A faster disengagement from an incongruent flanker with positive than with negative affect would then predict a reversal with respect to the Rowe et al. (2007) findings, resulting in more interference in negative than in positive conditions.
Similar to Eriksen and Schultz (1979; see also Flowers, 1980), here too interference increased in positive conditions, particularly from SOA = 0 ms to SOA = 60 ms, but unexpectedly decreased again with SOAs longer than 60 ms.
Mood improved in the positive condition, deteriorated in the negative condition and remained stable in the control condition.
In the positive condition, every training paragraph resolved positively, whereas in the control condition, half resolved positively and half resolved negatively.
Results showed the expected effect on mood (p < .002), with reported mood worst in the negative memory condition, better in the neutral condition, and best in the positive condition.
However, ADHD children in the positive condition showed a decrease in cortisol response comparable to the control group.
Compared to participants in the negative condition, participants in the positive condition provided more positive responses on a homophone task administered after 24 h to assess the durability of effects.
Hypothesis 1d: At two-week follow-up, participants in the positive condition would demonstrate greater reductions in symptoms of depression and general levels of anxiety than participants in the control condition.
Relative to this decreases in cortisol levels for ADHD children differed according to condition with children in the positive condition showing a decrease of 69%, and children in the negative condition one of only 12.7%.
Furthermore, we predicted that generating mental images in response to picture word cues would impact on later behaviour, with participants in the positive condition performing better on the fishing task than those in the control and negative conditions.
