People are different in how much they pay attention to good things and bad things. We know that the norepinephrine system in our bodies has something to do with people being different in this way. (Norepinephrine is a tiny brain message thing that helps you be more excited and pay attention to what is important.) In our study, we wanted to see if we could change how people paid attention to good things and bad things and whether the norepinephrine system was a player in this change.
First, we checked if our study-takers had a certain set of body-directions called ADRA2b. ADRA2b can change how much norepinephrine is in our bodies. Second, we made some study-takers worried and left some study-takers not worried. Third, the study-takers did face-questions before and after angry-face training. For the face-questions, the study-takers looked at face pictures and decided if the faces were happy or angry. Some faces were not really happy or really angry so sometimes it was hard to decide. During the angry-face training, study-takers also looked at many angry faces. Over time, hard to decide faces looked less angry and more happy.
We found that the study-takers thought faces were more happy/less angry after training, especially the study-takers who did not have the ADRA2b body-directions. When we looked more, we noticed that the study-takers changed more if they were more angry-deciding in the first place but this was only true for the study-takers that were not made worried. Now we think that the norepinephrine system does change how much we pay attention to good things and bad things. We also think it helps make not-quite-happy-not-quite-angry things more happy for a short time.
