How the social-evaluative context modulates processes of cognitive control

Cognitive control enables intelligent systems to select relevant information in the face of distracting information. The aim of the research presented here was to investigate the influence of the social-evaluative context on processes of cognitive control. Female participants had to perform the Erikson flanker task with each trial being preceded by a photograph of an attractive woman or a beautiful landscape. Concurrently, another person (partner or fellow student) either evaluated the attractiveness of the pictures of the women or the beauty of the landscapes. Participants showed increased flanker interference on trials following the presentation of pictures of attractive women, but only, if these were concurrently evaluated by another person. By contrast, in the control conditions (social presence without concurrent picture evaluation, or picture evaluation without social presence) no such effect occurred. That is, the concurrent evaluation task selectively increased distractibility presumably due to the affective reaction to the social-evaluative context.