Emotional capture of spatial attention is suppressed in high anxiety but at a non-spatial time cost

Emotional distractors capture spatial attention delaying target search more than neutral distractors. The current study investigated whether emotional attention capture occurs automatically by utilizing statistical learning to suppress attention capture. Participants searched for a target while an emotional or neutral distractor appeared at high (suppressed) or low distractor probability (not suppressed) locations. Experiment 1 (56 subjects) measured target detection latency with a keyboard and Experiment 2 (90 subjects) used computer mouse tracking for measuring emotional capture at higher spatial and temporal resolutions. Results showed that emotional capture of spatial attention was able to be suppressed, but at the cost of producing non-spatial time delays. Furthermore, emotional capture that occurred at non-suppressed locations occurred at relatively late temporal stages after movement initiation and were more likely to occur in individuals with high trait anxiety. Overall, the study demonstrates that emotional capture of spatial attention is not strictly automatic.