Pan Fada, Ou Yuhong, Zhang Xinni
School of Education Science, Nantong University, Nantong, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2020 Feb 26;14:59. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00059. eCollection 2020.
Previous research demonstrated that cognitive conflict could induce an affective priming effect, and the stage (detection/resolution) of conflict processing led to different directions (positive/negative) of the affective priming effect. We suggested that rewards play a critical role in the affective priming effect on conflict resolution. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs), using the arrow flanker task as primes and choosing specific affective words as targets to investigate the affective priming effect induced by cognitive conflict during the resolution stage. Our question was whether rewards created a modulating effect. Participants were asked to judge the congruency of the prime stimuli and then evaluate the valence of the target words. For behavioral results, the conflict effect was significant, and the reward promoted the behavioral performance of participants. For ERP results, enhanced N2 amplitudes for incongruent primes indicated a significant conflict effect. More importantly, as expected, in the rewarded condition, the enhanced N400 amplitudes for positive targets following incongruent primes were found, indicating a positive priming effect. However, in the unrewarded condition, the reduced N400 amplitudes for positive targets following incongruent primes were found, indicating conflict resolution hindered the processing of positive stimuli. These findings suggested that cognitive conflict-induced the positive priming effect during the resolution stage and that rewards had a moderating effect on the positive priming effect.
先前的研究表明，认知冲突能够诱发情感启动效应，并且冲突处理的阶段（检测/解决）会导致情感启动效应出现不同的方向（正向/负向）。我们认为奖励在冲突解决的情感启动效应中起着关键作用。本研究使用事件相关电位（ERP），以箭头侧翼任务作为启动刺激，并选择特定的情感词作为目标刺激，来探究解决阶段认知冲突诱发的情感启动效应。我们的问题是奖励是否会产生调节作用。参与者被要求判断启动刺激的一致性，然后评估目标词的效价。行为结果方面，冲突效应显著，奖励提高了参与者的行为表现。ERP结果方面，不一致启动刺激的N2波幅增强表明存在显著的冲突效应。更重要的是，正如预期的那样，在奖励条件下，发现不一致启动刺激后正向目标的N400波幅增强，表明存在正向启动效应。然而，在无奖励条件下，发现不一致启动刺激后正向目标的N400波幅降低，表明冲突解决阻碍了对正向刺激的加工。这些发现表明，认知冲突在解决阶段诱发了正向启动效应，并且奖励对正向启动效应具有调节作用。
