Table 1.
Summary of the studies included in the meta-analysis focusing on emotional interference
| Study | N | Paradigm | Stimuli | Task description | Contrast | No. of foci |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aupperle et al. (2015) | 15 | Approach–avoidance conflict task | Emotional pictures | In non-conflict trials, participants decided to approach reward or avoid threat; In conflict trials, participants decided to approach/avoid stimuli resulting in both negative and positive outcomes | Incongruent > congruent | 1 |
| Bang et al. (2016) | 43 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 9 |
| Chechko et al. (2009) | 18 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 4 |
| Chechko et al. (2012) | 24 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 24 |
| Chechko et al. (2012) | 24 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 27 |
| Chechko et al. (2013) | 18 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 20 |
| Chechko et al. (2014) | 24 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 16 |
| Comte et al. (2014) | 33 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and pictures | Participants indicated valence of pictures/overlaid faces while ignoring faces/pictures | Incongruent > congruent | 43 |
| Egner et al. (2008) | 22 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 2 |
| Fleury et al. (2014) | 12 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 15 |
| Fleury et al. (2014) | 12 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 15 |
| Fleury et al. (2014) | 12 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 16 |
| Fruhholz et al. (2009) | 20 | Emotional interference task | Facial expressions | Participants indicated the valence of facial expressions while ignoring colors associated with congruent or incongruent valence | Incongruent > congruent | 23 |
| Fruhholz et al. (2009) | 20 | Emotional interference task | Facial expressions | Participants indicated the valence of facial expressions while ignoring colors associated with congruent or incongruent valence | Incongruent > congruent | 33 |
| Fruhholz et al. (2009) | 20 | Emotional interference task | Facial expressions | Participants indicated the valence of facial expressions while ignoring colors associated with congruent or incongruent valence | Incongruent > congruent | 2 |
| Fruhholz et al. (2009) | 20 | Emotional interference task | Facial expressions | Participants indicated the valence of facial expressions while ignoring colors associated with congruent or incongruent valence | Incongruent > congruent | 18 |
| Godinez et al. (2016) | 9 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the emotional words while ignoring congruent or incongruent facial expression as background | Incongruent > congruent | 5 |
| Huang et al. (2013) | 28 | Emotional interference task | Video clips of facial expressions and sentences | Participants were presented with congruent or incongruent dynamic facial expressions and sentences. Participants indicated gender of faces | Incongruent > congruent | 18 |
| Jarcho et al. (2013) | 35 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the emotional words while ignoring congruent or incongruent facial expression as background | Incongruent > congruent | 2 |
| Krug and Carter (2012) | 42 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the emotional words while ignoring congruent or incongruent facial expression as background | Incongruent > congruent | 21 |
| Krug and Carter (2012) | 42 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the emotional words while ignoring congruent or incongruent facial expression as background | Incongruent > congruent | 20 |
| Kuhn et al. (2010) | 16 | Emotional interference task | Facial expressions | Participants were presented with facial expressions that are congruent or incongruent with their own expressions, and indicated how close they felt with the target | Incongruent > congruent | 4 |
| Lee et al. (2007) | 32 | Emotion expression interference | Video clips of facial expressions | Participants were instructed to make frowning or smiling expressions that are congruent or incongruent with expressions in the video clips | Incongruent > congruent | 11 |
| Lee et al. (2007) | 32 | Emotion expression interference | Video clips of facial expressions | Participants were instructed to make frowning or smiling expressions that are congruent or incongruent with expressions in the video clips | Incongruent > congruent | 11 |
| Lee et al. (2007) | 32 | Emotion expression interference | Video clips of facial expressions | Participants were instructed to make frowning or smiling expressions that are congruent or incongruent with expressions in the video clips | Incongruent > congruent | 9 |
| Mitchell et al. (2006a, b) | 28 | Emotional interference task | Auditory sentences | Participants listened to emotional sentences that are congruent or incongruent in emotions conveyed by lexico-semantic and prosodic elements, and indicated the emotional tone of the sentence | Incongruent > baseline | 8 |
| Mitchell et al. (2003) | 13 | Emotional interference task | Auditory sentences | Participants listened to emotional sentences that are congruent or incongruent in emotions conveyed by lexico-semantic and prosodic elements, and indicated the emotional tone of the sentence | Incongruent > baseline | 3 |
| Mitchell et al. (2003) | 13 | Emotional interference task | Auditory sentences | Participants listened to emotional sentences that are congruent or incongruent in emotions conveyed by lexico-semantic and prosodic elements, and indicated the emotional tone of the sentence | Incongruent > neutral | 1 |
| Mitchell (2013) | 33 | Emotional interference task | Auditory sentences | Participants listened to emotional sentences that are congruent or incongruent in emotions conveyed by lexico-semantic and prosodic elements, and indicated the emotional tone of the sentence | Parametric analysis with incongruent level | 1 |
| Mitchell (2013) | 33 | Emotional interference task | Auditory sentences | Participants listened to emotional sentences that are congruent or incongruent in emotions conveyed by lexico-semantic and prosodic elements, and indicated the emotional tone of the sentence | 60% incongruent > congruent | 4 |
| Mitchell (2013) | 33 | Emotional interference task | Auditory sentences | Participants listened to emotional sentences that are congruent or incongruent in emotions conveyed by lexico-semantic and prosodic elements, and indicated the emotional tone of the sentence | 80% incongruent > congruent | 2 |
| Mitchell (2013) | 33 | Emotional interference task | Auditory sentences | Participants listened to emotional sentences that are congruent or incongruent in emotions conveyed by lexico-semantic and prosodic elements, and indicated the emotional tone of the sentence | 100% incongruent > congruent | 8 |
| Muller et al. (2011) | 40 | Emotional interference task | Facial expressions and emotional sounds | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring congruent or incongruent emotional sounds | Incongruent > congruent | 4 |
| Ochsner et al. (2009) | 16 | Emotional Flanker task | Emotional words | Participants indicated the valence of a central target word while ignoring flanking stimuli that have either congruent or incongruent valence | Incongruent > congruent | 13 |
| Offringa et al. (2013) | 18 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 6 |
| Ovaysikia et al. (2011) | 10 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated valence of faces/overlaid words while ignoring words/faces | Incongruent > congruent | 16 |
| Ovaysikia et al. (2011) | 10 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated valence of faces/overlaid words while ignoring words/faces | Incongruent > congruent | 10 |
| Park et al. (2008) | 14 | Emotional Stroop task | Affective pictures and emotional words | Participants indicated the emotional words while ignoring congruent or incongruent affective pictures as background | Incongruent > congruent | 2 |
| Rey et al. (2014) | 12 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 12 |
| Samanez-Larkin et al. (2009) | 24 | Emotional Flanker task | Emotional words | Participants indicated the valence of a central target word while ignoring flanking stimuli that have either congruent or incongruent valence | Parametric analysis with behavioral interference | 10 |
| Schirmer et al. (2004) | 25 | Emotional interference task | Auditory words | Participants indicated the valence of word/prosody while ignoring congruent or incongruent prosody/word | Incongruent > congruent | 2 |
| Torres-Quesada et al. (2014) | 21 | Emotional Stroop task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants indicated the facial expressions while ignoring overlaid congruent or incongruent emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 4 |
| Vanderhasselt et al. (2013) | 30 | Emotional interference task | Facial expressions | Participants were instructed to press the button that is consistent or inconsistent with the presented expressions | Incongruent > congruent | 5 |
| Vrticka et al. (2014) | 33 | Emotional interference task | Facial expressions and emotional words | Participants performed a counting task and were presented with feedback comprising congruent or incongruent facial expressions and emotional words | Incongruent > congruent | 2 |
| Watanabe et al. (2013) | 27 | Emotional interference task | Video clips | Participants were presented with video clips in which verbal information and facial expressions of an actor were either congruent or incongruent, and indicated whether the actor was a friend or foe | Incongruent > congruent | 5 |
| Watson et al. (2013) | 18 | Emotional interference task | Video clips of facial expressions and emotional sounds | Participants indicated valence of stimuli comprising congruent or incongruent facial expressions and emotional sounds | Parametric analysis with incongruent level | 2 |
| Wittfoth et al. (2010) | 20 | Emotional interference task | Auditory sentences | Participants listened to emotional sentences that are congruent or incongruent in emotions conveyed by lexico-semantic and prosodic elements, and indicated the emotional tone of the sentence | Incongruent > congruent | 3 |
| Zaki et al. (2010) | 16 | Emotional interference task | Video clips | Participants were presented with video clips in which verbal information and facial expressions of an actor were either congruent or incongruent, and indicated the feelings of the actor | Incongruent > congruent | 11 |