When Affect Supports Cognitive Control – A Working Memory Perspective

Abstract

attention (EF1), whereas negative affect activates the inhibition of non-functional contents, e.g., distractors and irrelevant objects (resulting in attention disengagement; EF2). Adaptation to conflict proceeds via sequential triggering of negative and positive affect (EF3). Moreover, it was demonstrated that the focus on action orreflection changes the scope of contents subjected to implicit (affective) control. Therefore, I suggest that the motivational system, to a large extent, plays the role of the Central Executive. The paper opens a discussion and proposes studies on affective mechanisms of cognitive control.

A new two-dimensional question format in web survey design: Assimilation and contrast effects

“…In dissimilarity testing, participants focus more on differences than similarities between the target and the standard (Barker and Imhoff, 2021; Mussweiler and Damisch, 2008). A contrast effect is also suggested to occur as a result of more extensive and complex information processing (Dijksterhuis et al, 1998; Kolańczyk and Pawłowska-Fusiara, 2002) or when the participants consciously compare or discriminate between the contextual information and the target variable (Lombardi et al, 1987; Martin et al, 1990; Wedell et al, 2007). What follows is that the outcome of any given task can be manipulated by varying the participants’ awareness of the relationship between context and target.…”