Individual Traits Moderate Associations Between Emotional Deviations and Mental Arithmetic Working Memory in Daily Life

Abstract

This study examined whether reinforcement sensitivity and psychological resilience moderate the association between emotional deviations and mental arithmetic performance as an index of working memory (WM) in daily life. Over approximately three months, participants reported their emotional states on a smartphone and completed a Mental Math task requiring them to retain sequentially presented digits and calculate their sum. Emotional deviation was defined as the departure of each momentary emotion rating from each participant’s own typical level. Linear mixed-effects models showed that moderation effects were mainly limited to specific negative-pole deviations. Higher reinforcement sensitivity attenuated WM decrements associated with sadness- and anxiety-related deviations, whereas higher psychological resilience attenuated WM decrements associated with anxiety- and fear-related deviations. These findings suggest that the association between emotional deviations and WM performance is not uniform, but varies depending on the type of emotional deviation and individual traits. This study provides preliminary evidence for personalized cognitive-state estimation and adaptive support systems that incorporate within-person affective baselines and individual traits.