Abstract
Unpleasant emotional distraction can impair the retention of non-emotional information in working memory (WM). Research links the prefrontal cortex with the successful control of such biologically relevant distractors, although the temporal changes in this brain mechanism remain unexplored. We use magnetoencephalography to investigate the temporal dynamics of the cognitive control of both unpleasant and pleasant distraction, in the millisecond (ms) scale. Behavioral results demonstrate that pleasant events do not affect WM maintenance more than neutral ones. Neuroimaging results show that prefrontal cortices are recruited for the rapid detection of emotional distraction, at early latencies of the processing (70-130 ms). Later in the processing (360-450 ms), the dorsolateral, the medial and the orbital sections of the prefrontal cortex mediate the effective control of emotional distraction. In accordance with the behavioral performance, pleasant distractors do not require higher prefrontal activity than neutral ones. These findings extend our knowledge about the brain mechanisms of coping with emotional distraction in WM. In particular, they show for the first time that overriding the attentional capture triggered by emotional distractors, while maintaining task-relevant elements in mind, is based on the early detection of such linked-to-survival information and on its later cognitive control by the prefrontal cortex.
Highlights
Unpleasant emotional distraction can impair the retention of non-emotional information in working memory (WM)
Previous studies have shown that emotional stimuli can impair the retention of task-relevant information when they are presented as distractors in WM
Most of those studies have focused on the effect of unpleasant emotional distractors, and their power as interfering stimuli has been linked to its biological relevance for survival[14,15,16,17]
Summary
Unpleasant emotional distraction can impair the retention of non-emotional information in working memory (WM). In accordance with the behavioral performance, pleasant distractors do not require higher prefrontal activity than neutral ones These findings extend our knowledge about the brain mechanisms of coping with emotional distraction in WM. They show for the first time that overriding the attentional capture triggered by emotional distractors, while maintaining taskrelevant elements in mind, is based on the early detection of such linked-to-survival information and on its later cognitive control by the prefrontal cortex. Unpleasant emotional distraction seems to produce a decreased activity over dorsal brain areas which are known to be related to executive processes implicated in attentional processes and active maintenance of information in WM20–25 This reduction of activity has been interpreted as the cause of the impairment in the maintenance of task-relevant information observed at the behavioral level. Activation over those ventral prefrontal regions during emotional distraction processing seems to benefit WM maintenance of task-relevant information[14,16,19,33]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
