Abstract: The relationship between affect and cognition has always been a key issue in psychology research, and over the past 50 years or so, there is a general “truth” in this field that cognitive consequences of positive and negative affect are generally insisted to be fixed. Immense amounts of empirical research revealed that positive affect is thought to trigger heuristic processing, a global focus and widened attention, while negative affect is thought to elicit systematic or elaborated processing, a local focus, and narrowed attention. Some relevant accounts have already been raised accordingly, and each of them has its explanation for this phenomenon. Then there has been a trend in latest literatures, however, a growing number of research demonstrates that the above relations could be reversed in some certain situation. When varying the psychological context, positive affect may also lead to detailed processing and a narrowed focus, and negative affect may lead to heuristic processing and a broadened focus. That is to say, not all research is consistent with this well-known “truth” and the relationship between affect and cognition is not fixed but flexible. Therefore, the most critical work about relationship between affect and cognition at present is how to explain these two opposite propositions. For the sake of regulating this paradox, a compatible account named Affect-as-Cognitive Feedback(AACF) has been invented by Isbell and his colleagues (2013) which is derived from the Affect-as-Information account(AAI). The core point of this account is that there is information contained in affect and the function of the information is to signal the value of accessibility thoughts or cognitive-processing style which was available in individuals’ minds. Positive affect confers positive value on accessible thoughts and processing inclinations, facilitating their use, while negative affect on the contrary confers negative value on such thoughts and inclinations, inhibiting their use. Thus, the AACF account implies that the impact of affect on cognition should be flexible in that its evaluative information depends on the momentary accessible mental content, and a fixed or dedicated connection between affect and cognitive-processing styles should be denied. We then reviewed evidence consistent with the view that a flexible impact of affect on cognitive-processing as a result of the relative accessible strategies. Such flexibility was shown for several outcomes for which evidence of a dedicated connection is usually assumed and seems robust, including attentional scope, impression formation, moral reasoning, and the implicit-explicit attitude correspondence. Compared with other accounts which support the flexible impact of positive and negative affect on cognitive-processing, AACF has its unique advantages on explanation effect and application range. Finally, we reviewed several expand directions for future studies combined with the AACF account. Subsequent researches should focus on the conceptual nature of affect and cognition to verify the necessity of this account, as well as the internal mechanism that why would consequence of positive and negative affect is respectively corresponding to adoption and abandonment of accessible strategies. The above exploration would shed light on affect-cognition research and make a better understanding of the affect-cognition relationship.

Key words: affect, mood, emotion, Affect-as-Cognitive Feedback account, cognitive-processing style, accessibility

摘要： 情感-认知领域的最新研究发现，已有研究通常认为的积极和消极情感对认知加工的固定影响，会在某些条件下发生反转。这致使情感-认知联系的固定观受到挑战，而情感-认知反馈假说（AACF）的出现则从联系可变的视角上为上述冲突提供了有效的解释。该假说认为，情感对认知之所以存在可变影响，其关键在于个体具备认知加工的预先准备状态，即可通达策略的存在。后续研究围绕众多认知现象，验证并支持了AACF的观点。针对这一理论构想，未来研究还应结合对概念本质的哲学反思以及不同视角的实证研究，对情感与认知的内在关系进行更为深入的探索。

关键词: 情感, 心境, 情绪, 情感-认知反馈假说, 认知加工方式, 可通达性