Parsing the contributions of negative affect vs. aversive motivation to cognitive control: an experimental investigation.

Introduction: Punishment is a powerful drive that fosters aversive motivation and increases negative affect. Previous studies have reported that this drive has the propensity to improve cognitive control, as shown by improved conflict processing when it is used. However, whether aversive motivation or negative affect eventually drives this change remains unclear because in previous work, the specific contribution of these two components could not be isolated.