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Here, we investigated how these resources modulate the recognition of emotional faces in working memory. In Experiment 1, participants performed a face working memory (WM) task with either one face (low-WM load) or three faces (high-WM load) at encoding, showing happy, angry, and sad emotions. Participants stated whether a single (neutral) probe face matched the identity of one of the faces just encoded. Concurrently, participants engaged in an auditory monitoring task (low vs. high-attention load). The results revealed two contrasting effects: (a) increased WM load had a larger detrimental impact on WM for negative compared to happy faces; (b) increased general attentional demands from the auditory task impaired WM for angry and happy faces more than sad faces. In Experiment 2, an additional perceptual face-matching task under high and low perceptual and attentional load indicated that the WM findings were not plausibly due to featural similarities between faces, and that the accuracy costs of attentional load found in Experiment 1 were specific to conditions requiring active WM maintenance. These results demonstrate that WM for emotional faces requires both general attention and face-WM resources interdependently, and that this differs depending on the emotional expression shown.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/17470218261498021","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]],"date-time":"2026-10-08T07:19:25Z","timestamp":1791443965000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Dissociating Attentional and Working Memory Load in Memory for Emotional Faces"],"prefix":"10.1177","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8314-3514","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"L\u00edvia","family":"Valenti","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, University of S\u00e3o Carlos (UFSCar), S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Margaret C.","family":"Jackson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Cesar","family":"Galera","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters at Ribeir\u00e3o Preto, University of S\u00e3o Paulo (FFCLRP -USP), Brazil"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7080-538X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ricardo B.","family":"Garcia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters at Ribeir\u00e3o Preto, University of S\u00e3o Paulo (FFCLRP -USP), Brazil"},{"name":"Samsung R&amp;D Institute Brasil \u2013 SRBR, Campinas, S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Adamczyk A. 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