Unintended emotions in the laboratory: Emotions incidentally induced by a standard visual working memory task relate...

The ability to temporarily hold information in visual working memory (VWM) is among the most crucial and most extensively examined human cognitive functions. Here, we empirically confirm previous speculations (a) that a standard VWM task arouses emotions in participants and (b) that these task-induced emotions are related to VWM performance. In a first qualitative study (N = 19), by adapting a qualitative method of inquiry, the think-aloud technique, we found that the task induced different positive and negative emotions, such as joy and anger, which varied on the inter- as well as on the intraindividual level. The emotional experiences seemed to be tied to the implicit achievement requirement of the VWM task (getting it right vs. wrong). Encouraged by these findings, two quantitative studies (N = 45, and N = 44, respectively) revealed that VWM performance was positively linked to joy and pride, and negatively linked to anger, frustration, and boredom on the inter- and on the intraindividual level. Notably, these emotions were also affected by an experimental manipulation of task difficulty (set size 4 vs. 8). Further, the findings from Study 3 were replicated in a fourth high-powered online study (N = 110). This research is the first to demonstrate that a task designed to measure VWM in itself triggers emotions, specifically achievement emotions, which, in turn, are linked with VWM performance. Our findings suggest that these task-induced emotions should be considered as potential confounding variables in future research on VWM and in cognitive research in general. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).