Affective Face Flanker Task
Do emotional faces draw our attention?
Just like the original Flanker Task, the Affective Face Flanker Task measures whether your responses are affected by irrelevant stimuli. In the Affective Face Flanker Task, however, angry/hostile faces are used as the stimuli instead of arrows. Reaction times from this task can be used to measure attentional bias during emotional processing (the degree to which an individual’s attention is biased towards threatening stimuli). For example, some individuals show a bias such that their responses are, on average, slower and less accurate when the flankers are angry faces. This suggests that their attention may be 'pulled to' and 'stuck on' threatening emotional stimuli. Do factors like current stress level, personality, or past experience affect performance on this task?
Resources:- Parra, M. A., Sánchez, M. G., Valencia, S., & Trujillo, N. (2018). Attentional bias during emotional processing: evidence from an emotional flanker task using IAPS. Cognition & emotion, 32(2), 275–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2017.1298994
- Zhou P, Liu X (2013). Attentional Modulation of Emotional Conflict Processing with Flanker Tasks. PLoS ONE 8(3), e60548. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0060548
Parameters
The following features can be tweaked (default values in parentheses):- Task instructions
- Number of practice repetitions (1)
- Number of main repetitions (3)
Note: each repetition consists of 4 trials - Inter-trial interval (2000 ms)
- Duration of fixation cross (500 ms)
- Duration of stimulus(400 ms)
- Whether trials should be randomized (yes)
The trial sequence is randomized and balanced across conditions (congruent/incongruent)
What data is collected? How is it scored?
The following variables are recorded:
- reaction_time_congruent
- reaction_time_incongruent
- correct_response_proportion_congruent
- correct_response_proportion_incongruent
The main variables are reaction time (ms) and the percentage of correct responses, calculated for both conditions (congruent/incongruent)
Note: time-outs are considered incorrect trials. Time-out trials are omitted when calculating average response time.
Note: each repetition consists of 4 trials
The trial sequence is randomized and balanced across conditions (congruent/incongruent)
What participants see before taking the task
In the Affective Flanker Task, you will see faces appear on the screen and be asked to respond using the keyboard.
What participants see after taking the task
Thank you for completing the Affective Flanker Task! Your responses have been recorded. This task included trials that differed based on whether the central face was the same (congruent) or different (incongruent) from the other faces (flankers), and whether the flanker faces were angry or neutral. Your reaction times and accuracy for these different trial types will be compared to examine whether your attention was biased towards or away from angry faces. For example, some individuals show a bias such that their responses are, on average, slower and less accurate when the flankers are angry faces. This suggests that their attention may be 'pulled to' and 'stuck on' threatening emotional stimuli.
Aggregate Variables
These data are automatically written to a csv file upon completion of the task
- reaction_time_congruent
- reaction_time_incongruent
- correct_response_proportion_congruent
- correct_response_proportion_incongruent
Duration
10 mins
Resources
- Parra, M. A., Sánchez, M. G., Valencia, S., & Trujillo, N. (2018). Attentional bias during emotional processing: evidence from an emotional flanker task using IAPS. Cognition & emotion, 32(2), 275–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2017.1298994
- Zhou P, Liu X (2013). Attentional Modulation of Emotional Conflict Processing with Flanker Tasks. PLoS ONE 8(3), e60548. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0060548