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Influence of additional working memory load on emotional face recognition was studied in healthy adults. Visual set to emotional face expression was experimentally formed, and two types of additional task--visual-spatial or semantic--were embedded in the experiment. Additional task caused less plastic set, i.e., a slower set-shifting. This effect displayed itself in an increase of erroneous facial expression perceptions. The character of these erroneous perceptions (assimilative or contrast or visual illusions) depended on the type of the additional task. Pre-stimulus EEG coherence across experimental trials in theta (4-7), low alpha (8-10 Hz) and beta (14--20) bands was analysed. Data of low-alpha and beta-coherence supported the hypothesis that increased memory load caused less involvement of frontal lobes in selective attention mechanisms that are associated with set-forming. This results in a slower set-shifting. Increased memory load also led to a growth of theta-band coherence in the left hemisphere and its decrease in the right hemisphere. The account of theta-coherence decrease in the right hemisphere between prefrontal and temporal areas for a slower set-shifting is discussed.

The experimental evidence that the cognitive set shifting in healthy humans depends on the context of cognitive performance is discussed. Lability/rigidity of the experimentally formed unconscious visual set is largely determined by the type of additional task ("what?" or "where?", i. e., stimulus recognition or spatial localization, respectively) introduced into the context of the experiment. It is suggested that the acquired set more readily shifts to a new one more adequate to modified conditions in case of alternation of the ventral and dorsal visual pathways involved in the information processing in the context of cognitive performance.

A top-down processing model and the role of frontal and prefrontal cortex in the neural mechanisms of recognition of verbal and non-verbal visual stimuli, are discussed. Stimulus recognition is considered to be a result of integration of the bottom-up and top-down streams. The cognitive set phenomenon can be used for studying the downward control in the neurocognitive visual system and in functional organisation of stimuli recognition.

The regulatory function of the set and dominanta in human cognitive activity is discussed. Role of the stimuli context in formation of the set is demonstrated.

Two kinds of cognitive sets for verbal and non-verbal stimuli were revealed in healthy subjects: an "intellectual blindness" and a distortion of perception and assessment of the stimuli size. Analysis of the response time to a probe stimulus and a spectral analysis of the cortical EEG revealed a participation of these sets in cortical functions: a stable set organizes and improves the stimuli perception and assessment but impedes this process in a modified situation. An optimal balance between the two sets seems to be necessary for effective cognitive activity.