积极情绪影响任务转换的性别和发展特点

情绪研究中的性别和年龄因素一直是不容忽视的问题.已有研究表明,积极情绪能够提高认知的灵活性,任务转换是认知灵活性的主要成分.本研究以52名大学生3、6名高中生4、5名初中生为被试考察积极情绪影响任务转换的发展变化和性别差异.结果发现,对于女性,积极情绪促进任务转换的现象,在三个年龄段上具有发展上的稳定性;对于男性,只在初中阶段表现出此特点,在高中阶段和大学阶段,积极情绪促进任务转换的现象不再明显.

Age-Related and Gender Differences: Influence of Positive Emotions on Task Switching

Gender and age are always two important factors in emotion research.Some studies show that positive emotions promote cognitive flexibility.Task switching is the most important component of cognitive flexibility.This study investigated the impact of positive emotions on task switching among different grades and gender.A digital judgment task was administered to 52 undergraduates(18 male,34 female),36 high school students(19 male,17 female),45 middle school students(20 male,25 female) following brief presentation of emotional pictures.The task involved maintaining condition and switching condition.First,participants were trained to respond to target digit appearing in a prespecified color while ignoring distracter digit in a different color.Then participants were transferred to switching conditions.They had to respond to stimuli in a new color while distracters appeared in the previous target color.The results showed that for male students,positive emotions promoted task switching only in middle school.However,for female students,this promotion effect existed in all the grades.