Cognitive reappraisal during unpleasant picture processing: Subjective self‐report and peripheral physiology

Abstract

Increased attention among the research community in exploring underlying mecha-nisms of emotion regulation has prompted a growth of experimental works in this field. Empirical studies have mainly focused on self‐reports, brain imaging, and elec-trophysiological measures, with only a few works exploring peripheral physiology. Additionally, most of such studies have not considered the specific stimuli content, even though prior literature has shown relevant differences in psychophysiological and subjective responses depending on picture categories. The current study assessed several peripheral correlates (startle amplitude, electrodermal changes, heart rate) of emotion regulation processes in a sample of 122 healthy participants. The task con-sisted of voluntary reappraisal of negative emotions prompted by unpleasant pictures (threat to others and victims), compared to a nonregulation control condition (look-ing at exemplars of the same categories and household objects). Results showed an effect of emotion regulation instructions in all psychophysiological and subjective measures. In peripheral physiology, greater responses were observed specifically when increasing negative emotions, concurring with previous research. Regarding specific content, our findings evidence a similar emotion regulation pattern, indepen-dently of the unpleasant category, suggesting a plausible effect of cognitive variables (such as cognitive effort) during voluntary reappraisal for both categories.