Electrophysiological correlates of interference control in the modified emotional Stroop task with emotional stimuli differing in valence, arousal, and subjective significance

The role of emotional factors in maintaining cognitive control is one of the most intriguing issues in understanding emotion-cognition interactions. In the current experiment, we assessed the role of emotional factors (valence, arousal, and subjective significance) in perceptual and conceptual inhibition processes. We operationalised both processes with the classical cognitive paradigms, i.e., the flanker task and the emotional Stroop task merged into a single experimental procedure. The procedure was based on the presentation of emotional words displayed in four different font colours flanked by the same emotional word printed with the same or different font colour. We expected to find distinct effects of both types of interference: earlier for perceptual and later for emotional interference. We also predicted an increased arousal level to disturb inhibitory control effectiveness, while increasing the subjective significance level should improve this process. As we used orthogonal manipulations of emotional factors, our study allowed us for the first time to assess interactions within emotional factors and between types of interference. We found on the behavioural level the main effects of flanker congruency as well as effects of emotionality. On the electrophysiological level, we found effects for EPN, P2, and N450 components of ERPs. The exploratory analysis revealed that effects due to perceptual interference appeared earlier than the effects of emotional interference, but they lasted for an extended period of processing, causing perceptual and emotional interference to partially overlap. Finally, in terms of emotional interference, we showed the effect of subjective significance: the reduction of interference cost in N450 for highly subjective significant stimuli. This study is the first one allowing for the investigation of two different types of interference in a single experiment, and provides insight into the role of emotion in cognitive control.

Attentional bias during public speaking anxiety revealed using event-related potentials

<p>Analysis of brain signals and their properties provides valuable information regarding the underlying neural deficiencies and enables the diagnosis of attention bias related to public speaking anxiety (PSA). Although 25% people around the world suffer from PSA, currently, there exists a lack of standard assessment in diagnosing the severity of attention bias in individuals with PSA. This study aims to distinguish behavioral and neural abnormalities related to attentional bias during PSA by comparing reaction time (RT) and event-related potential (ERP) correlates of high (H) PSA and low (L) PSA individuals. 12 individuals suffering from HPSA and 12 individuals with LPSA participated in the modified emotional Stroop experiment. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded with the low cost, 14-channel Emotiv Epoc+. RT showed slower responses, linked to attentional deficits in HPSA individuals. ERP results revealed the P200 emotional Stroop biomarker, found to be linked to attentional bias in HPSA, but not in LPSA individuals. These results revealed significant RT and P200 ERP abnormalities related to attentional bias in HPSA individuals using the low-cost Emotiv Epoc+.</p>

Attentional Bias Deficits in Adolescent Suicide Attempters During an Emotional Stroop Task: An ERP Study

There is increasing evidence that, in adolescence, attentional bias plays a critical role in the vulnerability for suicidal behaviour. No studies to date have investigated the neurophysiological correlates of attentional bias in adolescent suicidality. The present study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate such processing in inpatient adolescents admitted for an acute suicide crisis using an Emotional Stroop Task (EST). In this task, participants are asked to name the colour of words varying in emotional valence (positive, negative, neutral, suicide-related). Suicidal individuals are hypothesised to be more preoccupied by the context of the suicide-related stimuli, which may interfere with their ability to perform the colour naming task. Seventeen adolescents with acute suicidal behaviour and 17 age- and gender-matched healthy controls performed an EST while ERPs were recorded. Suicide attempters showed increased reaction times to suicide-related words compared to other emotion categories, while the controls did not. The amplitude of the early posterior negativity (EPN) was not significantly different across groups or emotional valence. A double peak P3 (early-P3 and late-P3) was observed in both groups. Both the early- and late-P3 were significantly reduced in amplitude in the suicide attempter group compared to the control group, regardless of emotional valence. The late-P3 latency was also significantly delayed in the suicide attempters compared to controls. The behavioural findings support the attentional bias theories of suicide attempters and extend these findings to adolescents. Furthermore, large early- and late-P3 provide evidence that cognitive strategies employed by two groups did markedly differ.

The effects of emotionality and lexical category on L2 word processing in different tasks: Evidence from late Chinese–English bilinguals

Although it has been well established that emotional content influences language comprehension, the effects of emotionality on L2 (second language: English) word processing require further clarification. Notably, most previous studies unsystematically mixed words of different lexical categories, although they often showed processing differences. Here, using the same set of tightly matched negative, positive, and neutral words across three lexical categories (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives), we examined the effects of emotionality and lexical category on L2 word processing by conducting three experiments. In these experiments, three groups of late Chinese–English bilinguals performed three tasks: the emotional Stroop task (Experiment 1), the lexical decision task (Experiment 2), and the emotional categorisation task (Experiment 3), respectively. Overall, our data suggested that emotionality and lexical category exerted no influence on L2 word processing in the emotional Stroop task, but acted interactively to influence it in the other two tasks. The results evidenced that the processing of L2 emotional words was sensitive to task type. Therefore, we conclude that future research on L2 word processing should fully consider the emotionality, lexical category, and task type.

Effects of Chewing Gum Stimuli on General and Emotional Stroop Test

The aim of this study was to determine whether chewing gum affects cognitive function and stress relief. Sixty volunteers (mean age 23.3±3.01 years) without general or neuropsychiatric disease were recruited, and Stroop tests and stress surveys were conducted. Volunteers were administered performed a General and Emotional Stroop test with and without chewing gum, and the response time was recorded. The response time after chewing gum was significantly faster while conducting the General Stroop test. Stimulation of chewing gum may increase blood flow to the brain, which results in increased cognitive function. The response time was longer in the incongruent stimuli test compared to the congruent stimuli test, due to the effect of Stroop interference. However, when the chewing gum stimulus was introduced, the possibility of effectively reducing this effect. Stress index and response time of negative stimuli test showed weak positive correlation. This study suggests that chewing gum may play a positive role in increasing cognitive function and relieving stress.