The influence of positive vs. negative affect on multitasking.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• Research on affect and single-task performance is extensive.
• The impact of affect on complex multitasking remains under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the influence of induced positive, neutral, and negative affective states on multitasking performance.
• To identify specific tasks affected by different emotional states in a multitasking environment.

Main Methods:

• 178 participants engaged in a synthetic work environment (SYNWORK) with memory, visual monitoring, auditory monitoring, and math tasks.
• Participants completed a baseline multitasking phase (MT1), followed by affect induction (positive, neutral, negative videos).
• Multitasking performance was assessed in two subsequent phases (MT2, MT3).

Main Results:

• In MT2, positive and neutral affect conditions outperformed the negative affect condition.
• In MT3, positive affect outperformed negative affect, with neutral affect showing no significant difference from either.
• Performance decrements were primarily observed in the Math task (MT2) and Memory task (MT3).

Conclusions:

• Positive and neutral affective states enhance performance in cognitively demanding multitasking scenarios.
• Negative affective states impair multitasking capabilities, particularly in challenging tasks.
• Findings highlight the critical role of emotional regulation in complex work environments.