Negative Emotion Interferes with Behavioral Inhibitory Control: An ERP Study

Abstract

Considerable studies have shown that emotional processes interact with behavioral inhibitory control (Shafritz, Collins, Blumberg, 2006; Goldstein, et al., 2007). However, how visual induced emotion influences behavioral inhibitory control remains unknown. Specifically, whether emotion of different valences influences behavioral inhibitory control similarly or positive and negative emotions impact this control in different ways remains undetermined. Based on previous studies reporting different effects of positive and negative emotions on cognitive processes (Rowe, Hirsh and Anderson, 2007), the present study hypothesize that the inducement of negative emotion may impair behavioral control while that of positive emotion promotes the achievement of the control. Using a two-choice oddball task (standard vs. deviant ratio: 85%:15%) and event-related potential measures (ERPs), the present study investigated the effect of emotion on behavioral inhibitory control. ERPs were recorded for standard stimuli, positive, neutral and negative deviant stimuli while subjects classify deviant and standard stimuli by pressing different keys, irrespective of the emotionality of deviants. All stimuli were emotionally evocative scenes taken from Chinese Affective Picture System. Response times for negative deviant stimuli were longer than those for neutral and positive deviants. ERP data showed significant amplitude differences between deviant and standard conditions during 240-300ms and 350-550ms intervals, suggesting that the present task is valid in inducing processes of behavioral inhibitory control. In the deviant-standard difference ERPs that purely index effect of this control, there were pronounced deviant-related N2 and P3 components in 240-300ms and 350-550ms intervals respectively. The deviant-related N2 during negative condition was larger than that during neutral condition, while deviant-related P3 was less pronounced in response to negative stimuli than in response to neutral stimuli. In contrast, the N2 was smaller while the P3 was larger during positive versus neutral conditions. Additionally, the peak latencies of N2 and P3 components were delayed during negative compared to neutral conditions. To summarize, the present study demonstrated a significant influence of emotion valence on processes of behavioral inhibitory control in both behavioral and electrophysiological levels. Negative emotion impairs processes of the response conflict monitoring and subsequent behavioral inhibition, while positive emotion may promote these processes.