It was investigated whether the asymmetry of brain activity in the prefrontal cortex (prefrontal asymmetry) influences affective recovery and cognitive performance after failure. For this, alpha waves were measured as an indicator of neuronal activity. "We analyzed the brain activity pattern to see how active the right hemisphere is compared to the left," explains Wiebke Hähl, first author of the publication and Research Associate at the Chair of Sports Psychology.
For this purpose, 47 participants completed two mental rotation tests, which were interrupted by a short break in which the subjects received negative feedback on their performance. Mental rotation is the ability to rotate two- or three-dimensional objects in the mind. Before the first task, electroencephalographic (EEG) data on prefrontal asymmetry were collected. In addition, affective and cognitive changes were tracked throughout the experiment using visual analog scales to measure subjective attitudes.
"Following the first test, the subjects all received feedback that they had underperformed," Hähl said. "After the failure induction, negative emotions were then significantly higher."
In the project, it was found that participants with higher right hemispheric prefrontal asymmetry who felt moderately or severely upset after failing the cognitive task did not show recovery from their negative affective state during the break between tasks. Instead, they remained in a negative state regardless of the activity they engaged in while waiting for the second task. This also led them to perform significantly worse in the second task than participants with left hemispheric prefrontal asymmetry.
Furthermore, the research team found that participants who ruminated about their errors, as well as those who did not view the task as challenging or threatening, experienced further performance decrements.
The study provides evidence that right hemispheric prefrontal asymmetry is a vulnerability that makes it difficult for individuals to effectively regulate their negative emotions, which impairs their cognitive performance. "So what this means is that when right-hemisphere activity in the frontal part of the brain is dominant in a person, they handle failure worse overall," Hähl said, classifying the findings. "That may be a genetic component, but it's also modifiable over time, for example, using meditation, mindfulness exercises, but also activity shifts such as clenching a fist on one side."