Relationship between the plasticity of a set to an emotional facial expression and the load on working memory.

The effects of increasing the loading on working memory (by introduction of an additional cognitive task into the experimental context) on the recognition of an emotional facial expression using a visual set model were studied in healthy adult humans. A relationship was found between the plasticity of the cognitive set to an emotional facial expression and working memory: increases in the load on memory slowed set substitution when the situation changed. The set became more rigid, as indicated by an increase in the number of trials showing erroneous assessments of facial expressions, i.e., contrast and assimilative illusions, at the test stage of the experiment. The role of internal states in the increase in the number of erroneous assessments of emotional facial expressions when working memory was loaded is discussed.