Neuroticism focuses attention: evidence from SSVEPs.

Neuroticism and negative affect have been associated with an increase in attentional investment and the greater processing of irrelevant stimuli. Previous research proposes the overinvestment of attention and a focused mental state as the mechanism of this effect. We investigated the neural correlates of this idea using a dual-stream rapid serial visual presentation paradigm with centrally presented, overlapping streams of letters that changed at different frequencies.

Tough doughnuts: affect and the modulation of attention.

Positive affect has been associated with improvement in performance in various attentional domains. Negative affect has been associated with narrowing of attention and lowering of performance in attentional tasks. Previous behavioral studies have put forth the diffuse mental state idea as the mechanism of these effects, where attentional resources are more evenly distributed during positive affect and more focused during negative affect.

The role of temporal context and expectancy in resource allocation to and perception of rapid serial events.

The perception of target events presented in a rapid stream of non-targets is impaired for early target positions, but then gradually improves, a phenomenon known as attentional awakening. This phenomenon has been associated with better resource allocation. It is unclear though whether improved resource allocation and attentional awakening are a consequence of the temporal context, that is, the position of the target event in the stimulus stream, or are due to a simple expectancy or foreperiod effect.