The role of emotion recognition in reappraisal affordances.

INTRODUCTION: Emotion regulation is essential for psychological well-being. One strategy that is commonly researched is reappraisal. Individual differences regarding the tendency to use reappraisal, as well as its implications for affective experience, were extensively studied. In recent years, interest has emerged in the choice to use reappraisal, based on stimuli properties. Recently, we suggested that reappraisal is related to emotion recognition processes. Emotion recognition (and affective labeling, as an explicit form of emotion recognition) is regarded as a form of emotion regulation, however, the relations between emotion recognition and reappraisal have not been previously investigated. The aim of the current study was to explore the relationship between reappraisal affordances (the opportunities of re-interpretation that are inherent in a stimulus) and emotion recognition. METHOD: For this purpose, we used the Categorized Affective Picture Database, a database that provides data regarding the emotional category of each picture, agreement levels for each category, and intensity ratings. Agreement levels were used to assess the certainty regarding the emotion evoked by the pictures. RESULTS: Findings suggest that reappraisal affordance is predicted by both agreement levels and intensity, in negative pictures alone. In negative pictures, intensity was negatively correlated with the difficulty to reappraise. DISCUSSION: These findings strengthen the hypothesis regarding the relationship between emotion recognition and reappraisal, and provide evidence for the role of emotion recognition in reappraisal affordances.

Rumination, emotional intensity and emotional clarity.

It has been suggested that a high tendency to ruminate presents a deficient emotion regulation. Past research found that people with high tendency to ruminate show sustained attention for negative stimuli and increased negative thinking, which may result in intensified experiences of negative emotions. Moreover, high level of rumination was associated with low emotional understanding. Accordingly, we hypothesized (1) high ruminators (HR) experience more intense emotional reactions than low ruminators (LR) for negative but not positive emotions, (2) LR have higher emotional clarity than HR, and (3) there would be the same pattern of results for brooding but not for reflective pondering. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, a rumination response style questionnaire, and the Beck Depression Inventory-II. They also rated emotional intensity and identified emotion type for scene pictures from the CAP-D (Categorized Affective Pictures Database). The highest (HR) and lowest (LR) quarters of ruminators were compared on levels of emotional intensity and emotional clarity. We found HR experienced negative emotions more intensely than LR, with no difference for positive emotions. In contrast to our hypothesis, the two groups did not differ in their emotion understanding. This pattern of results was found for brooding but not for reflective pondering. Our research sheds light on the mechanism underlying rumination and emotion regulation.

Perspective taking and emotion: The case of disgust and sadness.

In a recent study (Gilead et al., 2016), perspective taking (PT) was found to have a significant effect on affect ratings of negative pictures compared to neutrals. The current study explores the question whether PT would be affected equally by distinct negative emotions. We used neutral pictures and pictures classified as provoking sadness or disgust, matched for their intensity and arousal. Participants were asked to rate the pictures (on a scale from 1-no emotional reaction, to 5-very strong reaction) from 3 different perspectives - tough, sensitive, or their own - "me". In Experiment 1, all pictures were mixed in the same blocks. In Experiment 2, the sad and disgust pictures were separated into two different blocks (each including neutrals). Both experiments showed significant interaction between PT and emotion. PT was found to be influenced by valence; however, distinct negative emotions were found to affect PT similarly.

Explicit vs. implicit emotional processing: The interaction between processing type and executive control.

The current study examined whether the interaction between emotion and executive control (EC) is modulated by the processing type of the emotional information. Namely, whether the emotional information is explicitly processed, implicitly processed or passively viewed. In each trial, a negative or neutral picture preceded an arrow-flanker stimulus that was congruent or incongruent. Incongruent stimuli are known to recruit EC. Explicit processing of the pictures (Experiment 1a), which required responding to their emotional content, resulted in emotional interference for congruent but not for incongruent stimuli. Similar effects were shown for the passive viewing condition (Experiment 2). In contrast, implicit processing (Experiment 1b), which required responding to non-emotional content, resulted in emotional interference for both congruent and incongruent stimuli. Thus, our findings indicate that implicit emotional processing affects performance independently of EC recruitment. In contrast, explicit emotional processing and passive viewing of emotional pictures lead to reduced emotional interference when EC is recruited.

Emotion regulation as a main mechanism of change in psychotherapy.

A model that suggests reconsolidation of traumatic memories as a mechanism of change in therapy is important, but problematic to generalize to disorders other than post-traumatic and acute-stress disorder. We suggest that a more plausible mechanism of change in psychotherapy is acquisition of adaptive emotion regulation strategies.

Perspective taking effects are modulated by the valence of stimuli.

Previously we found perspective taking (PT) influenced affect ratings of negative pictures more than neutral pictures. The current follow-up experiments extend that research to explore effects of perspective taking with positive valence pictures. We used stimuli consisting of neutral, happy and sad pictures. Stimuli were presented either mixed within blocks (Experiment 1) or separated by emotion (neutrals + happy/sad) into two separate blocks (Experiment 2). Participants rated (from 1- to 7 based on emotional strength) stimuli from different perspectives (sensitive/tough/their own, i.e., "me"). Emotional strength rating was a dependent variable. A significant interaction between valence and PT was found in both experiments. The difference between adopting sensitive and tough perspectives toward sadness was larger than toward the neutral condition, replicating our results from the previous study. The same difference (sensitive-tough) was larger toward the happiness condition than toward the neutral one (this was a trend in Experiment 1 and was significant in Experiment 2) and toward the sadness condition than toward the happy one. These results suggest that PT effects on emotional ratings are modulated by valence of stimuli.

Regulating Obsessive-Like Thoughts: Comparison of Two Forms of Affective Labeling with Exposure Only in Participants with High Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms.

OBJECTIVE: A growing body of research has shown that mere expression of affective words (affect labeling) can help dampen emotional responses, as reflected by these words. Previous studies revealed that affect labeling can reduce physiological anxiety responses of subjects suffering from anxiety disorders. In addition, multiple studies have shown that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) individuals have difficulty understanding their own emotions. However, the effect of affect labeling is unknown for people with high- OC symptoms. METHOD: We used different forms of affect labeling (emotion generation vs. emotion categorization) to examine their effect on participants with high-OC symptoms, and to find if these forms can be learned and generalized. Using a mix-model design, we compared the effects of emotion generation labeling, emotion categorization labeling, and exposure alone during exposure to distressing obsessive thoughts, at two different times, using both physiological and self-reported fear measures. RESULTS: At the first session, the emotion categorization group exhibited reduced fear physiological responses, compared to the other groups; however, it did not differ from the other groups in self-reported fear responses. At the second session, all groups revealed reduced physiological and self-reported fear responses, suggesting that affect labeling was neither learned nor generalized. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that affect labeling may help attenuate physiological anxiety responses in high-OC subjects. Furthermore, they suggest different effects for the different affect labeling forms. Future research exposing participants for longer durations may further elucidate the role of labeling in facilitating exposure effects.

Categorized Affective Pictures Database (CAP-D).

Emotional picture databases are commonly used in emotion research. The databases were first based on ratings of emotional dimensions, and the interest in studying discrete emotions led to the categorization of subsets from these databases to emotional categories. However, to-date, studies that categorized affective pictures used confidence intervals in their analysis, a method that provides important data but also results in a high percentage of blended or undifferentiated categorization of images. The current study used 526 affective pictures from four databases and categorized the pictures to discrete emotions in two steps (Pre-testing phase & Experiment 1). First, clinical psychologists were asked to generate emotional labels for each picture, according to the emotion the picture evoked in them. This resulted in the creation of 10 emotional categories. These labels were presented to students who were asked to choose the emotional category that matched the emotion a presented picture evoked in them. Agreement levels on the emotional categories were calculated for each picture, and pictures were categorized according to the most dominant emotion they evoked. The analysis of agreement levels rather than confidence intervals enabled us to provide both dominance of emotional category and agreement in the population regarding the dominance. In Experiment 2, we asked participants to provide ratings of emotional intensity and arousal, in order to provide more detailed information regarding the database. This is the first study to provide agreement levels on the categorization of affective pictures, and may be useful in various studies which aim at generating specific emotions.

Executive control suppresses pupillary responses to aversive stimuli.

Adaptive behavior depends on the ability to effectively regulate emotional responses. Continuous failure in the regulation of emotions can lead to heightened physiological reactions and to various psychopathologies. Recently, several behavioral and neuroimaging studies showed that exertion of executive control modulates emotion. Executive control is a high-order operation involved in goal-directed behavior, especially in the face of distractors or temptations. However, the role of executive control in regulating emotion-related physiological reactions is unknown. Here we show that exercise of executive control modulates reactivity of both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic components of the autonomic nervous system. Specifically, we demonstrate that both pupillary light reflex and pupil dilation for aversive stimuli are attenuated following recruitment of executive control. These findings offer new insights into the very basic mechanisms of emotion processing and regulation, and can lead to novel interventions for people suffering from emotion dysregulation psychopathologies.

Executive control attenuates emotional effects-For high reappraisers only?

Irrelevant emotional information influences adaptive behavior. Previous results demonstrated that executive control may help reduce such influence. The current research studied the relationship between the tendency to use emotion regulation strategies (e.g., reappraisal and suppression) and the ability of executive control to reduce emotional interference. Our results demonstrate that negative stimuli disrupt performance in congruent flanker trials, regardless of individual tendencies to use reappraisal or suppression. In contrast, negative stimuli did not disrupt performance in incongruent trials in people who report frequent use of reappraisal. This pattern appeared both when a negative stimulus appeared before and after the flanker target and was not modulated by suppression level. We suggest that people who tend to use reappraisal have improved ability of executive control to reduce emotional effects.