Moving towards dynamics: Emotional modulation of cognitive and emotional control

Cognitive control is influenced by affective states and the emotional quality of the stimulus it operates on. In the present review, we address how emotional valence influences control processes, distinguish between different types of conflicts (cognitive, emotional), examine physiological correlates of cognition - emotion interactions, and discuss recent work on this interaction in multisensory contexts. We show converging evidence that positive and negative emotions differentially affect cognitive and emotional conflict processing, when the emotional stimulus dimension is or is not task-relevant. These effects are found particularly early in dynamic, multisensory stimuli as the stimulus dimensions can correctly or incorrectly predict one another, and lead to very rapid effects of emotion on cognitive control. We suggest that future research on emotion-cognition interactions should "move towards dynamics" and develop multisensory testing environments that approach real-world complexity.