
B. M. BEN-DAVID ET AL.
Copyright © 2012 SciRes.
540
other words, threat-related cost also entails poorer discrimina-
tion of stimulus attributes.
The results mandate the conclusion that the ESE is the out-
come of an instinctive perceptual-motor reaction to threat. The
presence of threat engenders a wholesale regrouping of the
organism’s resources in order to deal effectively with the situa-
tion. Resources are allocated to the threat attribute at the ex-
pense of other attributes. Perception becomes thus blunt for
attributes other than the threat one. This finding is consistent
with recent results from our laboratory showing that non-target
attributes often do not undergo semantic processing in the
presence of emotion or threat (Chajut, Schupak, & Algom,
2010). The findings are also consistent with those by Zeelen-
berg et al. (2006) and by Schupp, Junghofere, Weike, and
Hamm (2003), which implicate a perceptual source for changes
in performance under emotion. Taken together, these results
provide further support for the threat account of the ESE, where
the sluggish performance (otherwise termed “temporary freez-
ing”) in the face of threat is the cost of reshuffling of priorities.
Incidental support for this conclusion comes from a pair of
recent studies on the classic Stroop effect that manipulated
color (actually, the discriminability of the ink colors) in a direct
fashion. Ben-David and Schneider (2009, 2010; see also
Ben-David, Nguyen, & Van Lieshout, 2011) found that the
content of the word exerted a greater influence on color naming
(thereby generating a larger Stroop effect) when the colors were
less salient. Within the framework of the ESE, the natural sali-
ence of a threat stimulus combines with poorer color perception
(itself produced by the threat) to generate slower color naming.
In conclusion, let us issue a caveat with respect to the general
impact of the current results. First, they must be replicated and
extended to further stimuli, populations, and areas of stress and
anxiety. Second, the null-effect with respect to response bias
derives from large unexplained variability. It would be salutary
to replicate it in the face of reduced variance. Nevertheless, our
data constrain future theories of the ESE, challenging any a
strategy-driven source for the effect.
Acknowledgements
The first author was partially supported by a grant from the
Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation (2008-ABI-PDF-659). We
wish to thank Noa Calderon for her assistance in collecting the
data.
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