The impact of affective task content on task switching is an open issue. According to the affect dominance hypothesis, enhanced processing of affective task content, can lead to stronger activation of the affective task set and should result in increased switch costs for an affective compared to a neutral task. The occurrence of such asymmetric switch costs indicates that the affective task is processed as a more dominant task, which should be inhibited in order to allow for switching to the less dominant neutral task.
Here, we applied a drift-diffusion model (DDM) to investigate asymmetrical switch costs during an affective task switching. Participants performed cued task switching, categorizing either gender (neutral) or facial emotions (affective) while repeating or switching tasks. In line with the affective dominance hypothesis, the empirical results indicated higher switch costs for the affective compared to the neutral task.
The drift rate parameter of DDM effectively captured response times and choices across all conditions and allowed to differentiate switching performance as a key parameter. The affective-switch condition exhibited lowest drift rate, reflecting larger time to switch to the affective task. Conversely, the neutral repetition condition showed highest drift rate, reflecting the faster switching time.
In our view, the reduced drift rate in the affective-switch condition suggests a potentially increased reliance on inhibitory processes to overcome the influence of the previous neutral task, especially when dealing with emotional stimuli. This aligns with the observed switch cost asymmetry and highlights the interplay between emotional processing and task-switching mechanisms.