Research ArticleAttention and the Processing ofEmotional Words and NamesNot So Special After AllChristine R. Harris and Harold PashlerUniversity of California, San DiegoABSTRACT—Previous research has suggested that a person’s ownname or emotionally charged stimuli automatically ‘‘grab’’ at-tention, potentially challenging limited-capacity theories ofperceptual processing. In this study, subjects were shown twodigits surrounding a word and asked to make a speeded judg-ment about whether the parity of the two digits matched. Whenthe subject’s own name was presented on a few scattered trials,responses were markedly slowed (replicating a previous study).However, in a subsequent block of trials in which half the wordswere the subject’s name, the slowing did not occur. The sameslowing occurred (but even more fleetingly) when an emotionallycharged word was presented between the digits. When the namewas embedded among multiple distractor words, it ceased toslow reaction times. The results suggest that perceptual analysisof high-priority stimuli is subject to the usual capacity limita-tions of other stimuli, but when enough capacity is available fora high-priority stimulus to be perceived, a transient surprisereaction may interrupt ongoing processing.People often seem to notice when their names are spoken in a con-versation they were not consciously attending to, as if the names‘‘jump out.’’ Similarly, people sometimes report noticing emotionallycharged words in unattended conversations or print. However, re-search on attention to such high-priority stimuli presents a confusingpicture. In the present study, we attempted to shed more light on thetopic using an experimental design in which high-priority stimulioccasionally appeared as distractors while subjects performed a per-ceptual-cognitive task.EARLY FINDINGS AND CONFLICTING RESULTSThe commonplace observation that one’s own name may attract at-tention was first confirmed by Moray (1959; see also Wood & Cowan,1995). Subjects shadowed spoken messages played in one ear,ignoring the message played in the other ear. When the unattendedinput consisted of ordinary words, subjects neither noticed nor rec-ognized the words. However, about one third of the listeners noticedwhen their own names were presented to the unattended ear andcommented on this. Moray’s result is cited in most current textbookdiscussions of attention (e.g., Reisberg, 2001; Solso, 2000), where it isusually viewed as evidence for late-selection theory. According to thisinterpretation, all perceivable stimuli, whether attended or not, areanalyzed to a semantic level. Monitoring for high-priority stimuli isthought not to require limited-capacity processing resources.In a visual analogue to Moray’s (1959) study, Wolford and Morrison(1980) presented two digits flanking a word and had subjects indicatewhether the digits had the same parity (odd vs. even). When the wordwas the subject’s last name, responses were substantially slowed. Theauthors concluded that names frequently attracted attention, impair-ing performance on the digit task.However, Bundesen, Kyllingsbaek, Houmann, and Jensen (1997)found a startlingly different result. Brief displays of two red and twowhite names were presented (a random 5% of these being the subject’sown first name). The subject’s task was to report the red items. Whenthe subject’s name was one of the (white) distractors, this did notimpair performance. Similarly, in recent visual search studies involv-ing displays of 2 to 12 words, we found no evidence that the subject’sname is an especially potent distractor (Harris, Pashler, & Coburn, inpress). However, like Bundesen et al., we found that subjects werequicker to detect their own names than to detect other words, pre-sumably because of greater practice identifying their own names.Given this evidence that casts doubt on whether one’s own nameattracts attention, we began the present study by asking whether theWolford and Morrison (1980) phenomenon could be replicated.Finding that it could, we explored its theoretical significance byasking whether the effect persists with repeated exposures of the word,and determining how the effect may be modulated when the visualprocessing load is varied.EXPERIMENT 1This experiment used the digit-parity task described by Wolford andMorrison (1980). During the first block of trials, the subject’s own nameAddress correspondence to Christine R. Harris or Harold Pashler,Department of Psychology–0109, University of California, SanDiego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0109; e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] SCIENCEVolume 15—Number 3 171Copyright r 2004 American Psychological Societywas presented infrequently, as in the original study. In the secondblock of trials, however, the name was presented on half of the trials.MethodSubjectsSixty-one college students participated in return for payment or coursecredit in Experiment 1a, and another 58 participated in Experiment 1b.Equipment and StimuliDisplays were presented on 15-in. Sony Trinitron Multiscan 100GSSVGA monitors controlled by PC computers. Displays consisted of twodigits flanking a word and were viewed from approximately 70 cm.Stimuli were black against a gray background. The digits were 1 cmhigh by 0.6 cm wide, spaced 14.5 cm apart. The words were four toeight letters long, with frequency between 25 and 100 per million(Kucera & Francis, 1967). Centered at fixation, they measured 1 cmhigh by 3 to 8 cm wide.DesignExperiment 1a consisted of two blocks of 50 trials each. In Block 1,the subject’s first name was shown on Trials 30 and 40, with randomneutral words shown on the other trials. In Block 2, the name ap-peared on a random 25 trials, with neutral words on the remaining 25.In Experiment 1b, subjects performed one practice block of 50 trialswith neutral words, followed by two blocks with the same sequence oftrials as in Experiment 1a.ProcedureSubjects were told to focus on the parity task and ignore the words.Each trial began with a cross presented in the center of fixation for 1 s;the cross was followed, after 500 ms, by a 150-ms (unmasked) ex-posure of the digits and word. The subject pressed the ‘‘M’’ key of acomputer keyboard if the digit parity matched, and otherwise pressedthe ‘‘N’’ key. A 1-s interval separated successive trials.Results and DiscussionExperiment 1aData from 2 subjects were discarded because of computer