Proactive engagement of cognitive control modulates implicit approach-avoidance bias
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Proactive engagement of cognitive control modulates implicit approach-avoidance bias Katia M. Harlé 1,2 & Jessica Bomyea 1,2 & Andrea D. Spadoni 1,2 & Alan N. Simmons 1,2 & Charles T. Taylor 2 Published online: 5 August 2020 # The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
Abstract Implicit social-affective biases—reflected in a propensity to approach positive and avoid negative stimuli—have been documented in humans with paradigms, such as the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT). However, the degree to which preemptively engaging cognitive control can help to down-regulate those behavioral tendencies remains poorly understood. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 24 healthy participants completed a cued version of the AAT, in which they responded to pictures of happy or angry faces by pulling a joystick toward themselves (approach) or pushing the joystick away (avoidance) based on the color of the stimulus frame. On some trials, they were cued to reverse the frame color/joystick action instructions. Before stimulus onset, a reverse cue was associated with deactivation of a visuo-spatial and motor planning network and subsequent slowing down in response to stimuli. During the stimulus phase, a reverse cue was associated with a) activation of cognitive control areas, including the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and right inferior parietal lobule (IPL); and b) reduced right precentral gyrus activation when having to push (avoid) a happy face. Overall, these results suggest that proactively engaging cognitive control can help fine-tune behavioral and neural adjustment to emotionally incongruent behavioral conditions. Keywords Approach-avoidance task . Cognitive control . Proactive control . AAT . CAAT
Introduction Humans exhibit automatic behavioral tendencies to approach or avoid relevant social stimuli. For example, an intrinsic tendency to approach positive social stimuli (e.g., smiling face) and to avoid negative cues (e.g., angry person) has been well documented in implicit bias tasks, such as the approachavoidance task (AAT) (Chen & Bargh, 1999; Rinck & Becker, 2007; Roelofs, Elzinga, & Rotteveel, 2005). Specifically, healthy, euthymic individuals tend to be faster at executing these affect-congruent actions, while they are slower in incongruent situations (i.e., approaching a negative cue or avoiding a positive one). Such valence-action Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00815-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Katia M. Harlé [email protected] 1
VA San Diego Healthcare System, 3350 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego, CA 92161, USA
2
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
tendencies are consistent with the influence of hard-wired, Pavlovian biases on instrumental learning of such actions (Chiu, Cools, & Aron, 2014; Crockett, Clark, & Robbins, 2009; Guitart-Masip et al., 2011; Guitart-Masip et al., 2012). For instance, individuals learn more success
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