Visual Images of Contaminated Objects and Attentional Shift

Although we expect AI robots for cleaning work to clean the contaminated areas, physically contaminated areas do not always match what we perceive to be contaminated. Thus, to provide us with a more comfortable environment, it is necessary to explore what kinds of objects or situations humans feel contaminated and affect our actual responses, regardless of whether it is physically contaminated. In the present study, we tested whether disgust-related objects affect human attentional systems even when they are presented in artificial environments. Experiments included three tasks: the imaging task, the emotional dot-probe task, and the evaluation task. All tasks were conducted on a computer monitor. In the imaging task, the dish and the animal images were presented on the display. Participants were asked to imagine that the animal was actually on the dish. Next, in the emotional dot-probe task, the target was presented on the display following two dish images. Results showed that responses to the target that was presented on the position of the contaminated dishes were shorter than the target that was presented at the opposite sides of the contaminated dishes. This suggests that, even when the contaminated images are presented on a computer display, it influenced spatial attention, especially automatic attentional shifts. Potential implications for how cognitive and emotional processes affect human behaviors even in artificial environments are discussed.