Recognizing the Bank Robber and Spotting the Difference: EmotionalState and Global vs. Local Attentional Set

Abstract

In two experiments (161 participants in total), we investigated how current moodinfluences processing styles (global vs. local). Participants watched a video ofa bank robbery before receiving a positive, negative or neutral induction, andthey performed two tasks: a face-recognition task about the bank robber asglobal processing measure, and a spot-the-difference task using neutral pictures(Experiment-1) or emotional scenes (Experiment-2) as local processing measure.Results showed that positive mood induction favoured a global processing style,enhancing participants’ ability to correctly identify a face evenwhen they watched the video before the mood-induction. This shows that, besidesinfluencing encoding processes, mood state can be also related to retrievalprocesses. On the contrary, negative mood induction enhanced a local processingstyle, making easier and faster the detection of differences between nearlyidentical pictures, independently of their valence. This dissociation supportsthe hypothesis that current mood modulates processing through activation ofdifferent cognitive styles.