Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 21, 2026
16:08
Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition
Published on: February 1, 2012
16.9K
Task-irrelevant emotional faces impair response adjustments in a double-step saccade task.
Zhenlan Jin1, Shulin Yue1, Junjun Zhang1
1a Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education , School of Life Science and Technology, Center for Information in Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China , Chengdu , People's Republic of China.
Cognition & Emotion
|October 7, 2017
Summary
Emotional faces impair cognitive control, making it harder to inhibit responses and adjust gaze, especially with longer delays. This affects the initial programming of actions.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Cognitive control allows behavior adjustment based on task demands.
- Emotion significantly influences cognitive control processes.
- Understanding emotion's impact on response inhibition is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how task-irrelevant emotional stimuli affect response inhibition and reprogramming.
- To determine the influence of emotional faces on saccadic eye movements.
- To explore the timing-dependent effects of emotional stimuli on cognitive control.
Main Methods:
- Participants viewed emotional faces (positive, neutral, negative) followed by targets.
- A saccade task required quick gaze shifts, with inhibition and redirection for sequential targets.
- Inter-target delay duration was manipulated to assess timing effects.
Main Results:
- Inhibition of initial saccades decreased with increasing inter-target delay.
- Emotional faces, particularly positive ones, worsened inhibition with longer delays.
- Failure to inhibit led to longer intervals between saccades, especially with positive faces and longer delays.
Conclusions:
- Emotional stimuli impair the ability to cancel prepared responses.
- Emotional faces delay the programming of corrective saccades, affecting gaze redirection.
- The impact of emotion on response adjustment is linked to initial response programming stages.
