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What does cognitive control feel like? Effective and ineffective cognitive control is associated with divergent phenomenology
Author(s) -
Saunders Blair,
Milyavskaya Marina,
Inzlicht Michael
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/psyp.12454
Subject(s) - psychology , cognition , valence (chemistry) , feeling , anxiety , negativity bias , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , self control , error related negativity , negativity effect , affect (linguistics) , punishment (psychology) , social psychology , anterior cingulate cortex , neuroscience , communication , physics , quantum mechanics , psychiatry
Abstract Cognitive control is accompanied by observable negative affect. But how is this negative affect experienced subjectively, and are these feelings related to variation in cognitive control? To address these questions, 42 participants performed a punished inhibitory control task while periodically reporting their subjective experience. We found that within‐subject variation in subjective experience predicted control implementation, but not neural monitoring (i.e., the error‐related negativity, ERN). Specifically, anxiety and frustration predicted increased and decreased response caution, respectively, while hopelessness accompanied reduced inhibitory control, and subjective effort coincided with the increased ability to inhibit prepotent responses. Clarifying the nature of these phenomenological results, the effects of frustration, effort, and hopelessness—but not anxiety—were statistically independent from the punishment manipulation. Conversely, while the ERN was increased by punishment, the lack of association between this component and phenomenology suggests that early monitoring signals might precede the development of control‐related subjective experience. Our results indicate that the types of feelings experienced during cognitively demanding tasks are related to different aspects of controlled performance, critically suggesting that the relationship between emotion and cognitive control extends beyond the dimension of valence.