Anticipatory affect during action preparation: evidence from backward compatibility in dual-task performance

ABSTRACT

Upcoming responses in the second of two subsequently performed tasks can speed up compatible responses in the temporally preceding first task. Two experiments extend previous demonstration of such backward compatibility to affective features: responses to affective stimuli were faster in Task 1 when an affectively compatible response effect was anticipated for Task 2. This emotional backward-compatibility effect demonstrates that representations of the affective consequences of the Task 2 response were activated before the selection of a response in Task 1 was completed. This finding is problematic for the assumption of a serial stimulus-response translation stage. It also shows that the affective consequence of a response is anticipated during, and has an impact on stimulus-response translation, which implies that action planning considers codes representing and predicting the emotional consequences of actions. Implications for the control of emotional actions are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Dual-task performance
• backward-compatibility effect
• stimulus-response translation
• emotional action

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCiD

Andreas B. Eder http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4722-5114

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grant ED 201/2-2 of the German Research Foundation (DFG) to Andreas Eder.