Positive Emotion Facilitates Cognitive Flexibility: An fMRI Study

Abstract

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to switch rapidly between multiple goals. By using a task-switching paradigm, the present study investigated how positive emotion affected cognitive flexibility and the underlying neural mechanisms. After viewing pictures of different emotional valence (positive, negative, or neutral), participants discriminated whether a target digit in a specific color was odd or even. After a series of trials, the color of target stimuli was changed, i.e., the switch condition. Switch costs were measured by the increase of reaction times (RTs) in the switch trials compared to those in the repeat trials. Behavior results indicated that switch costs significantly decreased in the positive emotional condition, and increased in the negative emotional condition, compared with those in the neutral condition. Imaging data revealed enhanced activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in switch trials than those in repeat trials. Moreover, the interaction between emotion (positive, negative, neutral) and trial type (repeat vs. switch) was significant. For switch trials, the activation of dACC decreased significantly in the positive condition, while increased significantly in the negative condition compared to neutral condition. By contrast, for repeat trials, no significant difference was observed for the activation of dACC among three emotional conditions. Our results showed that positive emotions could increase the cognitive flexibility and reduce the conflict by decreasing the activation of dACC.

Induced Positive Mood and Cognitive Flexibility: Evidence from Task Switching and Reversal Learning

“…Both sets of analyses had enough power to detect effect sizes from similar studies in this literature; a posthoc power analysis indicated that we had 80% power to detect a partial eta squared of 0.06-0.10, depending on the specific analysis. This is within the same range as effect sizes reported in the mood/CF literature (e.g., Wang, Chen, & Yue, 2017;Zwosta et al, 2013;Nadler, Rabi, & Minda, 2010). There are several possible explanations for failing to reject the null hypothesis in this study.…”

“…Phillips and colleagues (2002) found that those in a happy mood were significantly slower on a switching condition of a traditional Stroop task, and López-Benítez et al (2017) found that trait positive mood did not influence task switching. There are also studies finding enhanced CF under positive mood (e.g., Wang, Chen, & Yue, 2017;Murray et al, 1990;Nadler, Rabi, & Minda, 2010), but there are clear discrepancies in the literature. The variety of mood inductions (videos, images, memory procedures) and CF tasks (Stroop tasks, reversal learning, category learning) used in this literature make it difficult to evaluate any patterns in these findings.…”

Cognitive consequences of timeframe bias. On the link between working memory, cognitive switching, and time perspective

“…For instance, the study conducted by Yang and Yang (2014) indicated that induced positive affect was beneficial for switching costs but not mixing costs. The finding that positive mood lowers switching costs was further supported by an experimental study using neuroscience methods and a dopamine explanation, as in the case of WM (Wang et al 2017).…”

“…First, most studies of WM show that negative mood has no effect or hinders WM, whereas positive mood enhances it. Likewise, in the case of switching, positive mood enhances cognitive flexibility whereas negative mood has no effect or impairs it (Dreisbach and Goschke 2004;Wang et al 2017). The lack of clear conclusions from studies of mood and executive control may be associated with the fact that the studies reviewed used different conceptualizations of WM (updating or capacity) and different study designs (everyday experienced vs. experimentally induced mood).…”

“Cool” dan “Hot” Brain Executive Functioning dan Perfomansi Akademik Siswa

“…Di sisi lain, peran emosi dapat mengganggu kontrol kognitif, pembajakan perhatian dan menguras sumber kognitif (Marc, Todd, & Michael, 2007 (Zelazo & Carlson, 2012). Para ahli menjelaskan berdasarkan riset yang telah dilakukan bahwa bagaimana emosi dan faktor lainnya memengaruhi tiga kinerja inti dari executive function, yakni : (a) cognitive flexibility (Wang, Chen, & Yue, 2017;Yazdi, Farahi, Farahi, & Hosseini, 2018). ; (b) working memory (Hur, Iordan, Dolcos, & Barenbaum, 2017;Osaka, Yaoi, Minamoto, & Osaka, 2013) (Happaney, Zelazo, & Stuss, 2004;Zelazo & Müller, 2002).…”