Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan.
Institute of Allied Health Sciences, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan.
Sci Rep. 2019 Feb 4;9(1):1126. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-37683-4.
This study investigates how different valences of induced moods modulate cognitive flexibility in a task-switching paradigm. Forty-eight participants aged 19-25 years performed task switching after watching emotional film clips to induce an emotion (neutral, positive, or negative emotions). Two indicators of flexibility were evaluated: (1) the performance decrement reflected by increased reaction time (RT) or errors on the task-switch trial relative to a task-repetition trial, which is known as the "switching cost," and (2) the performance improvement reflected by decreased RT or errors when switching from a task-switching context to a single-task context, which is known as the "fade-out" effect. These indicators reflect cognitive flexibility on short and long time scales, respectively. The results show that negative moods reduced switching costs, particularly in incongruent trials. In addition, negative moods were found to cause a prolonged fade-out effect compared with neutral and positive moods, indicating that participants required more trials to adjust to the single-task condition after experiencing the task-switching context. The result suggests that only negative moods and not positive moods modulated both the short and long time scales of cognitive flexibility but with dissociable effects. Possible explanations are discussed.
本研究旨在探讨不同效价的诱发情绪如何在任务转换范式中调节认知灵活性。48 名年龄在 19-25 岁的参与者观看情绪电影片段后诱发情绪（中性、积极或消极情绪），然后进行任务转换。评估了两种灵活性指标：（1）任务切换试次相对于任务重复试次的反应时（RT）或错误增加所反映的表现下降，即“转换代价”，以及（2）从任务转换情境切换到单一任务情境时 RT 或错误减少所反映的表现改善，即“淡出”效应。这些指标分别反映了短时间和长时间尺度上的认知灵活性。结果表明，消极情绪降低了转换代价，尤其是在不一致的试次中。此外，与中性和积极情绪相比，消极情绪导致了更长的淡出效应，表明参与者在经历任务转换情境后需要更多的试次来适应单一任务条件。结果表明，只有消极情绪而不是积极情绪调节了认知灵活性的短时间和长时间尺度，但具有可分离的效应。讨论了可能的解释。
