Luini, L. P. , Marucci, F. S. & Mastroberardino, S.
Psychology Department "Sapienza" - University of Rome; Italy
Cognitive psychology research focused on the relationship between automatic and controlled cognition referred to split-second decisions (Payne, 2001) and examined the effect that race as ethnic group factor leading to a response bias had on shooting decisions using videogame-like tasks (Correll et al., 2002, 2006). A weapon bias was reported in judgment denoted as a perceptual weapon/tool classification (Payne, 2001) and as a behavioural shoot/do not shoot decision (Correll et al., 2002; Greenwald et al., 2003). The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of arousal, valence and content of IAPS pictures on measures of perceptive sensitivity (d’), response bias and RT. Four weapon identification tasks were performed manipulating emotional and arousing contents of visual stimuli. Results showed a significant interaction between valence and prime on: 1) Criterion (C); 2) hit and false alarm rate; 3) RT. A significant effect of arousal on Criterion (C) was found and an amplification of effect size was observed when visual stimuli with negative valence represented crime or violence scenes as compared to non-crime or non-violence ones. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that affective modulation influences response bias activation and performance, and that content of stimuli amplifies the effect size.