Emotion, working memory task demands and individual differences predict behavior, cognitive effort and negative affect

Sadness and fear, but not happiness, motivate inhibitory behaviour: the influence of discrete emotions on the executive function of inhibition

Inhibition, an executive function, is critical for achieving goals that require suppressing unwanted behaviours, thoughts, or distractions. One hypothesis of the emotion and goal compatibility theory is that emotions of sadness and fear enhance inhibitory control. Across Experiments 1-4, we tested this hypothesis by inducing a happy, sad, fearful, and neutral emotional state prior to completing an inhibition task that indexed a specific facet of inhibition (oculomotor, resisting interference, behavioural, and cognitive). In Experiment 4, we included an anger induction to examine whether valence or motivational-orientation best-predicted performance. We found support that fear and sadness enhanced inhibition except when inhibition required resisting interference. We argue that sadness and fear enhance inhibitory control aiding the detection and analysis of problems (i.e. sadness) or threats (i.e. fear) within one's environment. In sum, this work highlights the importance of identifying how negative emotions can be beneficial for and interact with specific executive functions influencing down-stream processing including attention, cognition, and memory.

Examining tradeoffs between cognitive effort and relief among adults with self-injurious behavior

BACKGROUND

People engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) to reduce negative affect, but it is not clear why they engage in this harmful type of behavior instead of using healthier strategies. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate whether people choose NSSI to reduce negative affect because they perceive it to be less cognitively costly than other available strategies.

METHOD

In experiment one, 43 adults completed a novel, relief-based effort discounting task designed to index preferences about exerting cognitive effort to achieve relief. In experiment two, 149 adults, 52 % with a history of NSSI, completed our effort discounting task.

RESULTS

Our main results suggest that people will accept less relief from an aversive experience if doing so requires expending less effort, i.e. they demonstrate effort discounting in the context of decisions about relief. We also found and that effort discounting is stronger among those with a history of NSSI, but this association became nonsignificant when simultaneously accounting for other conditions associated with aberrant effort tradeoffs.

LIMITATIONS

The use of a control group without NSSI or other potentially harmful relief-seeking behaviors limits our ability to draw specific conclusions about NSSI. The ecological validity of our task was limited by a modestly effective affect manipulation, and because participants made hypothetical choices.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates that preferences about exerting cognitive effort may be a barrier to using healthier affect regulation strategies. Further, the preference not to exert cognitive effort, though present in NSSI, is likely not unique to NSSI. Instead, effort discounting may be a transdiagnostic mechanism promoting an array of harmful relief-seeking behaviors.

Working Memory Models and Measures in Language and Bilingualism Research: Integrating Cognitive and Affective Perspectives

Although emotional or affective working memory (WM) is quite well established in general psychology, not much research has looked into its potential implications for the language sciences and bilingualism and second language acquisition (SLA) research until recently. To fill this gap, this paper aims to propose that WM has not just cognitive implications, but its affective dimension may also make complementary and unique contributions to language and bilingualism/SLA research. Towards this end, we first briefly synthesize the cognitive views of WM conceptions and assessment procedures in the current language sciences and bilingualism/SLA research. Next, we turn to discuss the theoretical models and assumptions of affective WM and explore their theoretical implications for bilingualism/SLA research based on emerging empirical evidence. Then, we propose a conceptual framework integrating cognitive and affective WM perspectives and further provide guidelines for designing affective WM span tasks that can be used in future affective WM–language research, focusing on the construction procedures of several emotion-based affective WM span tasks (e.g., the emotional reading span task, the emotional operation span task, and the emotional symmetry span task) as examples. Overall, we argue that affective feelings are also an integral part of the mental representations held in WM and future research in the language sciences and bilingualism/SLA should incorporate both cognitive and affective WM dimensions.

What emotion dimensions can affect working memory performance in healthy adults? A review

Due to the critical roles of emotion and working memory in our daily activities, a great deal of attention has been given to how emotion influences working memory performance. Although the association between emotion and working memory is relatively well established, whether mood enhances or impairs working memory performance remains controversial. The present review provides a relatively representative overview of the research on the effect of different dimensions of emotion on working memory among healthy adults spanning a 30-year period. The findings show that the valence, arousal and motivational dimensions of emotion could all exert an impact on working memory performance. The impact of emotion on working memory might be modulated by task relevance, emotion type, working memory paradigms and individual differences. The vast majority of the studies regarding the effect of emotion on working memory performance focused on the impact of negatively valenced affect and yielded highly contradictory findings. The impacts of arousal and motivation on working memory have been less explored, and inconsistent findings have also been reported. Possible explanations are discussed. Considerable research on the effect of certain dimensions of emotion on working memory has suffered from a lack of control of other emotional dimensions, and different aspects of working memory have been investigated by various paradigms. Directions for further studies should include the exploration of specific dimensions of emotion on different aspects of working memory, with the other dimensions being well controlled.

Impact of Affect Balance on Cognitive and Physical Function in Adults With and Without Fibromyalgia

OBJECTIVE

To identify the potential benefits of heightened levels of affect balance in older adults with and without chronic pain on various cognitive domains, physical performance, and perceived cognitive and physical health.

METHOD

Ninety-one older adults, some with and some without fibromyalgia (FM) participated. Objective tests included cognitive (immediate and delayed recall, delayed recognition-CERAD 10-item word list) and physical measures (Fullerton Advanced Balance Scale; lower body strength-30-s chair stand; gait velocity-30-ft. walk). Self-report measures were problems with forgetting, activities of daily living (perceived function), and affect (Positive and Negative Affect Scale [PANAS]). Affect balance was calculated as positive minus negative affect from the PANAS.

RESULTS

Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that-regardless of FM status-higher affect balance was associated with better episodic memory performance (immediate recall, delayed recognition), better balance, enhanced lower body strength (more chair stands), and healthier gait (30-ft. walk), as well as less forgetfulness and better perceived functional health.

CONCLUSION

Increased affect balance was associated with better objective and subjective health in older adults both without and with chronic pain. Positive psychology treatments which increase affect balance are easy to administer, cost effective, and may add an important, additional treatment modality for maintaining health in normal aging adults as well as those with chronic pain.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

In order to help patients with healthy aging, nurses need to be aware of the potential long-term effect of emotional state on overall function and be able to counsel patients regarding potential treatments to enhance positive global emotions such as resilience.

The effects of compassion-based feedback on wellbeing ratings during a professional assessment healthcare task

BACKGROUND

There is a need for higher education policy to consider how student nurses might be supported to help them to develop the resilience and mental wellbeing needed to cope with stressful environments. Reviews and qualitative research in this area suggest that compassion can improve wellbeing, however, compassion-based feedback is yet to be explored as a pedagogical intervention using quantitative methods.

PURPOSE

To explore the effect of different feedback types on subjective wellbeing.

METHODS

In this experimental design, nursing students were presented with three feedback types, 'compassion-based feedback, simple descriptive feedback, and utilitarian feedback' and were asked to provide post-trial ratings of subjective wellbeing, in relation to each type, whilst undertaking a nursing-related task. Participants also rated the helpfulness of 'Type of Feedback'.

RESULTS

We report a significant difference of 'Type of Feedback' with higher ratings of wellbeing when participants were presented with compassion-based feedback.

CONCLUSION

Compassion-based feedback could lead to higher wellbeing in educational tasks related to nursing.

The effects of emotion on working memory: Valence versus motivation

It is unclear whether the effects of emotional state on working memory (WM) are valence-based or motivation-based since the type of emotions used in previous research differed on both dimensions of emotion. Especially, effects of anger, which is a negative but approach-related emotional state, were mostly overlooked. To distinguish between valence vs. motivation accounts, two experiments were conducted in which participants were induced one of four emotional states to create approach-positive (happiness), avoidance-negative (fear), approach-negative (anger), and control (neutral) conditions, followed by Self-ordered Pointing Task (Experiment 1) or N-Back task (Experiment 2) as WM measures. The main effect of emotion on WM accuracy was not significant in neither experiment. In the second experiment, however, reaction times (RTs) in the avoidance-related emotion condition were significantly faster compared to those in approach-related conditions, without compromising accuracy. Together the two experiments suggest that the motivational dimension of emotional state is more effective on WM than the valence dimension, especially on the RTs, indicating working memory updating efficiency.

Negative social emotions and cognition: Shame, guilt and working memory impairments

Negative emotions can have an impact on a variety of cognitive domains, including Working Memory (WM). The present work investigated whether shame and guilt modulate WM performance in a dual-task test both in a non-clinical and a clinical population. In Experiment 1, 76 non-clinical participants performed a dual-task before and after being randomly assigned to shame, guilt or neutral inductions elicited by the writing of autobiographical past experiences. Shame and guilt elicitations were related to impaired WM performances. In Experiment 2, 65 clinical inpatients with eating disorders were assigned to the same procedure. The negative relationship of self-conscious emotions and WM was confirmed. Taken together these results suggest that shame and guilt are related to impairments of WM in both clinical and non-clinical participants.

Playing with fire: effects of negative mood induction and working memory on vocabulary acquisition

We investigated the impact of emotions on learning vocabulary in an unfamiliar language to better understand affective influences in foreign language acquisition. Seventy native English speakers learned new vocabulary in either a negative or a neutral emotional state. Participants also completed two sets of working memory tasks to examine the potential mediating role of working memory. Results revealed that participants exposed to negative stimuli exhibited difficulty in retrieving and correctly pairing English words with Indonesian words, as reflected in a lower performance on the prompted recall tests and the free recall measure. Emotional induction did not change working memory scores from pre to post manipulation. This suggests working memory could not explain the reduced vocabulary learning in the negative group. We argue that negative mood can adversely affect language learning by suppressing aspects of native-language processing and impeding form-meaning mapping with second language words.