Working Memory Capacity for Faces with Different Levels of Emotional Valence

Abstract

The capacity of visual working memory (VWM) depends on the complexity of the stimuli being processed. Emotional characteristics increase stimulus complexity and can interfere with the competition for cognitive resources. Studies involving emotional information processing are scarce and still produce contradicting results. In the present study, we investigated the capacity of VWM for faces with positive, negative, and neutral expressions. A modified change-detection task was used in two experiments, in which the number of faces and the emotional valence were manipulated. The results showed that VWM has a storage capacity of approximately two faces, which is fewer than the storage capacity identified for simpler stimuli. Our results reinforce the evidence that working memory can dynamically distribute its storage resources depending on both the amount and the emotional nature of the stimuli.