Attentional disengagement is modulated by the offset of unpleasant pictures: a saccadic reaction time study

• Attentional disengagement from affective pictures using saccadic reaction times.
• Offset of unpleasant pictures modulates saccade latencies.
• Affective content modulates attentional disengagement.
• Saccadic reaction times are modulated by affective pictures.
• Saccade latencies are influenced by the affective content of pictures.

We studied the influence of passively viewing a picture on saccade latencies to peripheral targets. Thirty-two volunteers were instructed to look at a central picture, wait for the onset of a peripheral target, and execute a saccade toward it as quickly as possible — saccadic reaction time (SRT). The central picture (neutral or unpleasant) could be turned off simultaneously with target onset (the no-gap condition) or 200 ms prior to target onset (the gap-200 condition). We found that saccade latencies were influenced by emotional valence and condition. In the no-gap condition, SRTs were longer after viewing unpleasant pictures. In the gap-200 condition, the pattern was reversed, and unpleasant pictures induced shorter SRTs in relation to neutral pictures. Furthermore, the influence of unpleasant pictures gradually decreased when images were re-exposed to the participants — affective habituation. The results are discussed in terms of attentional avoidance and disengagement from unpleasant emotional pictures.