Cognitive control of emotional distraction – valence-specific or general?

• Published in: Cognition and emotion Vol. 34; no. 4; pp. 807 - 821
• Main Authors: Straub, Elisa, Kiesel, Andrea, Dignath, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Taylor & Francis Ltd 01.06.2020
• Subjects: Arousal; Cognition; Cognitive ability; Cognitive tasks; Distraction; Emotions; Female; Humans; Information processing; Male; Task performance; Young Adult; valence; cognitive conflict; affect; Cognitive control
• ISSN: 0269-9931; 1464-0600; 1464-0600
• DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2019.1666799

Emotional information captures attention due to privileged processing. Consequently, performance in cognitive tasks declines (i.e. emotional distraction, ED). Therefore, shielding current goals from ED is essential for adaptive goal-directed- behaviour. It has been shown that ED is reduced when participants recruit cognitive control before or after the presentation of an emotional negative distractor. Following up on this, we asked first, whether cognitive control of ED is negative-valence-specific or valence-general. A predicts that control shields against distracting influence of emotion, irrespective of the specific valence. In contrast, a predicts that control interacts with the valence and ED is reduced for negative stimuli only. Second, we asked whether this effect of ED differs between control modes operating on different time scales (i.e. or ). To test this, we manipulated emotional distractor valence (positive/high-arousal; negative/high-arousal; neutral/low-arousal) and assessed how control interacts with ED. Results showed that ED was reduced for negative and positive valent stimuli when control was triggered before (i.e. , n  = 141, between-subject-design) and after ( n  = 37, within-subject-design) the emotional stimuli. Accordingly, control blocks off high-arousing emotional distractors from interfering with goal-directed-actions, irrespective of their valence (i.e. ) and for both, and control modes.