Affective Shift Task

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 13, 2022

Last Modified: January 17, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements Millisecond's version of the Affective shift Task (AST), a paradigm to study executive functioning as measured by inhibition and set shifting, in response to emotional and non-emotional face stimuli.

Due to the fact that the keyboard response keys should spatially map onto the 4 quadrants of a 2x2 matrix, the script should be run on devices with external keyboards only. In case the script cannot detect an external keyboard, the script terminates after a brief notification message.

DISCLAIMER: The implemented procedure is based on the description of the task by De Lissnyder et al (2010) and is a best guess-effort based on the provided information.

References

De Lissnyder, E., Koster, E. H. W., Derakshan, N., & De Raedt, R. (2010). The association between depressive symptoms and executive control impairments in response to emotional and non-emotional information. Cognition and Emotion, 24(2), 264–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930903378354

Duration

25 minutes

Description

Participants are asked to find the 'odd-one-out' face in 2x2 arrays of faces based on a cued dimension (gender, color, or emotion). Three of the four faces always share one particular variation on each of these three dimensions and one face is always the 'odd-one-out'.

For example, three of the faces might be colored light gray and one face is dark gray - if the cue is 'COLOR', the target would be dark gray face. At the same time, three faces in the array share the same gender - if the is 'GENDER' the sole face of the other gender would be the target. Likewise, three faces in the array share the same emotion - if the cue is 'EMOTION', the target would be the only face with the opposite emotion. For each of the three dimensions (gender, color, or emotion), the target face is always a different one, so participants have to pay attention to the 'cue'.

Procedure

(1) INTRO

(2) PRACTICE
- each practice block runs 12 trials
- Each dimension is run four times (with each of the two variations being used as the 'odd-one-out' twice)
Example: dimension "GENDER" is run four times with 2 times showing a Female face as the 'odd-one-out'
and 2 times showing a Male face as the 'odd-one-out'
- the order of the cues is randomly determined
- the Practice block is repeated up to four times (editable parameters) if performance is lower than 80%correct
(editable parameters)
- after a maximum of 4 practice blocks, everyone advances to the test block despite practice performance

(3) TEST

General Design: 4 trialtypes (inhibitory, control, unclassified, repeat) X
3 cues (emotion: angry/happy, gender: female/male, color: dark/light)

The design runs: 216 trial sequences total (see list.trialtypes and list.cueOrder for details), order is randomly determined

Shifting Trial Sequences:

Repeat Trial Sequences:

Trial Sequence

Face Display Generation

Quadrant Assignment:

Response Keys:

Stimuli

provided by Millisecond - can be edited under section 'Editable Stimuli'

Faces:
● Original study (De Lissnyder et al,2010)
The original face stimuli were taken from the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces database
(KDEF; https://www.kdef.se/). All faces were adjusted to exclude interference of background
stimuli (hair) and were adjusted to the same size.
The images were taken based on the results from a validation study of this picture set
(Goeleven, De Raedt, Leyman, & Verschuere, 2008).

● Millisecond script:
The Millisecond script provides PLACEHOLDER stimuli from the NIMS database.
https://www.macbrain.org/resources.htm

8 female faces and 8 male faces were selected. Each face was selected with an
angry, open-mouth expression and a happy, open-mouth expression.
All faces are of young adult caucasian actors.
The faces were adjusted to exclude interference of background
stimuli (hair - as much as possible) and were adjusted to the same size (600px X 600px).
Color variations were achieved by changing the brightness of the images up and down.
All image changes were made in Paint.net.

These face images can easily be replaced/edited by others under section Editable Stimuli,
editing item.female_dark_angry to item.male_light_happy_faces.

The script ensures to select a different actor for each of the four quadrants.

Instructions

provided by Millisecond - can be edited under section 'Editable Instructions'.
They are not the originals.
See script 'affectiveshifttask_instructions_inc.iqjs'

Summary Data

File Name: affectiveshifttask_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

Raw Data

File Name: affectiveshifttask_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.