New publication on emotional valence and salience

In collaboration with Philipp Kanske, Duggirala and colleagues have published a new functional magnetic resonance imaging study investigating the effects of emotional valence on attentional processes. When confronted with a conflict during a positive, negative or neutral condition of a Flanker task, both positive and negative stimuli were salient during low and high levels of cognitive conflict and directed attention towards the emotional content. This emotional salience regardless of valence was associated with increased activations within the anterior cingulate cortex. The full article can be read here.