This experiment (N = 113) tested whether personal choice vs. external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of incidental affective stimulation on effort-related cardiovascular response in a "do your best" task context. When participants could choose themselves the color of the stimuli (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMultiverse analyses-the systematic examination of the effects of decisions that researchers can take over the course of a research project-became more common in recent psychophysiological research. However, multiverse analyses in psychophysiology almost exclusively focus on methodological and statistical decisions that can have a considerable impact on the findings. The role of the conceptual multiverse regarding theory-related research decisions is largely ignored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDysphoric individuals perceive mental tasks as more demanding and show increased cardiovascular responses during the performance of easy cognitive tasks. Recent research on action shielding indicates that providing individuals with personal control over their tasks can mitigate the effects of manipulated affective states on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. We investigated whether the shielding effect of personal choice also applies to the effect of dispositional negative mood on effort.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article presents an experiment (N = 127 university students) testing whether the previously found impact of conflict primes on effort-related cardiac response is moderated by objective task difficulty. Recently, it has been shown that primed cognitive conflict increases cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity-an index of effort intensity-during the performance of relatively easy tasks. This effect could be attributed to conflict-related negative affect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince personal choice fosters commitment and shields action execution against potentially conflicting influences, two laboratory experiments with university students (N = 228) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice versus external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of irrelevant acoustic noise on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. Participants who could personally choose the stimulus color of moderately difficult cognitive tasks were expected to be shielded against the irrelevant noise. By contrast, when the stimulus color was externally assigned, we predicted receptivity for the irrelevant noise to be high.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResearch on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model (Gendolla, 2012) found that priming happiness or anger in challenging tasks results in stronger sympathetically mediated cardiovascular responses, reflecting effort, than priming sadness or fear. Recent studies on action shielding revealed that personal task choice can attenuate affective influences on action execution (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImplicitly processed pictures of facial expressions of emotions have been found to systematically influence sympathetically mediated cardiovascular reactivity during task performance. According to the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model, this happens because different affect primes activate the concepts of performance ease versus performance difficulty. Grounded in a recent action shielding model, our laboratory experiment (N = 129 university students) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice can immunize against those implicit affective influences on effort.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurosci Biobehav Rev
March 2024
This article presents a quasi-experiment (N = 79 university students) testing whether individual differences in action-state orientation moderate primed cognitive conflict's effects on sympathetically mediated cardiac response during task performance reflecting effort. Action control theory posits that action-oriented individuals are less receptive to distracting affective stimuli during goal pursuit than state-oriented individuals because action-orientation is related to higher volitional skills. Therefore, we expected that action-oriented individuals should be shielded against conflict primes' effect on effort-related responses in the cardiovascular system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis experiment tested whether personal task choice can shield against implicit affective influences on sympathetically mediated cardiovascular response, reflecting effort. Participants were N = 121 healthy university students who completed a moderately difficult memory task with integrated briefly flashed and masked fear vs. anger primes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAmple evidence suggests that pain leads to additional demand in cognitive functioning, presumably due to its negative affective component and its propensity to capture attention. To highlight the role of motivational incentive, two experiments tested the combined effect of pain and monetary incentive on effort-related cardiovascular response during cognitive performance. In both studies, healthy volunteers received individually adjusted painful or nonpainful thermal stimulations during a difficult cognitive task (4-back task in Experiment 1; short-term memory task in Experiment 2) and expected high (12 Swiss Francs in both experiments) or low monetary incentive (1 Swiss Franc in Experiment 1; 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA quasi experiment (N = 100 university students) tested whether individual differences in action-state orientation moderate task difficulty effects on resource mobilization assessed as cardiovascular response. According to action control theory, action-oriented individuals have higher self-regulation capacities in demanding situations than state-oriented persons. Action-orientated individuals should also self-generate positive affect in face of obstacles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTwo experiments with N = 221 university students investigated the impact of primed cognitive conflict on effort assessed as cardiac response in tasks that were not conflict-related themselves. Manifest cognitive conflict in cognitive control tasks is confounded with objective response difficulty (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis experiment tested whether personal choice vs. external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of incidental affective stimulation on effort-related cardiovascular response. We expected strong action shielding and low receptivity for incidental affective influences when participants could choose themselves the stimulus color of an easy memory task.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn an attempt to integrate theorizing on action shielding with affective influences on effort-related cardiovascular response, an experiment with N = 115 university students (90% women) tested whether working on a task by personal choice versus external assignment moderates the effect of happy versus sad background music on effort-related cardiovascular response during task performance. We predicted strong action shielding and low receptivity for incidental affective influences when participants could ostensibly choose the task to be performed. Given the difficult nature of the task, we thus expected strong effort-related cardiovascular responses due to high commitment when the task was chosen.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMemorializes Robert A. Wicklund (1941-2020). Wicklund was born in Seattle, WA, December 1, 1941.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs a part of a larger Affectome Project (http://neuroqualia.org/background.php) with an overarching goal of mapping and redefining biological substrates of feelings and emotions, we explored the neural underpinnings for the functions of motivation and emotion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPsychophysiology
November 2019
Based on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model, we tested whether the effect of implicitly processed affect primes on cardiovascular responses is limited to settings that call for effort and in which implicit affect can inform about subjective task demand. Participants were presented with letter series and briefly flashed sadness versus happiness primes. Half of the participants were asked to memorize all occurring vowels (achievement context), while the other half merely watched the series (watching context).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Psychophysiol
September 2019
We present theory and research on effort mobilization that is relevant for understanding the role of affect in cognitive control. We posit that cognitive control and effort are closely related and introduce motivational intensity theory and supporting empirical evidence mainly based on cardiovascular measures of effort. Most important, we discuss the role of affect in the context of effort mobilization and cognitive control from different perspectives.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBased on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model (Gendolla, 2012, 2015), we tested whether warning individuals about the occurrence of affect primes during a cognitive task moderates the primes' effect on effort-related cardiac response. Participants worked on a challenging mental arithmetic task with integrated masked affect primes-very briefly flashed pictures of facial sadness vs. happiness expressions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The present study tested the hypothesis of a differential pattern of reward and punishment responsiveness in depression measuring effort mobilization during anticipation and facial expressions during consumption.
Methods: Twenty patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 20 control participants worked on a memory task under neutral, reward, and punishment instructions. Effort mobilization was operationalized as cardiovascular reactivity, while facial expressions were measured by facial electromyographic reactivity.
Based on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort (IAPE) model (Gendolla, 2012, 2015), an experiment investigated the effect of affect primes' visibility on effort mobilization during cognitive processing. Participants worked on a short-term memory task with integrated sadness vs. anger primes that were presented suboptimally (briefly and masked) vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBased on previous research on implicit effects on effort-related cardiovascular response and evidence that aging is associated with cognitive difficulties, we tested whether the mere activation of the aging stereotype can systematically influence young individuals' effort-mobilization during cognitive performance. Young participants performed an objectively difficult short-term memory task during which they processed elderly vs. youth primes and expected low vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntegrating the implicit-affect-primes-effort model (Gendolla, 2012, 2015) with the principles of motivational intensity theory (Brehm & Self, 1989) we investigated if the effort mobilization deficit observed in people exposed to fear primes (vs. anger primes) in a difficult short-term memory task could be compensated by high monetary incentive. Effort was operationalized as cardiac response.
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