Neuropsychologia 47 (2009) 364–369 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Neuropsychologia journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neuropsychologia Danger is worse when it moves: Neural and behavioral indices of enhanced attentional capture by dynamic threatening stimuli Luis Carretié a,∗ , José A. Hinojosa b , Sara López-Martín a , Jacobo Albert a , Manuel Tapia a , Miguel A. Pozo b a Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain b Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain article info Article history: Received 31 March 2008 Received in revised form 26 August 2008 Accepted 8 September 2008 Available online 13 September 2008 Keywords: Emotion Automatic attention Motion ERPs P1 abstract Both dynamic non-emotional stimuli (moving dots or digits) and danger-related static stimuli have pre- viously shown to capture attention. This study explored whether the combination of the two factors (i.e., threatening moving stimuli), frequent in natural situations, enhances attentional capture. To this end, static and moving distractors containing emotionally negative and non-negative information were pre- sented to 30 volunteers while they were engaged in a digit categorization task. Behavioral responses and event-related potentials (ERPs) were analyzed. Behavioral and electrophysiological data were con- vergent: moving negative distractors produced the longest reaction times in the digit categorization task, and elicited the highest amplitudes in the P1 component of the ERPs (peaking at 112 ms), an electrophys- iological signal of attentional capture. These results suggest that motion provides additional salience to threatening stimuli that facilitates attentional capture. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Several data suggest that moving stimuli are detected more eas- ily and more quickly than static stimuli, and that moving distractors tend to be efficient in capturing attention, disrupting the ongoing task (Franconeri & Simons, 2003, 2005; McLeod, Driver, & Crisp, 1988; Von Mühlenen, Rempel, & Enns, 2005). Thus, behavioral experiments confirm the advantage of motion over other phys- ical features such as luminance or color for capturing attention (Franconeri & Simons, 2003, 2005). In line with this, peripheral moving distractors cause visual cortex activation when subjects are engaged in a primary task concerning centrally located visual stim- uli, this activation being greater than that elicited by motionless distractors (Rees, Frith, & Lavie, 2001). However, the extent to which moving distractors gain access to processing systems appears to be modulated by several factors, since dynamic stimuli are not capable of capturing attention under certain circumstances. For example, static but not dynamic stimuli capture attention within a context of moving stimuli (e.g., Pinto, Olivers, & Theeuwes, 2006). The pro- cessing load involved in the primary task is also a limiting factor: visual cortical areas responsible for processing motion stimulation are less activated by moving distractors as the involvement in the ongoing task increases (Buchel et al., 1998; Rees, 1997; Rees et ∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +34 914975215. E-mail address: carretie@uam.es (L. Carretié). al., 2001). Another important albeit unexplored modulating factor might be the information contained in the moving distractor itself. In the studies mentioned above, moving stimuli typically con- sist of dots or digits. An interesting question worth to be explored is whether the attentional capture facilitated by dynamic stimuli is enhanced when they contain highly relevant information. Several experiments using static stimuli have suggested that emotionally negative events capture attention to a greater extent than non- negative events (e.g., Carretié, Hinojosa, Martín-Loeches, Mercado, & Tapia, 2004; Doallo, Holguin, & Cadaveira, 2006; Pratto & John, 1991; Vuilleumier, Armony, Driver, & Dolan, 2001). But, also in this case, several factors may modulate this pattern. For example, deep involvement in the primary task reduces the capability of negative stimuli to capture attention (Doallo et al., 2006; Pessoa, Kastner, & Ungerleider, 2002; Schwartz et al., 2005). Moreover, low salience negative events fail to attract attention in normal populations (see reviews in Siegle, Ingram, & Matt, 2002; Williams, Mathews, & MacLeod, 1996). It could be expected that motion is also a modulat- ing factor, providing additional salience to negative stimuli for cap- turing attention. In biological terms, this enhanced salience of nega- tive events provided by motion would involve clear adaptive advan- tages. In fact, negative events such as the presence of predators are not well detected when these are still (Pinto, Jankowski, & Sesack, 2003) or when they camouflage their motion (Anderson, 2003). Therefore, the conjunction of danger-related information and motion would maximize attentional capture. To the best of our knowledge, there are as yet no experimental data on the direct 0028-3932/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.09.007