Task Difficulty As A Moderator Of The Relationship Between Affect Of Diverse Motivational Intensity And Gratton Effect In Simon Task

This research is aimed to examine the impact of different levels of emotion motivation(high positive approach motivation, low positive approach motivation, high negative avoidance motivation, low negative avoidance motivation and neutral motivation) on Simon Effect and Gratton effect, by using prime-target paradigm. In every trial, a picture that showed different emotion appeared. Task Difficulty is considered as moderation.In this research, we get several conclusions below:(1) In the condition of approach motivation, Simon Effect was significant. Approach motivation has a great impact on Simon Effect. In contrast to neutral motivation, Simon Effect decreased significantly in high positive approach motivational condition. There was no significant difference of Simon Effect between high and low positive approach motivations. Avoidance motivation had a great impact on Simon Effect, too. The effect of neutral motivation didn’t differentiate that of low avoidance motivation on Simon Effect significantly, while the effect of high avoidance motivation on Simon Effect was significantly low than neutral and low avoidance motivations.(2)Task difficulty was the moderated the impact of positive approach motivation on Simon Effect. When the task was easy, emotion motivation affected Simon Effect. When task was difficult, emotion motivation didn’t.(3)In the condition of approach motivation, Gratton effect appeared, while it didn’t differentiate between high and low approach motivations. Task difficulty didn’t moderate the relationship between approach motivation and Gratton effect. In the condition of avoidance motivation, there was significant Gratton effect. High and low avoidance motivations didn’t differentiate as well, and task difficulty didn’t moderate the relationship between avoidance motivation and Gratton effect.(4) By contrasting different experiments, the researcher found that in the easy tasks the Gratton effect of low avoidance motivation was significantly higher than that of high approach motivation.