NASHVILLE, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A study by U.S. researchers finds people who see a violent or erotic image have a moment of "emotion-induced blindness."
"We observed that people fail to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after viewing neutral images," said David Zald, assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt and member of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development.
Zald and his colleagues showed subjects hundreds of pictures, asking them to search for one particular target. An especially violent picture would precede the target image by two to eight items. The closer the violent picture was to the target the more subjects failed to spot it.
The same effect, attentional rubbernecking, held when an erotic image was substituted.
Zald said the effect is an example of what happens when a bad highway crash halts traffic, even in the opposite direction. That is because drivers find their eyes and attention called to the wreck.
The study was published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
