Abstract: Compared with neutral stimuli, emotional stimuli usually results in faster and more attention and presents a cognitive processing priority. In the studies of investigating the relation of attention and emotion, emotional materials are observed to attract attention or occupy attentional resource, thereby cause attention bias. Moderate bias for emotional information is of great value for the individual’s social life. The current study reviews four types of theories about emotional attention bias which refers to components of selective attention account, schema theory, attentional resource theory and the PDP model, emphasizing on the emotional attention bias under inhibitory paradigm separately with the normal individuals and the special ones. Furthermore, we points out the possibility of adopting new technology such as ERPs and fMRI to study the connection between emotion and attention for the different groups of participants in the future.

Key words: emotion, attentional bias, inhibit paradigm