Affective Biases in Attention, Cognitive Control, and Awareness

doi:10.1017/9781009342919.025

Chapter 19 - Affective Biases in Attention, Cognitive Control, and Awareness

from Section V - Cognition–Emotion Interactions

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2025

Judith Domínguez-Borràs ,

Alexia Bourgeois and

Patrik Vuilleumier

Edited by

Jorge Armony and

Patrik Vuilleumier

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Jorge Armony: Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Patrik Vuilleumier: Affiliation:
University of Geneva

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Summary

Emotionally or motivationally significant stimuli tend to attract, divert, or hold attention more readily than neutral stimuli. These effects arise during numerous tasks, varying as a function of stimulus type or emotional cue. Their neural substrates involve enhanced activity of sensory cortices under direct influence of emotional or reward processing systems, including the amygdala, in combination with other top-down or bottom-up biases that together serve to prioritize behaviorally relevant information for access to conscious awareness. Other indirect influences act through interactions of emotional and motivational systems, with cortical or subcortical networks controlling attention, including executive functions and neuromodulatory pathways. These data reveal that attentional processes encompass multiple biasing signals that can modulate stimulus processing, based not only on space or object representations, as traditionally considered, but also value-based representations. Such mechanisms of emotional attention or affect-driven biases may operate preattentively, involuntarily, or non-consciously, yet nonetheless be regulated by current goals or context.

Keywords

Emotion motivation reward perception attention amygdala priority map cognitive control awareness lesion

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Human Affective Neuroscience , pp. 385 - 407

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009342919.025 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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