Abstract
The present study examined the influence of relevant and irrelevant emotions on response inhibition from childhood to early adulthood. Ninety-four participants between 6 and 25 years of age performed two go/nogo tasks with emotional faces (neutral, happy, and fearful) as stimuli. In one go/nogo task emotion formed a relevant dimension of the task and in the other go/nogo task emotion was irrelevant and participants had to respond to the color of the faces instead. A special feature of the latter task, in which emotion was irrelevant, was the inclusion of free choice trials, in which participants could freely decide between acting and inhibiting. Results showed a linear increase in response inhibition performance with increasing age both in relevant and irrelevant affective contexts. Relevant emotions had a pronounced influence on performance across age, whereas irrelevant emotions did not. Overall, participants made more false alarms on trials with fearful faces than happy faces, and happy faces were associated with better performance on go trials (higher percentage correct and faster RTs) than fearful faces. The latter effect was stronger for young children in terms of accuracy. Finally, during the free choice trials participants did not base their decisions on affective context, confirming that irrelevant emotions do not have a strong impact on inhibition. Together, these findings suggest that across development relevant affective context has a larger influence on response inhibition than irrelevant affective context. When emotions are relevant, a context of positive emotions is associated with better performance compared to a context with negative emotions, especially in young children.
Highlights
The ability to cognitively control our actions is of critical importance for successful functioning
We will discuss the findings of the present study related to (1) the main effects of emotion on response inhibition, (2) the linear age-related increase in response inhibition performance within an affective context, and (3) the influence of irrelevant affective context in a free-choice situation
To examine whether irrelevant emotions influenced reaction times differently depending on condition, an Age group (5) × Condition (2: go and choice) × Emotion
Summary
The ability to cognitively control our actions is of critical importance for successful functioning. A well-studied component of cognitive control is response inhibition, which refers to the ability to refrain from a pre-potent response (Luna et al, 2010). To examine the role of affective context on response inhibition, prior studies made use of an emotional go/nogo task (e.g., Tottenham et al, 2011). In this task, participants are instructed to respond to a certain emotional stimulus and inhibit responding to another emotional stimulus (such as emotional words or emotional facial expressions), thereby making the affective context task-relevant (Reynolds and Jeeves, 1978). Performance on the emotional go/nogo task correlates with performance on the traditional go/nogo task (in which no affective information is presented) thereby validating the emotional go/nogo task as a measure of response inhibition within an affective context (Schulz et al, 2007)
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