Emotional interference-based forgetting in short-term memory. Cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractors
Emotional stimuli automatically recruit attentional resources. Although this usually brings more adaptive responses, it may suppose a disadvantage when emotional information is task-irrelevant and should be ignored. Previous studies have shown how emotional stimuli with a negative content exert a gr...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2015-05-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00582/full |
| _version_ | 1811321185342849024 |
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| author | Javier eGarcía-Pacios Javier eGarcía-Pacios David eDel Río David eDel Río Dolores eVillalobos José María eRuiz-Vargas Fernando eMaestú Fernando eMaestú |
| author_facet | Javier eGarcía-Pacios Javier eGarcía-Pacios David eDel Río David eDel Río Dolores eVillalobos José María eRuiz-Vargas Fernando eMaestú Fernando eMaestú |
| author_sort | Javier eGarcía-Pacios |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Emotional stimuli automatically recruit attentional resources. Although this usually brings more adaptive responses, it may suppose a disadvantage when emotional information is task-irrelevant and should be ignored. Previous studies have shown how emotional stimuli with a negative content exert a greater interference than neutral stimuli during a concurrent working memory (WM) task. However, the impact of positively valenced stimuli as interference has not been addressed to date. In four experiments we explore the impact of pleasant and unpleasant emotional distractors during WM maintenance. The results suggest that our cognitive control can cope with the interference posed by pleasant distractors as well with the interference posed by neutral stimuli. However, unpleasant distractors are harder to control in the context of WM maintenance. As unpleasant stimuli usually convey relevant information that we should not to ignore, our executive control seems to be less able to reallocate cognitive resources after unpleasant distraction. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T13:13:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f357683291e545a095f836abc95a23bd |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T13:13:33Z |
| publishDate | 2015-05-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-f357683291e545a095f836abc95a23bd2022-12-22T02:45:33ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782015-05-01610.3389/fpsyg.2015.00582130382Emotional interference-based forgetting in short-term memory. Cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractorsJavier eGarcía-Pacios0Javier eGarcía-Pacios1David eDel Río2David eDel Río3Dolores eVillalobos4José María eRuiz-Vargas5Fernando eMaestú6Fernando eMaestú7Camilo José Cela University, MadridCenter for Biomedical Technology (Politechnical University of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid)Complutense University of MadridCenter for Biomedical Technology (Politechnical University of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid)Camilo José Cela University, MadridAutónoma University of MadridComplutense University of MadridCenter for Biomedical Technology (Politechnical University of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid)Emotional stimuli automatically recruit attentional resources. Although this usually brings more adaptive responses, it may suppose a disadvantage when emotional information is task-irrelevant and should be ignored. Previous studies have shown how emotional stimuli with a negative content exert a greater interference than neutral stimuli during a concurrent working memory (WM) task. However, the impact of positively valenced stimuli as interference has not been addressed to date. In four experiments we explore the impact of pleasant and unpleasant emotional distractors during WM maintenance. The results suggest that our cognitive control can cope with the interference posed by pleasant distractors as well with the interference posed by neutral stimuli. However, unpleasant distractors are harder to control in the context of WM maintenance. As unpleasant stimuli usually convey relevant information that we should not to ignore, our executive control seems to be less able to reallocate cognitive resources after unpleasant distraction.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00582/fullworking memoryinterferenceforgettingEmotional DistractionCognitive Inhibition |
| spellingShingle | Javier eGarcía-Pacios Javier eGarcía-Pacios David eDel Río David eDel Río Dolores eVillalobos José María eRuiz-Vargas Fernando eMaestú Fernando eMaestú Emotional interference-based forgetting in short-term memory. Cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractors Frontiers in Psychology working memory interference forgetting Emotional Distraction Cognitive Inhibition |
| title | Emotional interference-based forgetting in short-term memory. Cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractors |
| title_full | Emotional interference-based forgetting in short-term memory. Cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractors |
| title_fullStr | Emotional interference-based forgetting in short-term memory. Cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractors |
| title_full_unstemmed | Emotional interference-based forgetting in short-term memory. Cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractors |
| title_short | Emotional interference-based forgetting in short-term memory. Cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractors |
| title_sort | emotional interference based forgetting in short term memory cognitive inhibition of pleasant but not unpleasant biologically relevant distractors |
| topic | working memory interference forgetting Emotional Distraction Cognitive Inhibition |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00582/full |
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