JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY

2010, 32 (3), 225230

Emotion and executive functioning: The effect of normal

mood states on fluency tasks

NCEN

EMOTION AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING

Janessa O. Carvalho and Rebecca E. Ready

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

Induced positive affect (PA) can improve verbal fluency performance, and induced negative affect (NA) can
increase design fluency performance (Bartolic, Basso, Schefft, Glauser, & Titanic-Schefft, 1999). Building on this,
the current study investigated associations between everyday mood states and executive functions. Participants
(N = 74, mean age = 51.19 years) completed verbal and design fluency tasks and a self-report affect task. PA was
associated with better verbal fluency performance, although NA was not associated with design fluency.
Variations in everyday PA may be associated with cognitive performance, whereas greater shifts in NA might be
needed to establish associations with executive functioning.
Keywords: Emotion; Executive functioning; Lateralization; Positive affect; Negative affect.

Cerebral lateralization in emotion has been widely investigated over the past three decades with general agreement
across studies (Davidson, 2004). Specifically, results of
electroencephalographic (EEG) studies of hemispheric
alpha asymmetry and emotion have consistently found
greater cerebral activation in the left hemisphere than in
the right during positive mood states (Allen & Kline,
2004; Cacioppo, 2004; Davidson, 1998, 2001, 2004;
Davidson, Chapman, Chapman, & Henriques, 1990a;
Davidson, Ekman, Saron, Senulis, & Friesen, 1990b;
Heller, 1993; Heller & Nitschke, 1998; Heller, Nitschke, &
Lindsay, 1997; Heller, Nitschke, & Miller, 1998; Herrington
et al., 2005; Jackson et al., 2003; Lee et al., 2004).
Alternatively, findings have shown relatively greater
activation in the right hemisphere than in the left during
negative mood states (Davidson et al., 1990a; Heller,
1993; Heller & Nitschke, 1998; Lee et al., 2004). Furthermore, positive mood inductions elicit greater positive
emotion and relatively greater left than right frontal
hemisphere activity, whereas negative conditions elicit
greater negative emotion and relatively greater right
than left frontal hemisphere activation (Davidson et al.,
1990b; Jones & Fox, 1992).
Thus, frontal circuitry is linked to emotion
experiences but frontal circuits also mediate executive
functions. Lezak and colleagues (Lezak, Howieson, &

Loring, 2004) describe executive functions as the ability

to self-correct, self-monitor, and learn. Executive functions involve the ability to respond in an adaptive manner to novel situations (Lezak et al., 2004), and, similar
to other cognitive tasks, some executive functions are
lateralized. Verbal and sequential skills are related to left
hemisphere function, while visuospatial and holistic
skills are processes of the right hemisphere (Gordon,
1986).
Fluency tasks, which involve verbal or visual
initiation, self-regulation, and cognitive flexibility, are
commonly used to assess executive functioning (Lezak
et al., 2004). Imaging data indicate asymmetry during
fluency tasks, with greater left than right frontal activation during a phonemic fluency task (Billingsley et al.,
2004; Papousek & Schulter, 2004), specifically in the left
prefrontal cortex (Pujol, Vendrell, Deus, & Kulisevsky,
1996; Schlosser et al., 1998).
During design fluency tasks, activation is observed in
right frontal circuitry, similar to the greater right frontal
activation seen when an individual experiences negative
affect (NA; Jones-Gotman, 1991; Jones-Gotman &
Milner, 1977). Lesion studies also support overall results
of asymmetry findings during fluency tasks (Baldo,
Shimamura, Delis, Kramer, & Kaplan, 2001; Ruff,
Allen, Farrow, Niemann, & Wylie, 1994).

Address correspondence to Janessa O. Carvalho, The University of Massachusetts, Department of Psychology, Tobin Hall,
135 Hicks Way, Amherst, MA 01003, USA (E-mail: jocarval@psych.umass.edu).

2009 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
http://www.psypress.com/jcen
DOI: 10.1080/13803390902902458

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CARVALHO AND READY

Emotion and cognition

Thus, there is robust evidence that frontal circuits differentially mediate the processing of emotion and some
executive functions, which may provide a mechanism for
interactions between emotion and cognition. In fact,
links have been established between positive affect (PA)
and verbal fluency performance. Greene and Noice
(1988) reported that induced PA increased verbal fluency
in adolescents. Moreover, greater positive mood is associated with more words produced during a phonemic fluency task in young and middle-aged adults (Phillips,
Bull, Adams, & Fraser, 2002).
In the first experimental test of associations between
emotion and fluency performance, Bartolic et al. (1999)
investigated the effects of induced positive and negative
mood on verbal and design fluency tasks. Participants
completed design or verbal fluency tests before positive
or negative mood states were induced and then completed another verbal or design fluency subtest. After
positive mood induction, participants performed better on verbal fluency tasks than did the design fluency
group, whereas participants in whom negative or
dysphoric mood was induced demonstrated stronger
design fluency than did those who completed verbal
fluency (Bartolic et al., 1999). The authors suggest that
greater left hemisphere activation that accompanies
positive mood may contribute to better performance
during verbal fluency, a task shown to be mediated by
the left frontal circuitry; however, they also note that
increases in positive mood may lead to decreased right
hemispheric activation, depressing figural fluency
scores. The inverse may have occurred during negative
mood induction, where right hemisphere activation due
to negative mood increased design fluency performance, or decreased left hemisphere activation may have
led to decreased verbal fluency scores. These findings
provide support for associations between mood and
fluency performance.
The current study
It is the aim of the current study to build on the existing
literature regarding emotion and executive functions by
determining whether there are associations between naturalistic mood states and fluency performance. If similar
associations are observed between naturalistic mood
states and fluency performance as were found between
induced mood and fluency performance, these results
can have clinical implications. That is, mood during neuropsychological testing could affect performance on
some cognitive tasks.
We hypothesize associations between mood and
performance on fluency tasks. Greater PA will be
positively and significantly associated with verbal
fluency performance, whereas NA will be positively
and significantly associated with design fluency. We
do not expect significant associations between PA and
design fluency or between NA and verbal fluency
performance.

METHOD
Participants
Participant ages ranged from 1888 years. Participants
were recruited from the western Massachusetts area
through various methods, including through posters,
fliers, advertisements in newspapers, and talks at various
community organizations; from an institutional review
board (IRB)-approved participant pool who were
contacted for participation and through a university
online sign-up for psychology experiments.
Inclusion criteria were: good to excellent self-reported
health; the ability to travel to the campus for participation
in the study; English speaking; at least nine years of formal
education; and ability to participate in computerized testing. Exclusion criteria included a current or past neurologic
illness, current or past major psychiatric diagnoses, current
or past diagnoses of substance abuse or dependence, or
cognitive impairment. The older and middle-aged adults
were reimbursed $25 for their time, and the undergraduate
students received extra credit points for participation.
Procedure
All participants were screened for inclusion and exclusion
criteria over the telephone by a trained research assistant
(RA), using the Telephone Interview for Cognitive
StatusModified (TICS-m; Welsh, Breitner, & MagruderHabib, 1993); qualifying individuals were invited to participate. In individual assessment sessions, all participants
signed an IRB-approved consent form before taking part
in the study. As a part of data collection for a larger study,
each participant completed a computerized assessment of
self-report emotion, as well as verbal and design fluency
tasks administered by a trained RA.

Measures
Emotion judgment task
Participants responded to positive and negative emotion items presented on a computer screen. Using the
computer keyboard, participants rated the extent to
which they experienced each emotion based on a Likerttype rating scale (1 = none; 5 = an extreme amount) for
two time frames: today and in general. There were 30
positive (e.g., confident, delighted) and 30 negative (e.g.,
disappointed, angry) items (see Appendix for a complete
list of the adjectives used). Each item was presented for
both time frames in order to obtain information on participants state and trait ratings of emotion, respectively.
Each participant completed two trials for each time
frame resulting in responses for 240 words total, contributing to increased reliability of the scores (Ready &
Robinson, 2008; Ready, Robinson, & Weinberger,
2006). In previous research, the emotion measure had
strong internal consistency reliability for each valence
(positive/negative) among older and younger adults
(Cronbachs ranged from .97.98 for younger and

EMOTION AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING

older adults), suggesting that older adults did not experience difficulty with the computerized nature of the test
(Ready et al., 2006). Validity data indicate that this task
converged with the Satisfaction with Life Scale in
expected ways (Robinson & Kirkeby, 2005; Robinson &
von Hippel, 2006).
Subtests from the DelisKaplan Executive
Function System (DKEFS)
Two executive functioning tasks were used to assess
lateralized cognition: the Verbal Fluency test and the
Design Fluency test from the DKEFS, a widely used and
reliable measure of executive functioning (Delis, Kaplan, &
Kramer, 2001; Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Holdnack,
2004). Normative data from the DKEFS manual were
used to calculate standardized age-corrected scores.
The Verbal Fluency test assesses phonological
retrieval and simultaneous processing and monitoring
(Delis et al., 2001). The letter fluency trial scores were
used in analyses, which requires participants to name as
many words as possible that begin with a particular letter (i.e., F, A, S) in three 1-minute intervals. The Design
Fluency test measures problem solving, creativity, and
inhibition (of reconstructing previously drawn designs;
Delis et al., 2001). Although there is a motor component
to design fluency, previous research found no correlation
between design fluency and motor performance (Ruff
et al., 1994).
RESULTS
Sample
The sample was composed of 74 participants, with
52 females (70.3%; M age = 50.37 years, SD = 22.17) and
22 males (29.7%; M age = 53.14, SD = 26.6). The ethnic
make up of the sample was Caucasian (87.8%), Asian
American (5.4%), Hispanic (4.1%), African American
(1.4%), and Native American (1.4%). Average years of
education was generally above a high-school education
(M = 15.37 years, SD =3.21; range from 9 to 22 years).
General cognitive ability was measured with the TICS-m
(M = 39.25, SD = 3.54). Average annual household
income was in the $30,00040,000 range (M = 36,600,
SD = 17,600).
Internal consistency reliability of affect measures
Internal consistency reliabilities for self-reported affect
generally were strong. These results were consistent for
both valences and time frames: specifically, PA today
( = .85), PA in general ( = .85), NA today ( = .84),
and NA in general ( = .82).
Correlations between affect scores
To determine associations between self-reported affect
for the two time frames (i.e., today and in general),

227

correlations were calculated. Results revealed a significant, strong, and positive correlation between PA ratings
for today and in general (r = .90, p < .01), as well as
between NA ratings for today and in general (r = .82, p <
.01). Since day and general ratings were significantly,
positively, and strongly correlated within each valence,
the two time frame ratings were averaged into a combined value for analyses.
Distribution of variables
The averaged NA scores were not normally distributed
but showed a positive skew (skewness = 1.45) and a
mildly kurtotic distribution (kurtosis = 1.73). Results of
the ShapiroWilk test for normality indicated that the
data were not normally distributed at the .05 level of significance (p = .02). Squared and cubed transformations
of the NA variable did not result in a normal distribution. Furthermore, a number of outliers were influencing
the NA distribution. Studentized residuals suggested
that five data points were greater than the suggested
residual cutoff of 2.0 (Afifi, Clark, & May, 2004), and
thus the outliers were removed from analyses. Final
analyses using the NA variable were conducted with
transformed squared data and after removal of five influential data points. Distributions of PA and fluency scores
were normally distributed (all ShapiroWilk ps > .05).
Correlations between outcome and predictor
variables
We found significant associations between self-reported
PA and NA (r = .30, p < .05), which is generally consistent with previous research (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,
1988). Whereas there were significant associations
between PA and NA, the measures appear to be sufficiently independent to support separate analyses by
valence. Finally, there was a significant positive correlation between the two fluency measures (r = .47, p <
.001). This was not surprising because both design and
verbal fluency are executive functioning measures and
thus tap different aspects of the same construct.
Associations between affect and fluency
performance
PA and verbal fluency were significantly correlated (r =
.24, p < .05), which was in line with expectations. Correlations revealed no other significant associations
between affect and fluency performance. Thus, contrary
to expectations, design fluency and NA were not significantly associated (r = .12, p > .30). There also were no
significant associations between PA and design fluency
(r = .01, p > .95) or between NA and verbal fluency (r =
.19, p > .11).
To determine whether group differences significantly
influenced the current results, partial correlations were
run, covarying for these differences. When adding gender
as a covariate, the significant association between verbal

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CARVALHO AND READY

fluency and PA remained, suggesting that this variable

did not affect the outcome. We had a wide age range
among our participants; when covarying for age, there
was a trend for an association between verbal fluency
and PA (r = .21, p < .08). However, in a series of moderated regressions, age did not moderate associations
between fluency and affect. We also covaried for general
cognitive ability using the TICS-m total score; the association between verbal fluency and PA no longer was
significant (r = .19, p > .11). This raises the possibility
that those with greater general cognitive ability may
have stronger verbal fluency and experience greater PA
than those with lower general cognitive ability.

DISCUSSION
We found an association between verbal fluency and
variations in daily PA, which supports associations
between two putative left hemisphere tasks (i.e., positive
mood and verbal fluency). This finding is consistent with
previous research in which induced PA was associated
with verbal fluency (Bartolic et al., 1999; Greene &
Noice, 1988). Of note, the association between verbal
fluency and affect was specific to PA as there was no significant association between NA and verbal or design
fluency performance; there also was not a significant
association between PA and design fluency.
Mechanisms linking PA and verbal fluency are not
known but they are processes that share neuroanatomical
underpinnings. That is, evidence suggests that left frontal activation occurs during PA (Allen & Kline, 2004;
Cacioppo, 2004; Davidson, 1998, 2001, 2004; Davidson
et al., 1990a, 1990b; Heller, 1993; Heller & Nitschke,
1998; Heller et al., 1997, 1998; Herrington et al., 2005;
Jackson et al., 2003; Lee et al., 2004), as well as during verbal fluency task performance (Butler, Rorsman, Hill, &
Tuma, 1993; Cuenod et al., 1995; Laine, 1988; Perret,
1974). Thus, associations between PA and verbal fluency
could be due to activation of overlapping cortical areas.
Future research in this area may be useful. That is, if we
better understand the specific mechanism involved in the
association between PA and verbal fluency, it may provide more information about the processes through
which one construct influences the other.
We did not find anticipated associations between
design fluency and NA (Bartolic et al., 1999). This may
be because normative variations in NA were not great
enough to be associated with fluency performance. Previous studies have found associations between induced
NA and fluency performance (Bartolic et al., 1999);
however, the current study was the first of its kind to
investigate associations between naturally occurring NA
and fluency performance.
The effects of NA on fluency performance may
depend on the mean levels of NA, because induced NA
likely is stronger than everyday NA. There is evidence to
suggest that the effects of induced versus naturalistic NA
on cognitive performance may vary. Induced NA has
shown to influence memory performance beyond that of
everyday mood as induced negative mood results in

poorer incidental recall than that in nondepressed and

non-induced-mood persons (Ellis, 1985; Ellis, Seibert, &
Herbert, 1990; Ellis, Thomas, McFarland, & Lane,
1985). Furthermore, negative mood induction imitates
clinical, depressed mood states (Velten, 1968). Thus,
everyday NA may not be strong enough to elicit the documented cognitive changes observed in induced negative
mood.

Limitations
The present study had several limitations. Verbal fluency
was consistently administered before the design fluency
task. Perhaps changes in task expectations or fatigue
may have systematically affected design fluency performance or mood. Furthermore, although we were
interested in the associations between fluency and affect
measures, the cognitive data were not collected until
approximately 20 or 30 minutes following the affect
measure. Thus, it is possible that mood changes occurred
for some participants in the interim. However, this
makes the association between PA and verbal fluency all
the more impressive because these effects were found
over a large window of time. Thus, PA may have lasting
effects on cognition.
Our sample consisted mostly of women. Cognitive differences may exist between genders (Saykin et al., 1995);
men demonstrate stronger spatial abilities (Dabs,
Chang, Strong, & Milun, 1998), and women perform
better on verbal tasks (Caplan, Crawford, Hyde, &
Richardson, 1997). However, when added as a covariate,
gender performance did not affect our results.
Our sample race was representative of the western
Massachusetts population and thus was disproportionately Caucasian. Although cognitive differences
do exist among racial and ethnic groups (Schwartz
et al., 2004), our sample sizes for some groups were
not large enough to support independent analyses by
groups to determine whether they may have influenced our findings.

Significance
This study has implications for daily functioning on a
number of levels. Although research has shown that
induced mood can affect executive functions (Bartolic
et al., 1999), we found some suggestion that everyday
positive mood is associated specifically with verbal fluency performance. If replicated, these results may have
clinical implications. For example, techniques to improve
cognition could be developed based on knowledge that
some aspects of cognition may be improved when individuals are experiencing greater PA and that low PA
may be associated with poorer performance. That is, it
may prove useful for individuals to be aware of when
their problem-solving and thinking abilities are at their
best, or when they may be hindered, based on their
mood; cognitive strategies could be constructed around
this information.

EMOTION AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING

The current study also provides useful clinical information because PA during neuropsychological testing may
influence performance on testing. We found associations
between everyday PA and verbal fluency. Thus, it is possible that patient mood during testing could influence
performance on verbal fluency and potentially other
tasks. Thus, clinicians should be aware of patient affect
during the evaluation and be cognizant that normative
mood may be associated with performance.
Original manuscript received 28 October 2008
Revised manuscript accepted 13 March 2009
First published online 12 May 2009

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APPENDIX
Positive emotion terms: admiration, affection, bold, brave,
cheerful, confident, delighted, eager, elated, energetic,
enthusiastic, excited, glad, gratified, happy, inspired,
interested, joyful, lively, loving, passionate, peaceful,
pleasant, pleased, positive, proud, respect, strong, thrilled,
and worthy.
Negative emotion terms: afraid, agony, angry, annoyed,
anxious, ashamed, bitter, blue, dejected, depressed, disappointed, distressed, down, fearful, frightened, gloomy,
guilty, hostile, irritable, jittery, lonely, miserable, moody,
nervous, regret, sad, scared, stressed, upset, and worried.

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