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Abstract: It is widely accepted that the emotion that a person is feeling can influence their attentional breadth. However, there are competing theoretical models regarding the aspect of one’s emotional or motivational state that is thought to produce these changes, with one theoretical model proposing that the valence of emotion’s is key, and another proposing that it is instead the motivational intensity of the current state that matters. Empirical testing to date has not been designed to adequately adjudicate between these accounts. Moreover, despite being the basis of a theoretical model, the conceptualisation and operationalisation of the motivation-based dimension (motivational intensity) is unclear, and its relationship with emotion-based dimensions (arousal and valence) has not been empirically tested. Project 1 assessed the relationship between dimensions of emotion (arousal and valence) and motivation (motivational intensity). Project 1 suggested a very high degree of correspondence between valence and motivational intensity. Project 2 further examined the relationship between valence and motivational intensity from a discrete emotion level, and identified specific emotional states for which valence and motivational intensity do diverge (i.e., sadness, anger, and amusement). Given that Project 2 findings confirmed that the two separately proposed primary drivers of attentional breadth were distinct, Project 3 pitted the effects of valence versus motivational intensity against one another as potential drivers of attentional breadth modulation. 

Bio: Niamh is a final year PhD Candidate at the Research School of Psychology, the ANU. Niamh graduated with Honours in Science (Psychology) in 2018 at the ANU before commencing her PhD candidature in 2019. Niamh’s PhD work is in the field of Emotion and Cognition, with two published manuscripts in Emotion. Her supervisory panel is chaired by Associate Professor Stephanie Goodhew, alongside panel members Associate Professor Mark Edwards, and Dr. Amy Dawel.