BACKGROUND Difficult cognitive tasks are often associated with negative feelings. This can be already the case for the mere anticipation of having to do a difficult task. For the case of difficult math tasks, it was recently suggested that such a negative emotional response may be exclusive to highly math-anxious individuals. However, it is also conceivable that negative emotional responses simply reflect that math is perceived as difficult. Here we investigated whether non-math-anxious individuals also experience negative emotional responses when anticipating to do difficult math tasks. METHODS We compared brain activation following the presentation of a numerical cue indicating either difficult or easy upcoming proportion magnitude comparison tasks. RESULTS Comparable to previous results for highly math-anxious individuals we observed a network associated with negative emotions to be activated in non-math-anxious individuals when facing cues indicating a difficult upcoming task. Importantly, however, math anxiety scores did not predict the neural response. Furthermore, we observed activation in areas associated with processes of cognitive control areas such as anterior cingulate cortex, which were suggested to play a key role in emotion regulation. CONCLUSION Activation in the emotion processing network was observed when anticipating an upcoming difficult (math) task. However, this activation was not predicted by individual' degree of math anxiety. Therefore, we suggest that negative emotional responses to difficult math tasks might be a rather common reaction not specific to math-anxious individuals. Whether or not this initial negative response impairs math performance, however, might depend on the ability to regulate those emotions effectively.

中文翻译：

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预期困难的任务：负面情绪与情绪调节的神经相关。

背景技术困难的认知任务通常与负面情绪相关联。对于仅预期要做困难任务的情况已经可以是这种情况。对于困难的数学任务，最近有人提出，这种消极的情绪反应可能是高度数学焦虑的人所独有的。但是，也可以想象，负面的情绪反应只是反映出数学被认为是困难的。在这里，我们调查了非数学焦虑者在期望完成困难的数学任务时是否也经历了负面的情绪反应。方法我们比较了大脑的激活状态，并给出了指示困难或容易发生的比例幅度比较任务的数字提示。结果与高度数学焦虑者的先前结果相比较，我们观察到与非情绪焦虑者相关的负面情绪网络在面对暗示即将完成的任务的线索时会被激活。然而重要的是，数学焦虑评分并不能预测神经反应。此外，我们观察到与认知控制区域（如前扣带回皮层）的过程相关的区域被激活，这被认为在情绪调节中起关键作用。结论当预期即将出现的困难（数学）任务时，观察到情绪处理网络中的激活。但是，这种激活不是通过个人的数学焦虑程度来预测的。因此，我们建议，对困难的数学任务的负面情绪反应可能是一种较常见的反应，并非特定于数学焦虑的人。但是，这种最初的负面反应是否会损害数学成绩，可能取决于有效调节这些情绪的能力。