Behavioral and Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Filtering of Emoji Distractors in Working Memory: An Event-Related Potential Study.

Abstract

Emojis, as emerging paralinguistic cues in computer-mediated communication, are increasingly integrated into daily digital interactions and are known to be efficiently stored as targets in working memory (WM). Despite their pervasive use, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the filtering of emojis as distractors remains unclear. The present study combined behavioral measures and event-related potentials to investigate how emojis are filtered in WM. Participants performed a WM task in which emojis served as distractors. The results showed that emojis, compared with other types of distractors, could be efficiently filtered, as evidenced by reduced unnecessary storage (US) and lower contralateral delay activity (CDA) amplitudes. Moreover, a positive correlation between US and CDA emerged only in the emoji distractor condition, especially among high-frequency emoji users (r = 0.517, p = 0.023), suggesting that prior experience with emojis modulates the link between behavioral and neural indices of filtering. These findings provide preliminary evidence that emojis can be effectively filtered in WM and underscore the modulatory role of usage experience in shaping cognitive processing during digital communication.