On the Influence of Emotion on Conflict Processing

IntroductIon The ability to show coherent goal-directed behavior, even in the presence of distraction, requires the detection and resolution of conflict, for example between opposing action tendencies. This defining feature of cognitive control has been extensively studied with experimental tasks like the Stroop, Simon, or Flanker paradigm (Stroop, 1935; Simon and Rudell, 1967; Eriksen and Eriksen, 1974), which also yielded the description of an underlying neural network for conflict detection and resolution (Fan et al., 2003; Ridderinkhof et al., 2004). Understanding the influence of emotion on this system is particularly important because they are intrinsically tied to one another in real life (Pessoa, 2008). Recent evidence seems to be contradictory with reports of facilitation and impairment effects of emotion on the processing of conflict. On a conceptual basis both accounts can be supported. It may be argued that keeping up goal-directed behavior is especially difficult in emotional situations because of their greater distracting potential. On the other hand, emotional stimuli are also signals of relevance for a situation that might require particularly efficient cognitive control (Scherer, 1994). In line with this latter view, Norman and Shallice (1986) suggested that emotion, along with other instances like novelty or error commitment, might trigger cognitive control processes. The present opinion article aims at elucidating these diverging views by specifying two critical factors – task relevance and individual differences – that result in an enhancing or hindering influence of emotion on the processing of conflict.