Abstract
In popular belief, emotions are regarded as deeply subjective and thus as lacking truth value. Is this reflected at the behavioral or brain level? This work compared counter-normative emotion reports with perceptual-decision errors. Participants (university students; N = 29, 16, 40, and 60 in Experiments 1–4, respectively) were given trials comprising two tasks and were asked to (a) report their pleasant or unpleasant feelings in response to emotion-invoking pictures (emotion report) and (b) indicate the gender of faces (perceptual decision). Focusing on classical error markers, we found that the results of both tasks indicated (a) post-error slowing, (b) speed/accuracy trade-offs, (c) a heavier right tail of the reaction time distribution for errors or counter-normative responses relative to correct or normative responses, and (d) inconclusive evidence for error-related negativity in electroencephalograms. These results suggest that at both the behavioral and the brain levels, the experience of reporting counter-normative emotions is remarkably similar to that accompanying perceptual-decision errors.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 948-956 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Psychological Science |
Volume | 33 |
Issue number | 6 |
Early online date | 3 May 2022 |
DOIs | |
State | E-pub ahead of print - 3 May 2022 |
Keywords
- emotional feelings
- error-related negativity
- open materials
- post-error slowing
- preregistered
- reaction time distribution
- speed/accuracy trade-off
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Psychology (all)