The Memory and Affective Flexibility Task: a new behavioral tool to assess neurocognitive processes implicated in emotion-related impulsivity and internalizing symptoms

Kenneth J D Allen; Matthew V Elliott; Eivind H Ronold; Nandini A Rajgopal; Åsa Hammar; Sheri L Johnson

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1456691

The Memory and Affective Flexibility Task: a new behavioral tool to assess neurocognitive processes implicated in emotion-related impulsivity and internalizing symptoms

Front Psychiatry. 2025 Jan 30:16:1456691. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1456691. eCollection 2025.

Authors

Kenneth J D Allen¹, Matthew V Elliott¹, Eivind H Ronold^{2

3}, Nandini A Rajgopal¹, Åsa Hammar^{2

4

5}, Sheri L Johnson¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States.
² Department of Medical and Biological Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
³ Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
⁴ Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
⁵ Office for Psychiatry and Habilitation, Psychiatry Research Skåne, Lund, Sweden.

Abstract

Background: Cognitive rigidity and working memory impairment are established features of internalizing syndromes. Growing evidence suggests that deficits in affective control -cognitive control in the context of emotion - may underpin elevated emotion-related impulsivity in various psychiatric disorders.

Objective: This study examines two components of affective control (affective flexibility and emotional working memory) as potential neurocognitive processes linking emotion-related impulsivity to internalizing psychopathology.

Method: Undergraduate participants (analysis n = 120) completed the Memory and Affective Flexibility Task (MAFT), a novel behavioral assessment designed to assess hot cognition in affective flexibility and emotional working memory performance, alongside self-report measures of impulsivity and symptoms of internalizing disorders.

Results: Structural equation modeling suggested that less accurate working memory during neutral trials (cool cognition) was associated with more symptoms of internalizing psychopathology. However, effects of hot working memory and affective flexibility were not significantly related to emotion-related impulsivity or psychopathology scores.

Conclusions: Although findings provide no support for the validity of MAFT indices of hot cognition, these results replicate and extend work on the importance of cool working memory and emotion-related impulsivity as correlates of psychopathology.

Keywords: affective flexibility; anxiety; cognitive control; depression; emotion regulation; emotion-related impulsivity; internalizing; switching.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Peder Sather Foundation provided support for participant payment and for two meetings of the authors.