The Influence of Negative Emotion on Cognitive and Emotional Control Remains Intact in Aging

A touching advantage: cross-modal stop-signals improve reactive response inhibition

The ability to inhibit an already initiated response is crucial for navigating the environment. However, it is unclear which characteristics make stop-signals more likely to be processed efficiently. In three consecutive studies, we demonstrate that stop-signal modality and location are key factors that influence reactive response inhibition. Study 1 shows that tactile stop-signals lead to better performance compared to visual stop-signals in an otherwise visual choice-reaction task. Results of Study 2 reveal that the location of the stop-signal matters. Specifically, if a visual stop-signal is presented at a different location compared to the visual go-signal, then stopping performance is enhanced. Extending these results, study 3 suggests that tactile stop-signals and location-distinct visual stop-signals retain their performance enhancing effect when visual distractors are presented at the location of the go-signal. In sum, these results confirm that stop-signal modality and location influence reactive response inhibition, even in the face of concurrent distractors. Future research may extend and generalize these findings to other cross-modal setups.

Recent Investigations on the Functional Role of Cerebellar Neural Networks in Motor Functions & Nonmotor Functions -Neurodegeneration

The cerebellum is a well-established primary brain center in charge of controlling sensorimotor functions and non-motor functions. Recent reports depicted the significance of cerebellum in higher-order cognitive functions, including emotion-processing, language, reward-related behavior, working memory, and social behavior. As it can influence diverse behavioral patterns, any defects in cerebellar functions could invoke neuropsychiatric diseases as indicated by the incidence of alexithymia and induce alterations in emotional and behavioral patterns. Furthermore, its defects can trigger motor diseases, such as ataxia and Parkinson's disease (PD). In this review, we have extensively discussed the role of cerebellum in motor and non-motor functions and how the cerebellum malfunctions in relation to the neural circuit wiring as it could impact brain function and behavioral outcomes in patients with neuropsychiatric diseases. Relevant data regarding cerebellar non-motor functions have been vividly described, along with anatomy and physiology of these functions. In addition to the defects in basal ganglia, the lack of activity in motor related regions of the cerebellum could be associated with the severity of motor symptoms. All together, this review delineates the importance of cerebellar involvement in patients with PD and unravels a crucial link for various clinical aspects of PD with specific cerebellar sub-regions.

Enhancing Emotion Recognition Using Region-Specific Electroencephalogram Data and Dynamic Functional Connectivity

Recognizing the emotional states of humans through EEG signals are of great significance to the progress of human-computer interaction. The present study aimed to perform automatic recognition of music-evoked emotions through region-specific information and dynamic functional connectivity of EEG signals and a deep learning neural network. EEG signals of 15 healthy volunteers were collected when different emotions (high-valence-arousal vs. low-valence-arousal) were induced by a musical experimental paradigm. Then a sequential backward selection algorithm combining with deep neural network called Xception was proposed to evaluate the effect of different channel combinations on emotion recognition. In addition, we also assessed whether dynamic functional network of frontal cortex, constructed through different trial number, may affect the performance of emotion cognition. Results showed that the binary classification accuracy based on all 30 channels was 70.19%, the accuracy based on all channels located in the frontal region was 71.05%, and the accuracy based on the best channel combination in the frontal region was 76.84%. In addition, we found that the classification performance increased as longer temporal functional network of frontal cortex was constructed as input features. In sum, emotions induced by different musical stimuli can be recognized by our proposed approach though region-specific EEG signals and time-varying functional network of frontal cortex. Our findings could provide a new perspective for the development of EEG-based emotional recognition systems and advance our understanding of the neural mechanism underlying emotion processing.

Positive emotion enhances conflict processing in preschoolers

The rapid detection and resolution of conflict between opposing action tendencies is crucial for our ability to engage in goal-directed behavior. Research in adults suggests that emotions can serve as a "relevance detector" that alarms attentional and sensory systems, thereby leading to more efficient conflict processing. In contrast, previous research in children has almost exclusively stressed the impeding influence of emotion on the attentional system, as suggested by the protracted development of performance in "hot" executive function tasks. Do preschool children show a facilitative effect of emotion on conflict processing? We addressed this question applying a modified version of a color flanker task that either involved or did not involve positive emotional stimuli in preschool children (N = 43, with preregistered Bayesian sequential design, aged 2.8-7.0 years). Our results show a robust conflict effect with higher error rates in incongruent compared to congruent trials. Crucially, conflict resolution was faster in emotional compared to neutral conditions. Furthermore, while efficient conflict processing increases with age, we find evidence against an age-related change in the influence of positive emotion on conflict processing. Taken together, these findings provide indication that positive emotion can trigger efficient control processes already from early on in life. In contrast to the predominant view in developmental psychology, this indicates that, depending on the role that emotion has in conflict processing, emotion may show a facilitative or impeding effect already in the preschool period.

It is not always positive: emotional bias in young and older adults

Healthy ageing has been associated with a bias toward positive information and greater psychological well-being. However, to what extent this positivity bias also applies to prioritizing positive information under emotional competition is unclear. Old and young adults performed a word-face interference task, in which they responded to the valence of positive and negative target-words while ignoring happy or angry distractor-faces that could be affectively congruent or incongruent. A control condition with scrambled neutral distractor-faces was also used. Findings showed small facilitation effects with faster responses when targets and distractors were affectively congruent and large interference effects with slower responses when targets and distractors were affectively incongruent compared to the control condition. Importantly, whereas for younger adults there was a similar pattern of interference from happy and angry distractor-faces, for older adults there was greater interference from angry distractor-faces. The present findings are discussed in the context of emotional bias literature.

Positive information facilitates response inhibition in older adults only when emotion is task-relevant

Emotional information is integral to everyday life and impacts a variety of cognitive abilities including response inhibition, a critical skill for maintaining appropriate and flexible behaviour. However, reported effects of emotion on response inhibition are inconsistent in younger adults, and very limited in older adults. Effects of aging are especially relevant because emotion regulation improves with aging despite declining inhibitory control over neutral information. Across three studies, we assessed the impact of emotional facial expressions on response inhibition in younger and older adults while manipulating attention to task stimuli. Emotional faces (versus neutral faces) altered response inhibition only when task instructions required explicit attention to emotional attributes of the faces. When directly comparing fear faces to happy faces, both age groups had better response inhibition to happy faces. Age further influenced differences across conditions, in that happy faces enhanced response inhibition relative to neutral faces in older adults but not younger adults. Thus, emotional response inhibition for task-relevant (but not task-irrelevant) positive information is enhanced in late life compared to early adulthood. The present work extends the nascent literature on emotional response inhibition in aging, and proffers a framework to reconcile the mixed literature on this topic in younger adults.

Emotional interference during conflict resolution depends on task context

Evidence is currently mixed regarding the way in which cognitive conflict modulates the effect of emotion on task performance. The present study aimed to address methodological differences across previous studies and investigate the conditions under which interference from emotional stimuli can either be elicited or eliminated under high cognitive conflict. Four behavioural experiments were conducted with a university sample using a gender-discrimination stimulus-response compatibility task. In line with our previous findings, Experiment 1 found that when emotion and cognitive conflict conditions were blocked, emotional faces increased reaction time interference during response compatible trials (low conflict) but not response incompatible trials (high conflict). However, when conflict and emotion conditions were randomised in different configurations across Experiments 2 (all trials randomised), 3 (emotion blocked, compatibility randomised) and 4 (compatibility blocked, emotion randomised), emotion interfered with task performance across both high and low conflict trials. These results suggest that predictability of both compatibility and emotion is required in order to obtain reduced emotional interference under high cognitive conflict. Consistent with prior reports, a top-down anticipatory control mechanism seems to be engaged in the presence of negative emotion when there are incompatible stimulus-response mappings.

Acute Moderate-Intensity Exercise Generally Enhances Attentional Resources Related to Perceptual Processing

The present study aimed to investigate whether acute moderate-intensity exercise led to a selective effect on executive function tasks or general effect on cognitive tasks that involve executive function and basic information processing in young adults. Besides, we also aimed to examine acute exercise's effect on multiple ERP components (e.g., P2, N2, P3b, and N450) to expand previous research. Seventy-two young adults were randomly assigned to the exercise or control groups. The Stroop task was administrated before and after treatments (exercise or reading), and the P2, N2, P3b, and N450 components of the Event-Related Potential (ERP) waveform were recorded and analyzed. Larger P2 amplitudes on both congruent and incongruent tasks were observed following acute exercise. Acute exercise did not influence accuracy or response time, and no effects on N2, P3b, and N450 components were found. These findings suggest that acute moderate-intensity exercise may have a generally beneficial effect on mobilization of attentional resources related to perceptual processing and exercise-related physiological arousal.

Emotional Response Inhibition Is Greater in Older Than Younger Adults

Emotional information rapidly captures our attention and also often invokes automatic response tendencies, whereby positive information motivates approach, while negative information encourages avoidance. However, many circumstances require the need to override or inhibit these automatic responses. Control over responses to emotional information remains largely intact in late life, in spite of age-related declines in cognitive control and inhibition of responses to non-emotional information. The goal of this behavioral study was to understand how the aging process influences emotional response inhibition for positive and negative information in older adults. We examined emotional response inhibition in 36 healthy older adults (ages 60–89) and 44 younger adults (ages 18–22) using an emotional Go/No-Go task presenting happy (positive), fearful (negative), and neutral faces. In both younger and older adults, happy faces produced more approach-related behavior (i.e., fewer misses), while fearful faces produced more avoidance-related behavior, in keeping with theories of approach/avoidance-motivated responses. Calculation of speed/accuracy trade-offs between response times and false alarm rates revealed that younger and older adults both favored speed at the expense of accuracy, most robustly within blocks with fearful faces. However, there was no indication that the strength of the speed/accuracy trade-off differed between younger and older adults. The key finding was that although younger adults were faster to respond to all types of faces, older adults had greater emotional response inhibition (i.e., fewer false alarms). Moreover, younger adults were particularly prone to false alarms for happy faces. This is the first study to directly test effects of aging on emotional response inhibition. Complementing previous literature in the domains of attention and memory, these results provide new evidence that in the domain of response inhibition older adults may more effectively employ emotion regulatory ability, albeit on a slower time course, compared to younger adults. Older adults’ enhanced adaptive emotion regulation strategies may facilitate resistance to emotional distraction. The present study extends the literature of emotional response inhibition in younger adulthood into late life, and in doing so further elucidates how cognitive aging interacts with affective control processes.

Affective modulation of executive control in early childhood: Evidence from ERPs and a Go/Nogo task

Modulation of adaptive executive control is particularly demanded in a pre- and early-school period. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated whether affective information can influence executive control in preschool children. We have recorded EEG during a Go/Nogo task where gender of a face served as a Go/Nogo cue and emotional expressions (positive, negative, neutral) were task irrelevant. Negative emotions modulated the magnitude of the conflict effect (Nogo vs. Go) in the N200 relative to neutral control, indicating enhanced cognitive control for negative emotions. Moreover, interpersonal characteristics (e.g., aggressive behavior) correlated with the emotion facilitated inhibitory control as indicated by N200. In addition, Go/Nogo conflict modulated neural responses in children already 100 ms after stimulus onset when paired with socially relevant emotional stimuli. These results show that emotions affect cognitive control in this age group in a valence specific manner.

The Dissociable Effects of Induced Positive and Negative Moods on Cognitive Flexibility

This study investigates how different valences of induced moods modulate cognitive flexibility in a task-switching paradigm. Forty-eight participants aged 19–25 years performed task switching after watching emotional film clips to induce an emotion (neutral, positive, or negative emotions). Two indicators of flexibility were evaluated: (1) the performance decrement reflected by increased reaction time (RT) or errors on the task-switch trial relative to a task-repetition trial, which is known as the “switching cost,” and (2) the performance improvement reflected by decreased RT or errors when switching from a task-switching context to a single-task context, which is known as the “fade-out” effect. These indicators reflect cognitive flexibility on short and long time scales, respectively. The results show that negative moods reduced switching costs, particularly in incongruent trials. In addition, negative moods were found to cause a prolonged fade-out effect compared with neutral and positive moods, indicating that participants required more trials to adjust to the single-task condition after experiencing the task-switching context. The result suggests that only negative moods and not positive moods modulated both the short and long time scales of cognitive flexibility but with dissociable effects. Possible explanations are discussed.

Modulation of Cognitive and Emotional Control in Age-Related Mild-to-Moderate Hearing Loss

Progressive hearing loss is a common phenomenon in healthy aging and may affect the perception of emotions expressed in speech. Elderly with mild to moderate hearing loss often rate emotional expressions as less emotional and display reduced activity in emotion-sensitive brain areas (e.g., amygdala). However, it is not clear how hearing loss affects cognitive and emotional control mechanisms engaged in multimodal speech processing. In previous work we showed that negative, task-relevant and -irrelevant emotion modulates the two types of control in younger and older adults without hearing loss. To further explore how reduced hearing capacity affects emotional and cognitive control, we tested whether moderate hearing loss (>30 dB) at frequencies relevant for speech impacts cognitive and emotional control. We tested two groups of older adults with hearing loss (HL; N = 21; mean age = 70.5) and without hearing loss (NH; N = 21; mean age = 68.4). In two EEG experiments participants observed multimodal video clips and either categorized pronounced vowels (cognitive conflict) or their emotions (emotional conflict). Importantly, the facial expressions were either matched or mismatched with the corresponding vocalizations. In both conflict tasks, we found that negative stimuli modulated behavioral conflict processing in the NH but not the HL group, while the HL group performed at chance level in the emotional conflict task. Further, we found that the amplitude difference between congruent and incongruent stimuli was larger in negative relative to neutral N100 responses across tasks and groups. Lastly, in the emotional conflict task, neutral stimuli elicited a smaller N200 response than emotional stimuli primarily in the HL group. Consequently, age-related hearing loss not only affects the processing of emotional acoustic cues but also alters the behavioral benefits of emotional stimuli on cognitive and emotional control, despite preserved early neural responses. The resulting difficulties in the multimodal integration of incongruent emotional stimuli may lead to problems in processing complex social information (irony, sarcasm) and impact emotion processing in the limbic network. This could be related to social isolation and depression observed in the elderly with age-related hearing loss.