Inconsistent Wndings regarding the emotional Stroop eVect in healthy subjects may be explained by confounding eVects of stimulus valence and arousal, as well as individual diVerences in anxiety. We examined reaction time data in a healthy sample using the emotional Stroop task while carefully matching arousal level of positive and negative words. Independent of valence, emotional relative to neutral words elicited emotional interference, indicating that arousal determines emotional interference. Independent of valence, emotional words were better re-called and recognized than neutral words. Individual diVerences in state anxiety were associated with emotional interference, that is, emotional interference was enhanced in subjects with high state anxiety. There was no inXuence of trait anxiety. These Wndings indicate that word arousal produces emotional interference independent of valence. State anxiety exacerbates interference of emotional words by further biasing attention towards emotionally salient stimuli.

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To investigate how individual differences in moral judgment competence are reflected in the human brain, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, while 23 participants made either socio-normative or grammatical judgments. Participants with lower moral judgment competence recruited the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the left posterior superior temporal sulcus more than participants with greater competence in this domain when identifying social norm violations. Moreover, moral judgment competence scores were inversely correlated with activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during socio-normative relative to grammatical judgments. Greater activity in right DLPFC in participants with lower moral judgment competence indicates increased recruitment of rule-based knowledge and its controlled application during socio-normative judgments. These data support current models of the neurocognition of morality according to which both emotional and cognitive components play an important role.

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