Implicit happy and fear experience contributes to computational estimation strategy execution: Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence

Estimation Strategy Selection Is Modulated by Snapshot Emotional Priming, but Not Math Anxiety

“…Hypothesis two was partly confirmed. Additionally, previous studies have explored the influence of both explicit and implicit fear priming on estimation strategy execution [ 2 , 19 ], but only the DU strategy has been adopted. These studies did not examine the influence of fear priming on the execution of the UD strategy.…”

“…One hundred and eight two-digit multiplication formulas were adopted; fifty-four formulas were suitable for DU strategy, while the other fifty-four formulas were suitable for UD strategy. The principles of selecting the multiplication formulas followed previous studies [ 2 , 19 , 22 , 23 ]. The details were as follows: (1) no operand had its closest decade equal to 10 (e.g., 13 × 67), or 100 (e.g., 23 × 98); (2) no operand had 0 (e.g., 21 × 70) or 5 as unit digits (e.g., 35 × 67); (3) operands were not repeated in the decade (e.g., 21 × 27) or unit (e.g., 67 × 87); (4) no digits were repeated within operands (e.g., 22 × 37); (5) no tie problems were used (e.g., 38 × 38).The multiplication formulas were displayed on the screen with a black background.…”

“…Estimation refers to performing mental arithmetic adopting specified procedures or rules, thus arriving as close as possible to the correct answer [ 1 ]. Commonly used estimation strategies includes rounding down (RD) (i.e., do 40 × 70 for 42 × 73), rounding up (RU) (i.e., do 50 × 80 for 42 × 73), up-down (UD) (i.e., do 50 × 70 for 42 × 73), and down-up (DU) (i.e., do 40 × 80 for 42 × 73) [ 1 , 2 ]. When encountering different situations, people can choose different strategies to complete the estimation task and then achieve their expected goal, which is the estimation strategy selection.…”

“…For example, explicit fear priming reduced individuals’ RT. In contrast, implicit fear priming contributed to reducing individuals’ RT, while both explicit and implicit happy priming contributed to improving individuals’ estimation performance [ 2 , 19 ]. In summary, these studies indicated that individuals’ performance of estimation strategy execution was influenced by the snapshot emotional priming stimuli’s valence and the snapshot emotional priming style.…”

“…The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions proposed that positive emotional experiences contribute to improving cognitive flexibility [ 20 , 21 ], based on which we hypothesized that happy (vs. neutral and fear) priming would be beneficial to improving the individual’s estimation strategy selection adaptivity. Considering previous studies showing that RT was a more sensitive indicator than ACC when investigating individuals’ estimation performance [ 2 , 19 , 22 , 23 ], we hypothesized that the positive effect of happy priming mainly is manifested in shorter RTs (hypothesis one). Additionally, according to the categorical negativity theory and the evolutionary threat hypothesis, negative (vs. neutral and positive) stimuli attract more attention; in particular, stimuli that convey threat signals to survival (e.g., fearful facial expression) during evolution could attract more attention [ 24 , 25 ].…”