The study utilised a within-subjects design to investigate the interplay between reward and emotion processing. Participants completed three computer-based associative matching tasks: an emotional valence task, a value-based reward task, and a control task. These tasks involved matching or mismatching geometric shapes with emotional labels (happy, sad, neutral), monetary rewards (£0, £25, £50), or arbitrary word labels (sky, air, earth).

The sample consisted of 50 students from Bournemouth University (originally 56 participants; 6 excluded for low task accuracy). There were 7 males, 49 females, aged 18–28 years (mean age: 20.95). The eligibility Criteria was as follows: fluency in English, normal or corrected-to-normal vision, no mental health diagnoses, and not on psychiatric medication.

Participants were recruited through the SONA online research management system and compensated with SONA credits and Amazon vouchers.

The primary entities studied were cognitive responses to emotional stimuli (e.g., happy, sad, neutral shapes).
Cognitive responses to reward stimuli (e.g., shapes associated with different monetary values). Baseline responses to neutral stimuli in the control task (e.g., shapes paired with arbitrary words).

Participants were selected based on availability and willingness to participate, utilising the university's student population for efficient recruitment.  Participants spent approximately 2 minutes associating geometric shapes with task-specific labels. Participants completed 360 trials for each task (emotional valence, reward, control) using a computer-based system. Shapes and their labels were displayed on-screen for 150ms, followed by a 1500ms response window. Real-time feedback was provided.

Measures included response times and accuracy for matching/mismatching trials were collected. Individual differences were assessed using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and Sensitivity to Reward (SR) questionnaires.