Individual Differences in Information Processing

It has been initially established that different forms of information processing are linked to specific patterns of emotional and cognitive state (e.g., Hockey & Hamilton, 1983; Matthews, Derryberry & Siegle; 2000; Matthews, Davies, Westerman, & Stammers, 2000). Although it is likely that many of the basic mechanisms of information processing are common across individuals, the coordination of those processes and the context of processing outputs (e.g., expectancies, percepts) can vary as a function of the characteristics of individuals (trait) and their current cognitive and affective circumstance (state). Thus, visual information is transformed from photic to neural energy in a way that is common across humans (and many animals), but how that information is organized, and indeed whether the information is processed beyond the sensory level will depend on individual difference factors. Such individual variation will be modified also by the context in which the stimuli are presented. In this work we summarize the known effects of trait and state on information processing, focusing primarily on attention and mood congruency effects. In the first section, we summarize a few of the approaches to the study of emotion to underscore the present ambiguity in the topic itself.