The impact of recent and concurrent affective context on cognitive control: An ERP study of performance monitoring

The impact of affective context on performance-monitoring aspects of cognitive control is not clear, and findings in the literature are contradictory. The contradictory findings might be due to failing to consider the impact of recent and concurrent affective contexts, participant ratings of emotional images, and the distinct impact of emotional arousal and valence. The present study utilized multilevel modeling (MLM) on person-specific ratings of arousal and valence to determine how recent and concurrent affective context uniquely impacts cognitive control and to determine the unique arousal and valence contributions. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while 35 and 33 participants completed a recent and concurrent affective manipulation, respectively. The recent manipulation used a task wherein a flanker stimulus was preceded by emotional images, and the concurrent manipulation used a task wherein a flanker stimulus was overlaid on emotional images. Higher arousing images were related to larger error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) during the recent but not concurrent affective context manipulation. For valence, more pleasant images were related to attenuated ERN during the concurrent, but not recent, affective context manipulation. For Pe, amplitude decreased with more pleasant valence during the concurrent affective context manipulation, and increased with more pleasant ratings during the recent affective context manipulation. Taken together, recent and concurrent affective context demonstrated unique impacts on performance monitoring. These effects were dissociable along orthogonal dimensions of arousal and valence. The present study highlights the importance of considering arousal and valence in studies of affective context and cognitive control.