The current investigation examined the bidirectional effects of cognitive control and emotional control and the overlap between these two systems in regulating emotions. Based on recent neural and cognitive findings, we hypothesised that two control systems largely overlap as control recruited for one system (either emotional or cognitive) can be used by the other system. In two experiments, participants completed novel versions of either the Stroop task (Experiment 1) or the Flanker task (Experiment 2) in which the emotional and cognitive (...) control systems were actively manipulated into either a high or low emotional-load condition (achieved by varying the proportions of negative-valence emotional cues) and a high and a low cognitive control condition (achieved through varying the proportion of conflict-laden trials). In both experiments, participants’ performance was impaired when both emotional and cognitive control were low, but significantly and similarly improved when one of the two control mechanisms were activated – the emotional or the cognitive. In Experiment 2, performance was further improved when both systems were activated. Our results give further support for a more integrative notion of control in which the two systems (emotional and cognitive control) not only influence each other, but rather extensively overlap. (shrink)

Difficulties in recognizing emotional signals might have serious implications for social interactions. Neurodegenerative diseases that affect neural networks involved in emotional displays processing might thus be connected with a disproportionate impairment in social life. This study aimed at examining the ability to decode basic emotions from dynamic visual displays in mild to moderate dementia. Thirty old adults diagnosed as demented, and 30 gender-matched healthy controls were administered a measure of emotion evaluation. The groups did not differ significantly in age and (...) educational level. The emotion evaluation test was designed to examine a person’s ability to visually identify basic emotions and discriminate these from neutral expressions, when they were expressed as dynamic, subtle, day-to-day expressions. Results showed that demented participants had a great difficulty in recognizing the positively valenced emotions of happiness and pleasant surprise, while sadness, anger, and anxiety were the easiest emotions to recognize. Healthy controls were almost excellent on happiness recognition, while discrimination of non-emotional displays was the most difficult condition often mislabeled as anxiety or pleasant surprise. Results were mainly discussed in terms of socio-emotional selectivity theory positing that only older adults capable of exerting cognitive controlled favor emotional over non-emotional and positive over negative information. EWW141022DXN. (shrink)