Intact emotion-induced recognition bias in neuropsychological patients with executive control deficits.
In recognition memory tasks, emotionally negative words are judged more often as "old" relative to emotionally neutral words, suggesting a shift in response bias. We wondered whether this bias shift was due to the flexible regulation of executive control during memory retrieval. To address this question, we investigated individuals with high variability in executive control functions. As expected, we observed that emotional word meaning did indeed have a strong influence on the bias toward responding "old," independent of recognition accuracy and overall response bias. However, these effects were uncorrelated with executive control, as measured by the Trail Making Test, and were fully intact, even in a sample of hospitalized neurological patients with severe executive dysfunctions, some of whom had marked damage in fronto-thalamo-striatal networks. Having concluded that the emotion-induced bias must develop on different grounds, we went on to discuss alternative explanations.
Windmann
Sabine
S
Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt, Institute of Psychology, Mertonstrasse 17, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. s.windmann@psych.uni-frankfurt.de
Schneider
Till
T
Reczio
Julia
J
Grobosch
Martin
M
Voelzke
Volker
V
Blasius
Valerie
V
Brämer
Andrea
A
Ischebeck
Werner
W
Janikowski
Grazyna
G
Mandrella
Winfried
W
Unger
Claudia
C
Wischnjak
Larissa
L
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000368:Aged; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014145:Trail Making Test