Improving Perceptual Judgments under Emotional States

Abstract

System operators in complex environments (e.g., nuclear power control rooms) often make decisions while under periods of high emotional arousal. Emotional state has been shown to affect the time and quality of decision-making, but more examination is needed. Raddatz et al. (2007) found that participants under positive emotion made less accurate perceptual judgments in perspective displays than participants under negative and neutral emotion (all used “first-look” instructions). Results were consistent with Tiedens & Linton (2001) framework suggesting that positive emotion induces overconfidence and less motivation to question initial judgment. The current study investigated whether instructional set could attenuate the detrimental effect of positive emotion. Using “objective” instructions (implying a “right” answer), positive participants made more accurate perceptual judgments than negative or neutral participants. Further, positive participants were significantly more accurate under objective instructions than phenomenal instructions, whereas neutral and negative participants were relatively unaffected by instructional set. Implications for human system interaction are discussed.