Brain activity underlying the emotional states of stimuli during a cognitive conflict task

Abstract

Cognitive conflict occurs in various situations and individuals make an effort in order to resolve the conflict. Cognitive conflict can be induced by emotional dimension of the stimulus in the interference task including the Simon task. Emotional inconsistency between current and previous trials would interfere with response and induce conflict. In this study, the author investigated the brain activity underlying the emotional states of stimuli during a cognitive conflict task using the Simon task. The sample included 16 participants (8 men) who were recruited and right-handed. The emotional state was defined as emotional variation and emotional valence in the current study. Therefore, there were positive consistent condition, positive inconsistent condition, negative consistent condition and negative inconsistent condition with cognitive conflict condition. All emotional pictures were presented twice as both congruence and incongruence trials during each session.In the behavioral results, the participants showed higher response accuracy for the positive picture than for the negative picture under the previous congruence trial. Also, the participants showed a slower reaction time for the negative picture than the positive picture under the emotional consistency condition but not under the emotional inconsistency condition.In the imaging results, percent signal changes in response to emotional inconsistency under each emotional valence increased on the left pre supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) extending the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). During the positive picture condition, compared to the negative condition, the precuneus and the caudal supplementary motor area (SMA-proper) and the inferior occipital gyrus were activated. However, during the negative condition compared to the positive condition, various frontal regions and the insula were activated. In the positive condition compared to the negative condition, the participants could react fast because they concentrated on the visual processing of the stimulus and motor execution during the Simon task.In this study, emotional inconsistency of stimuli induced response conflict during the Simon task and in particularly, positive inconsistent condition showed not only activation related to cognitive conflict, but also brain activation for emotional stimuli.