Processing of “unattended” threat-related information: Role of emotional content and context

Unpleasant, pleasant, or neutral visual scenes served as a context for the presentation of threat-related, positive, and neutral words. On each trial, 2 simultaneous prime words (one foveal, i.e., at fixation, and one parafoveal, i.e., 2.2° apart) appeared for 150 ms, followed by a foveally presented probe word in a lexical decision task. Results showed facilitation in response times for probe threat words when primed by an identical parafoveal word, in comparison with priming by an unrelated parafoveal word, and this effect was enhanced in an emotionally congruent unpleasant context. In contrast, no parafoveal effect appeared for positive words, even in a pleasant context. This reveals parallel processing of threat-related words outside the focus of attention.