Unconsciously triggered emotional conflict by emotional facial expressions

Abstract

The present study investigated whether emotional conflict and emotional conflict adaptation could be triggered by unconscious emotional information as assessed in a backward-masked affective priming task. Participants were instructed to identify the valence of a face (e.g., happy or sad) preceded by a masked happy or sad face. The results of two experiments revealed the emotional conflict effect but no emotional conflict adaptation effect. This demonstrates that emotional conflict can be triggered by unconsciously presented emotional information, but participants may not adjust their subsequent performance trial-by trial to reduce this conflict.

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the experimental procedure.

Figure 2. Mean RTs for correct trials and mean error rates as a function of target valence and valence congruency in weakly masked and in strongly masked groups.

(A) Emotional conflict results in Experiment 1. (B) Emotional conflict results in Experiment 2. Emotional conflict effects were significant on mean RTs and error rates for positive and negative conditions in the weakly masked and strongly masked groups. Points in the line chart represent the mean RTs in each experimental condition. Bar graphs represent the mean error rates in each experimental condition. Error bars depict standard errors of the means (SEM).

Figure 3. Mean RTs for correct trials as a function of previous trial types for response change trials and response repetition trials in the weakly masked and strongly masked groups.

(A) Emotional conflict adaptation results in the weakly masked group. (B) Emotional conflict adaptation results in the strongly masked group. The classic emotional conflict adaptation effect was observed in the weakly masked group. The endpoint of the line chart depicts the mean RTs in each experimental condition. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM). C = Congruent, I = Incongruent.