The goal of the present study was to test whether and how emotions influence arithmetic performance. Participants had to verify arithmetic problems. True problems were either easier or harder problems. False problems were parity-match or parity-mismatch problems. The odd/even status of proposed and correct answers was the same in parity-match problems (e.g., 19 × 7 = 131) and different in parity-mismatch problems (e.g., 17 × 9 = 152). Before each problem, participants saw a positive (e.g., smiling baby), negative (e.g., mutilations), or neutral pictures (e.g., neutral face) selected from International Affective Picture System (IAPS). They had to decide whether each picture includes a person or not before verifying each arithmetic problem. Results showed different effects of emotion on true- and false problem verification. Participants' performance on true problems showed decreased problem-difficulty after processing negative pictures and increased difficulty effects after processing positive pictures. On false problems, we found smaller parity-violation effects after negative pictures (i.e., decreased performance on parity-mismatch problems), together with larger parity-violation effects after positive pictures (i.e., decreased performance on parity-match problems). These findings suggest that emotions influence arithmetic performance via which strategy is used and how each strategy is executed on each problem. They have important implications for understanding the role of emotions on arithmetic performance, and more generally on how emotions influence cognition.

中文翻译：

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情绪如何调节算术性能。

本研究的目的是测试情绪是否以及如何影响算术性能。参与者必须验证算术问题。真正的问题要么更容易，要么更困难。错误的问题是奇偶匹配或奇偶不匹配问题。在奇偶校验匹配问题（例如19×7 = 131）中，建议和正确答案的奇/偶状态相同，而在奇偶校验不匹配问题中（例如17×9 = 152）则不同。在每个问题之前，参与者看到从国际情感图片系统（IAPS）中选择的正面（例如，微笑的婴儿），负面（例如，肢解）或中性的图片（例如，中性的面孔）。在验证每个算术问题之前，他们必须决定每个图片是否包含一个人。结果显示情绪对真假问题验证的不同影响。参加者 在真实问题上的表现表明，处理负片图片后问题难度降低，而处理正片图片后难度增加。在错误问题上，我们发现负面图片后的奇偶违规效果较小（即，在奇偶不匹配问题上的性能下降），以及正面图片后的奇偶违规效果较大（即，在奇偶匹配问题上的性能下降）。这些发现表明情绪会影响算术性能，通过该策略使用哪种策略以及如何对每个问题执行每种策略。它们对于理解情绪对算术性能的作用具有重要意义，更广泛的意义在于情绪如何影响认知。