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Abstract:
Curiosity and novelty seeking are fundamental characteristics
of exploratory behavior that decline during the progression of
Alzheimer's disease (AD; Daffner et al., 1992). In the present
study, we used a paired comparison task to examine the influence of
emotional arousal on a visual exploration model of curiosity.
Early-stage probable AD patients and young and aging controls were
given pairs of visual scenes that varied in emotional content while
their eye movements were monitored under free viewing conditions.
For neutral-neutral stimulus pairs, subjects showed an initial
inspection bias toward the stimulus on the left side, which
equilibrated over the time course of picture viewing. For
negative-neutral stimulus pairs, the leftward bias was more
pronounced and persistent if the emotional scene appeared in the
left hemispace, and it reversed to a rightward bias if the
emotional scene appeared in the right hemispace. These oculographic
patterns were consistent across all subject groups. Our results
suggest mechanisms by which emotional arousal modulates
visuospatial attention, with implications for potential strategies
to remediate the exploration deficits that occur in the early
stages of AD.
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