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The Emotional Stroop Task: Assessing Cognitive Performance under Exposure to Emotional Content
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Preserved Proactive Control in Ageing: A Stroop Study With Emotional Faces vs. Words
Natalie Berger1, Anne Richards1, Eddy J Davelaar1
1Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom.
Frontiers in Psychology
|September 26, 2019
Summary
Older adults effectively use proactive control, with emotions impacting cognitive control similarly across age groups. The influence of emotion on performance varied between faces and words.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
Background:
- Previous research on age-related changes in proactive control yielded inconclusive results.
- The impact of emotion on proactive control during aging remains largely undetermined.
- Understanding these effects is crucial for cognitive aging research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of task-relevant emotion on proactive control in younger and older adults.
- To determine if emotional effects on cognitive control are consistent across different age groups and stimulus types.
- To explore the differential impact of emotional stimuli (faces vs. words) on cognitive performance.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an emotional Stroop task with manipulated conflict trial proportions to assess proactive control.
- Experiment 1: Employed emotional target faces with congruent, incongruent, or non-word distractor labels.
- Experiment 2: Used emotional target words with congruent, incongruent, or obscured distractor faces.
Main Results:
- Older adults demonstrated successful deployment of proactive control when required.
- Task-relevant emotion influenced cognitive control similarly in both younger and older adults.
- Emotional effects on cognitive performance differed qualitatively between faces (facilitation from happy faces) and words (facilitation from negative words).
Conclusions:
- Age and emotion effects on proactive control are task-dependent and influenced by stimulus selection.
- Older adults maintain proactive control abilities, and emotional modulation of cognitive control is comparable across adult age groups.
- The specific nature of emotional facilitation in cognitive tasks varies based on stimulus modality (faces vs. words).
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