Dataset (E3): The electrophysiological correlates of interference control in modified Emotional Stroop Task with emotional stimuli differing in valence, arousal, and subjective significance

The role of
emotional factors in maintaining cognitive control is one of the most
intriguing issues in understanding emotion-cognition interactions. In the
current experiment, we assessed he role of emotional factors (valence, arousal,
and subjective significance) in perceptual and conceptual inhibition processes.
We operationalised both processes with the classical cognitive paradigms, i.e.,
the flanker task and the emotional Stroop task merged into a single
experimental procedure. The procedure was based on the presentation of
emotional words displayed in four different font colours flanked by the same
emotional word printed with the same or different font colour. We expected to
find distinct effects of both types of interference: earlier for perceptual and
later for conceptual interference. We also predicted an increased arousal level
to disturb while increasing the subjective significance level to improve
inhibition control effectiveness. As we used orthogonal manipulations of
emotional factors, our study allowed us for the first time to assess interactions
within emotional factors and between types of interference. We found on the behavioural
level the main effects of flanker congruency as well as effects of
emotionality. On the electrophysiological level, we found effects for EPN, P2,
and N450 components of ERPs. The exploratory analysis revealed that effects due
to perceptual interference appeared earlier than the effects of conceptual
interference. Importantly, we found that both types of interference worked
partially simultaneously. Finally, in terms of conceptual interference, we
showed the effect of subjective significance: the reduction of interference
cost in N450 for highly subjective significant stimuli. This study is the first
one allowing for the investigation of two different types of interference in a
single experiment, and provides insight into the role of emotion in cognitive
control.