between the digits, digit-parity response times slowed relative to when a fear-irrelevant word was presented between the digits. Memory and skin conductance data provide converging evidence – participants recalled and produced larger skin conductance responses for fear-relevant words compared to fear irrelevant words.

This thesis examines the way in which meaningful facial signals (i.e., eye gaze and emotional facial expressions) influence the allocation of visual attention. These signals convey information about the likely imminent behaviour of the sender and are, in turn, potentially relevant to the behaviour of the viewer. It is already well established that different signals influence the allocation of attention in different ways that are consistent with their meaning. For example, direct gaze (i.e., gaze directed at the viewer) is considered both to draw attention to its location and hold attention when it arrives, whereas observing averted gaze is known to create corresponding shifts in the observer’s attention. However, the circumstances under which these effects occur are not yet understood fully. The first two sets of experiments in this thesis tested directly whether direct gaze is particularly difficult to ignore when the task is to ignore it, and whether averted gaze will shift attention when it is not relevant to the task. Results suggest that direct gaze is no more difficult to ignore than closed eyes, and the shifts in attention associated with viewing averted gaze are not evident when the gaze cues are task-irrelevant. This challenges the existing understanding of these effects. The remaining set of experiments investigated the role of gaze direction in the allocation of attention to emotional facial expressions. Without exception, previous work looking at this issue has measured the allocation of attention to such expressions when gaze is directed at the viewer. Results suggest that while the type of emotional expression (i.e., angry or happy) does influence the allocation of attention, the associated gaze direction does not, even when the participants are divided in terms of anxiety level (a variable known to influence the allocation of attention to emotional expressions). These findings are discussed in terms of how the social meaning of the stimulus can influence preattentive processing. This work also serves to highlight the need for general theories of visual attention to incorporate such data. Not to do so fundamentally risks misrepresenting the nature of attention as it operates out-with the laboratory setting.

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Previous findings in healthy humans suggest that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) modulate emotional processing via earlier changes in attention. However, many previous studies have provided inconsistent findings. One possible reason for such inconsistencies is that these studies did not control for the influence of either sex or sex hormone fluctuations. To address this inconsistency, we administered 20 mg escitalopram or placebo for seven consecutive days in a randomized, double-blind, placebocontrolled design to sixty healthy female participants with a minimum of 3 months oral contraceptive (OC) intake. Participants performed a modified version of an emotional flanker task before drug administration, after a single dose, after 1 week of SSRI intake, and after a 1-month wash-out period. Supported by Bayesian analyses, our results do not suggest a modulatory effect of escitalopram on behavioral measures of early attentional-emotional interaction in female individuals with regular OC use. While the specific conditions of our task may be a contributing factor, it is also possible that a practice effect in a healthy sample may mask the effects of escitalopram on the attentional-emotional interplay. Consequently, 1 week of escitalopram administration may not modulate attention toward negative emotional distractors outside the focus of attention in healthy female participants taking OCs. While further research in naturally cycling females and patient samples is needed, our results represent a valuable contribution toward the preclinical investigation of antidepressant treatment.