The effect of negative emotion on deductive reasoning: examining the contribution of physiological arousal.

In three experiments, we explore the link between peripheral physiological arousal and logicality in a deductive reasoning task. Previous research has shown that participants are less likely to provide normatively correct responses when reasoning about emotional compared to neutral contents. Which component of emotion is primarily involved in this effect has not yet been explored. We manipulated the emotional value of the reasoning stimuli through classical conditioning (Experiment 1), with simultaneous presentation of negative/neutral pictures (Experiment 2), or by using intrinsically negative/neutral words (Experiment 3). We measured skin conductance (SC) and subjective affective ratings of the stimuli. In all experiments, we observed a negative relationship between SC and logicality. Participants who showed greater SC reactivity to negative stimuli compared to neutral stimuli were more likely to make logical errors on negative, compared to neutral reasoning contents. There was no such link between affective ratings of the stimuli and the effect of emotion on reasoning.

[1]  P Naitoh,et al.  Decrements in Logical Reasoning Performance under Conditions of Sleep Loss and Physical Exercise: The Factor of Sentence Complexity , 1985, Perceptual and motor skills.

[2]  M. Bradley,et al.  Picture media and emotion: effects of a sustained affective context. , 1996, Psychophysiology.

[3]  Carolyn H. John,et al.  Emotionality ratings and free-association norms of 240 emotional and non-emotional words , 1988 .

[4]  C. Grillon,et al.  Affective reactivity of language and the startle response in schizophrenia , 1995, Biological Psychiatry.

[5]  T. Palfai,et al.  The Influence of Depressed and Elated Mood on Deductive and Inductive Reasoning , 1993 .

[6]  The Skin-Conductance Component of Error Correction in a Logical Reasoning Task , 2007 .

[7]  M. Oaksford,et al.  Mood, reasoning, and central executive processes. , 1996 .

[8]  W. Hubert,et al.  Psychophysiological response patterns to positive and negative film stimuli , 1990, Biological Psychology.

[9]  P. Lang,et al.  Preparedness and phobia: effects of stimulus content on human visceral conditioning. , 1986, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[10]  A. Cohen,et al.  Affective reactivity of language symptoms, startle responding, and inhibition in schizophrenia. , 2001, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[11]  P. Lang,et al.  Affective judgment and psychophysiological response: Dimensional covariation in the evaluation of pictorial stimuli. , 1989 .

[12]  Anton van Boxtel,et al.  Differences in autonomic physiological responses between good and poor inductive reasoners , 2001, Biological Psychology.

[13]  Francisco Esteves,et al.  Skin conductance responses to masked conditioned stimuli: Phylogenetic/ontogenetic factors versus direction of threat? , 2007, Biological Psychology.

[14]  I. Blanchette.  The effect of emotion on interpretation and logic in a conditional reasoning task , 2006, Memory & cognition.

[15]  J. Gross,et al.  The tie that binds? Coherence among emotion experience, behavior, and physiology. , 2005, Emotion.

[16]  Ken Manktelow,et al.  Reasoning and Thinking , 1999 .

[17]  Vinod Goel,et al.  Reciprocal neural response within lateral and ventral medial prefrontal cortex during hot and cold reasoning , 2003, NeuroImage.

[18]  Alan G. Sanfey,et al.  Affective state and decision-making in the Ultimatum Game , 2006, Experimental Brain Research.

[19]  Wayne C. Harris,et al.  Information Processing Changes following Extended Stress , 2001 .

[20]  R Kemp,et al.  Reasoning and delusions , 1997, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[21]  R. Nikula.  Psychological correlates of nonspecific skin conductance responses. , 1991, Psychophysiology.

[22]  D. Barch,et al.  Affective reactivity in language: the role of psychophysiological arousal. , 2005, Emotion.

[23]  P. Lang.  International affective picture system (IAPS) : affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual , 2005 .

[24]  J. Campos,et al.  The effect of cognitive tasks and verbalization instructions on heart rate and skin conductance. , 1967, Psychophysiology.

[25]  M. Bradley,et al.  Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW): Instruction Manual and Affective Ratings , 1999 .

[26]  Philip J. Niro,et al.  The fog of war: decrements in cognitive performance and mood associated with combat-like stress. , 2005, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[27]  H. Critchley,et al.  Neural Activity Relating to Generation and Representation of Galvanic Skin Conductance Responses: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study , 2000, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[28]  S. Channon,et al.  Reasoning strategies in depression: effects of depressed mood on a syllogism task , 1994 .

[29]  R. A. Radenhausen,et al.  Effects of Depressed Mood Induction on Reasoning Performance , 1988, Perceptual and motor skills.

[30]  R. Neiss.  Reconceptualizing arousal: psychobiological states in motor performance. , 1988, Psychological bulletin.

[31]  I. Blanchette,et al.  Reasoning About Emotional and Neutral Materials , 2004, Psychological science.