Examining affective flexibility using self-organized task switching: insights into self-initiated cognitive-emotional control

Affective flexibility, the ability to adapt cognitive control in emotional contexts, is essential, yet how emotional information shapes voluntary decisions to persist with or change a task remains unclear. We introduce an affective voluntary task-switching paradigm that dissociates emotion's influence on voluntary task decisions (repeat or switch) from its effects on task performance. Fifty participants viewed facial stimuli and freely chose which task to perform; repetitions were delayed by an increasing interval to encourage switching. In Experiment 1, emotion was relevant to one task (emotion versus gender); in Experiment 2, it was irrelevant to both (age versus gender). Across experiments, reliable switch costs emerged and correlated with switch rates, indicating task decisions tracked performance costs rather than random selection. Emotional content affected decisions and performance differently by relevance. When emotion was relevant, emotional content did not predict the task decision, with Bayesian evidence favouring its absence, whereas performance was modulated. When emotion was irrelevant, emotional distractors increased subsequent switching and impaired performance, consistent with task-irrelevant emotion competing for the resources sustaining the task. These findings show that emotional information shapes voluntary control through partly separable effects on task selection and performance, establishing the paradigm for studying affective flexibility.