Affective Biases in Information Search during Tactical Decision-Making

Tactical decision-making may be an emotional experience for an operator. Emotion, whether extrinsic or intrinsic to the task, may bias attention to task critical information. The current study used a feedback manipulation to induce positive and negative affect (PA and NA) during a decision-making task requiring information search. In a task based on a rescue scenario, participants were randomly assigned to either a “success” or “failure” condition and instructed to evaluate the costs and benefits of different routes along separate legs of the rescue mission, similar to reaching a “fork in the road.” Feedback was effective in manipulating emotion. PA and NA were significantly correlated with information sampling frequencies, but no general mood-congruent bias was found. Instead the role of mood appears to depend on the general affective context, a finding interpreted in relation to the mood-as-input hypothesis. The practical relevance and limitations of the study are discussed.