Implicit happy and fear experience contributes to computational estimation strategy execution: Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence.

Previous study have explored the influence of explicit emotion priming on computational estimation strategy execution, but the corresponding influence of implicit emotion priming still remains unknown. The present study aimed to solve this problem. Participants were asked to complete two-digit multiplication computational estimation task, under different implicit emotion priming conditions (gender judgment task). In the two-digit multiplication computational estimation task, the computational estimation question was presented in the middle of the screen, meanwhile, two alternative answers were presented side by side at the bottom of the screen, participants were required to select which answer is correct, by using the down-up strategy (e.g., doing 30 × 50 = 1500 for 34 × 46). Behavioral results showed that the response speed under implicit happy and fear (vs. neutral and angry) priming conditions was quicker, and the accuracy under different priming conditions showed no significant difference. The ERP results showed that the influence of implicit emotion priming on computational estimation strategy execution consisted of two phases: in the first phase, the N1 amplitudes elicited by completing the multiplication computational estimation task were smaller under implicit fear (vs. angry) priming condition; in the second phase, the corresponding P2 amplitudes under implicit happy (vs. fear) priming condition were smaller. The present study indicated that implicit happy and fear experience contributed to complete computational estimation tasks, suggesting that implicit negative emotional (e.g., fear) experience was not always detrimental to computational estimation strategy execution.