The interaction of executive functioning and emotional processing, as measured electrophysiologically

The current study investigated the interaction between emotion and executive functions. To better understand this relationship, responses to emotional images were measured electrophysiologically while participants performed a delayed match to sample task using emotional images from the International Affective Picture System as the stimuli. Participants rated the emotionality of the second, target image after being exposed to a first, probe image. The electrophysiological responses were measured as a late positive potential (LPP) elicited from the second images. The LPPs varied based on the emotionality of both the first and second image. Negative images were susceptible to manipulation from the first images. Additionally, participants completed an n-back test to assess their overall executive functioning. No relationship was found between the n-back task and electrophysiological responses. These results fit with a valence hypothesis and provide support to the theory that executive functions for emotional information are served by different, or at least additional, factors than those for cognitive working memory.