Decomposing unpleasantness: Differential exogenous attention to disgusting and fearful stimuli

▶ Negative stimuli are separated into fearful and disgusting events. ▶ Disgusting and fearful stimuli differ in their capability to capture exogenous/automatic attention, disgusting showing a robust advantage. ▶ Behavioral (reaction times) and neural indices (P2-related cuneus activation as well as scalp P2 amplitudes) of exogenous/automatic attention were convergent. ▶ Results may not be explained by valence or arousal differences between disgusting and fearful stimuli. Idiosyncratic features of disgust may explain these results.