Look–don’t look! How emotional pictures affect pro- and anti-saccades

We investigated the effect of emotional target content on the generation of pro- and anti-saccades. Subjects had to generate saccades towards (pro-saccade) or away from (anti-saccade) peripherally presented pleasant, unpleasant or neutral pictures. Two different SOAs were used, either with simultaneous fixation offset and target onset (no gap) or with fixation offset preceding target onset by 200 ms (gap). In the pro-saccade task participants were faster to respond to emotional pictures in the left visual field. In the right visual field facilitation occurred only for pleasant pictures and saccadic reaction times towards unpleasant pictures were slowed. In the anti-saccade task more anti-saccade errors towards emotional pictures (pleasant and unpleasant) were made in the gap condition. On the whole, endogenous saccade generation appears facilitated by emotional target content, probably via increased input from extra-striate and parietal brain areas to the superior colliculus. Moderating factors such as the SOA or the visual field of presentation are discussed.