Emotional Disruption of Executive Function

Abstract

The nature of the emotion-cognition interaction has recently been conceptualized as a dynamic interdependence with neuroanatomical and functional overlap. To date, however, the research on the impact of emotions on executive functioning has yielded mixed results and the exact relationship is not well understood. The present study sought to extend the emotioncognition literature by examining the influence of emotion on two specific executive functions through a unique paradigm using political campaign advertisements in the form of video clips as the emotion stimulus. No significant physiological or behavioral differences were found between participants as a direct result of the stimuli. These findings represent an initial attempt to quantify the potential emotional/arousal-related impact of campaign advertisement videos on subsequent executive function.