Positive affect is generally associated with improvements in cognitive abilities; however, few studies have addressed positive affect and its relation to specific cognitive control processes. Previous research suggests positive affect conditions are more flexible/distractible states, suggesting cognitive control processes are perhaps decreased in context maintenance and increased in conflict detection/resolution. To measure the cognitive control processes, specific components of the scalp-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) called the cue slow wave (context maintenance), the N450 (conflict detection), and conflict SP (conflict resolution) were acquired in response to an affective single-trial, cued-Stroop task. Participants were presented with pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant images prior to Stroop instruction (i.e., respond to "color" or "word") and response. Participants had greater accuracy during the pleasant condition when given a longer delay for extra time to process the high conflict task, t(36) = 3.09, p = .004, 95% CI (0.07, 0.02) compared to the unpleasant condition. Additionally, the unpleasant condition resulted in greater context maintenance than pleasant (increased cue-related slow wave amplitude; t(40) = 2.38, p = .02). Unpleasant conditions were associated with greater conflict resolution processes (as measured by the conflict SP) with high conflict trials, t(40) = 2.55, p = .015; whereas pleasant did in congruent trials, t(40) = 2.707, p = .010. Findings suggest negative affective states increase participants' focus on the task in avoidance of the distracting unpleasant picture. Our findings lay the foundation for understanding the differences between state and trait affect on cognitive control processes.

Context maintenance, an aspect of cognitive control, is the internal representation and utilization of task-relevant information that helps achieve task goals. Alterations in context maintenance may be responsible for the cognitive difficulties seen in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We used two tasks designed to measure context maintenance: a) the cued-Stroop, a single-trial version of Golden’s Stroop test that varies the cue for each trial (color-naming or word-reading), and b) the AX-CPT task, a continuous performance task that has participants respond to an “A” only when followed by an “X,” with all other non-target trials labeled as AY, BX, and BY (and “Y” and “B” representing all non-X and non-A letters, respectively). Participants included 31 people with OCD and 30 psychiatrically-healthy controls that completed a neuropsychological test battery, self-report questionnaires measuring mood and symptom severity, and the computerized cued-Stroop and AX-CPT tasks. There was a 1s or 5s delay between the cue and probe for both tasks so as to vary the duration of context maintenance. We conducted a 2 (Group) x 2 (Delay) x 3 (Trial Type) repeated measures ANOVA for the cued-Stroop and a 2 (Group) x 2 (Delay) x 4 (Trial Type) repeated measures ANOVA for the AX-CPT. Dependent measures included median reaction times (RT) and mean error rates (ER). Both groups showed a congruency effect for the cued-Stroop, with slower RTs and greater ERs for the incongruent trials than the neutral and congruent trials, as well as lower ERs for BY trials compared to BX and AY trials of the AX-CPT task. There were no significant differences in RTs or ERs between groups for delay or condition for the cued-Stroop (ps > .45) or for the AX-CPT (ps > .07). The present study shows that people with OCD did not show deficits in context maintenance in two separate tasks. Limitations include low power, higher functioning participants with OCD, and the presence of comorbid depression and anxiety in some participants with OCD.