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In the present study, we explored the effects of high arousal on cognitive performance when facing a situation of risk. We also investigated how these effects are moderated by either positive or negative emotional states (valence). An ecological methodology was employed, and a field study was carried out in a real-life situation with 39 volunteer participants performing a bungee jumping activity and a control group of 39 participants. Arousal and valence were assessed with the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). Working memory capacity (reverse digit span), selective attention (Go/No-Go task) and decision-making (Iowa Gambling Task) were assessed at 3 time points: 30 min before the jump, immediately after the jump, and approximately 8 min after the onset of the previous phase. The results indicate that high arousal accompanied by high positive valence scores after jumping either improved performance or led to a lack of impairment in certain cognitive tasks. The Processing-Efficiency and the Broaden-and-Build theories are put forward to explain emotional moderation of cognitive performance in potentially life-threatening situations.

When we try to assess the duration of an event, we are often affected by external information. Studies on multiple timing have found that simultaneous timing information can produce an averaging or central tendency effect, where the perceived duration of the elements tends to be biased towards a general average. We wanted to assess how this effect induced by simultaneous distractors could depend on the temporal similarity between stimuli. We used a duration judgment task in which participants (n = 22) had to compare the duration of two identical targets (1 s) accompanied by simultaneous distractors of different durations (0.3, 0.7, 1.5 or 3 s). We found a central tendency effect, where duration judgments of the target were systematically biased towards the duration of the distractors that accompanied them. We put forward a model based on the concept of duration-channels that can explain the central tendency effect with only one estimated parameter. This parameter modulates the rate of decay of this effect as distractors duration become more different than the duration of the target.

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