Effects Of Different Emotions On College Students’ Working Memory:A Study Combined With Functional Near Infrared Brain Imaging (fNIRS)

Objective:From the perspective of behavioral and neurophysiological mechanisms,this paper intends to explore the effects of different emotions on working memory,and use near-infrared neuroimaging technology to pay attention to the changes of brain activity during emotional priming and n-back tasks.Methods:There are two parts in total:(1)118 college students were recruited openly and randomly assigned to positive emotion group,negative emotion group and neutral emotion group.The three groups of subjects were homogeneous.They watched the corresponding emotion-induced pictures and performed verbal and spatial 2-back tasks.The accuracy rate and reaction time of the three groups were compared.(2)74college students were recruited openly and randomly assigned to positive emotion group,neutral emotion group and negative emotion group.There was no significant difference in age,gender and place of residence among the three groups,excluding depression and anxiety.The changes of oxyhemoglobin concentration during the picture display and n-back task were measured by near infrared spectroscopy.Results:Study 1: The scores of behavioral activation system in the positive emotion priming group were significantly higher than those in the negative emotion priming group(P < 0.05).The scores of behavior inhibition system in positive emotion group were significantly lower than those in negative emotion group(P <0.05).On the accuracy rate,the main effect of emotional priming type is significant P<0.01,the main effect of task type is significant P<0.001,and the interaction between emotional priming type and task type is significant P< 0.05;In reaction time,the main effect of emotional priming type was significant P<0.05,the main effect of task type was not significant P>0.05,and the interaction between emotional priming type and task type was notsignificant P>0.05.Study 2: The changes of oxyhemoglobin concentration during the picture display and 2-back task were measured.During the picture display period,oxyhemoglobin in most areas of prefrontal cortex changed significantly during the picture display period of positive emotions and negative emotions.In the n-back task period,under positive and negative stimuli instead of neutral stimuli,the change of oxyhemoglobin during the task period was significantly larger,but there was no significant difference in the change of oxyhemoglobin between positive and negative emotion groups during the n-back task period.There is no significant difference in the changes of oxyhemoglobin between speech 2-back and spatial 2-back in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.The changes of oxyhemoglobin in speech 2-back in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex are significantly greater than that in spatial 2-back,and the changes of oxyhemoglobin in speech 2-back in frontal cortex are significantly less than that in spatial 2-back,so there is no lateralization.Conclusions :Positive emotions can promote cognitive tasks,while negative emotions can damage cognitive tasks.In the positive and negative picture display periods,most areas of the prefrontal cortex(PFC)are activated;During the 2-back task of speech and space,it was also observed that the subjects with positive and negative emotions had different degrees of activation in the prefrontal cortex(PFC),and the activation degree was significantly greater than that of the subjects with neutral emotions.From the task type,there is no lateralization in the prefrontal cortex activated by verbal2-back and spatial 2-back;Near infrared spectroscopy can be used to study the neural processing in the process of emotional control.