Investigating the influence of deadlines and target agreements on cognitive control in a color discrimination task using the EEG

Poster Session A - Saturday, April 13, 2024, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Stefan Arnau¹ (arnau@ifado.de), Yannick Metzler¹, Edmund Wascher¹, Mauro Larra¹; ¹Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund

Approaching deadlines and comparing one’s own performance against an agreed upon target are major stressors in everyday working life. Apart from being a potential health hazard in the long term, performance pressure induced by these stressors might also have immediate effects on cognitive processing. In an EEG study, we investigate these effects using a color-discrimination task. Periodically, participants receive predefined visual feedback about how their performance compares to a performance goal. They are also informed about how much time is left until the end of the block. The feedback manipulates whether the performance is feedbacked as being close to, clearly above, or clearly behind the target. If the performance target is missed when the end of the block is reached, a bipedal cold pressor test is triggered automatically. A separate control group receives the cold-water exposure at the end of random blocks to control for effects of the aversiveness of the deadline. Preliminary results suggest that performance is affected the most if the feedback indicates that the performance is lagging clearly behind the target performance. A reduced CNV amplitude during the cue target interval suggests that this performance decrement is due to a reduced deployment of proactive cognitive control. This effect is modulated by the time left in the block, with stronger differences between the feedback conditions closer to the deadline.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions