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Emotion is widely agreed to have two dimensions, valence and arousal. Few studies have explored the effect of emotion on conflict adaptation by considering both of these, which could have dissociate influence. The present study aimed to fill the gap as to whether emotional valence and arousal would exert dissociable influence on conflict adaptation. In the experiments, we included positive, neutral, and negative conditions, with comparable arousal between positive and negative conditions. Both positive and negative conditions have higher arousal than neutral ones. In Experiment 1, by using a two-colour-word Flanker task, we found that conflict adaptation was enhanced in both positive and negative contexts compared to a neutral context. Furthermore, this effect still existed when controlling stimulus-response repetitions in Experiment 2, which used a four-colour-word Flanker task. The findings suggest emotional arousal enhances conflict adaptation, regardless of emotional valence. Thus, future studies should consider emotional arousal when studying the effect of emotion on conflict adaptation. Moreover, the unique role of the emotional context in conflict-driven cognitive control is emphasised.

Detached reappraisal and positive reappraisal are regarded as two distinct types of cognitive reappraisal strategy, and the former is considered more disengaging than the latter. The conceptual framework of emotion regulation choice posits that strategies involving disengagement operate earlier and more efficiently than engagement strategies. Here, we compare for the first time the temporal dynamics of detached and positive reappraisal during the regulation and re-exposure phases thereof by measuring event-related potentials. During the regulation phase, pictures were viewed or regulated using detached or positive reappraisal. During the re-exposure phase, the same pictures were viewed again. Results showed that during regulation, central-parietal late positive potentials (LPPs) were greatly attenuated under both strategy types, with the regulation effect of detached reappraisal occurring earlier than that of positive reappraisal and resulting in a stronger attenuation of LPP amplitudes. Upon re-exposure, detached reappraisal exerted enduring effects on self-reported arousal and the central-parietal LPP, whereas positive reappraisal had an enduring effect only on pleasantness. These findings demonstrate the differential effects of detached and positive reappraisal on valence, arousal, and neural responses, and underline the striking differences in the temporal dynamics of these reappraisal strategies.

Whether trait anxiety is associated with a general impairment of cognitive control is a matter of debate. This study investigated whether and how experimentally manipulated working memory (WM) load modulates the relation between trait anxiety and cognitive control. This question was investigated using a dual-task design in combination with event-related potentials. Participants were required to remember either one (low WM load) or six letters (high WM load) while performing a flanker task. Our results showed that a high WM load disrupted participants' ability to overcome distractor interference and this effect was exacerbated for the high trait-anxious (HTA) group. This exacerbation was reflected by larger interference effects (i.e., incongruent minus congruent) on reaction times (RTs) and N2 amplitudes for the HTA group than for the low trait-anxious group under high WM load. The two groups, however, did not differ in their ability to inhibit task-irrelevant distractors under low WM load, as indicated by both RTs and N2 amplitudes. These findings underscore the significance of WM-related cognitive demand in contributing to the presence (or absence) of a general cognitive control deficit in trait anxiety. Furthermore, our findings show that when limited WM resources are depleted by high WM load, HTA individuals exhibit less efficient recruitments of cognitive control required for the inhibition of distractors, therefore resulting in a greater degree of response conflict.