#7160 The role of affective feedback on cognitive flexibility- a preliminary study

<h3>Introduction</h3> Cognitive flexibility measures one’s ability to adapt to the external environment and feedback to achieve the set goals. It is one of the critical executive functions and has relevance to neuropsychiatric conditions from obsessive-compulsive disorder to depression. Previous research suggests that emotional stimuli have a significant impact on cognitive flexibility. However, it still needs to be clear how affective feedback influences cognitive flexibility. Here, we studied the role of affective feedback (negative and positive content) on cognitive flexibility in terms of both behaviour and neural activity. <h3>Method</h3> We recruited 22 healthy volunteers (11 per group) who completed either an affective or a non-affective version of the extra-dimensional intra-dimensional set-shifting task. In the affective version, feedback to a response was provided using images with negative and positive content for correct and incorrect responses. On the other hand, the feedback was displayed as ‘Correct’ and ‘Incorrect’ in the non-affective version. The participants’ behaviour and neural activity via electroencephalogram (EEG) were recorded while completing the cognitive paradigm. Additionally, they completed a visual memory task and a questionnaire related to Obsessive Compulsive traits. The EEG was obtained from 64-channel Active Two BioSemi amplifier and processed using EEGLAB and ERPLAB packages. <h3>Results</h3> We analysed for set-shifting errors (during acquisition, intra-dimensional (ID) and extra-dimension (ED)) and reaction times during correct and incorrect responses. A Friedman test on non-parametric errors in 3 phases (acquisition, ID, ED) showed significant differences in errors [χ2(2, n = 22) = 7.08, p = 0.029] across conditions. A Mann-Whitney U test showed only a significant group difference in ED errors (U = 29, z = -2.08, p = 0.038), with the affective group having higher errors than the non-affective group. We further observed differences in the neural activity concerning event-related potential activity across the groups. <h3>Conclusion</h3> These preliminary results show that feedback with negative imagery content could interfere with cognitive flexibility, specifically in extra-dimensional shifting behaviours. Critically, these findings could help understand the deficits in cognitive processing in conditions such as OCD, where deficits in ED processing are known.