Cognitive mechanisms and temporal dynamics of negative emotion in facilitating congruency judgments

Although it is well-established that negative emotions facilitate congruency judgments, the underlying cognitive mechanisms remain unclear. Traditional event-related potential (ERP) markers blur the temporal dynamics between emotion-driven and conflict-driven processes during emotion-conflict interactions. We used a congruency judgment task involving table tennis action outcome prediction and emotional image processing to explore the temporal dynamics and cognitive mechanisms underlying the influence of negative emotions on congruency judgments. Behavioral and hierarchical drift-diffusion model results showed that negative emotions enhanced judgments by accelerating evidence accumulation and improving incongruency detection. ERP analysis revealed larger P1 and late positive potential (LPP) components in response to negative emotions, which indicated stronger early attention capture and sustained emotional processing. Furthermore, multivariate pattern analysis showed that neural responses to emotional stimuli were evoked as early as 120 ms from stimulus onset, and the responses continued throughout the task, with a temporal separation between early emotion processing and late congruency judgments. These results suggest that during emotion-conflict interactions, negative emotions modulate both early stimulus-driven attention and later goal-directed conflict resolution.