Cognition & Emotion最新文献

Trait self-esteem (TSE) is an important personality resource for emotion regulation, yet the neural correlates of TSE and emotion regulation remain unclear. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the neural correlates of TSE with different emotion regulation strategies and identify different brain areas involved in the particular strategies. We accordingly adopted the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis to uncover the neural pathways linking TSE and emotion regulation. 235 young adults (45.9% females, M_age = 21.58) were guided to undergo the MRI scans and then complete the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire formed by two dimensions: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. The results showed that TSE was positively correlated with left superior frontal gyrus (lSFG)-right middle frontal gyrus (rMFG) rsFC. Further mediation analysis indicated a mediated role of lSFG-rMFG rsFC in the link between TSE and cognitive reappraisal. In contrast, TSE was negatively correlated with the right frontal pole (rFP)-right precentral gyrus (rPrcG) rsFC, which played a mediated role in the link between TSE and expressive suppression. Overall, our findings suggest the neurofunctional underpinnings behind the preference for cognitive reappraisal in individuals with higher TSE, while individuals with lower TSE exhibit a greater propensity towards employing expressive suppression.

Emotion malleability beliefs (EMB) have been shown to be a potential predictor of cognitive reappraisal use. However, the nature of the relationship between EMB and cognitive reappraisal use remains unclear. The present study manipulated EMB with an online intervention and measured participants' EMB and cognitive reappraisal before the intervention as well as at three follow-ups. Eighty-six late adolescents who scored in the bottom 50% on EMB in a previous investigation were randomly assigned to the intervention group (increasing EMB) and the control group. The intervention significantly increased EMB, and this effect remained one week and one month after the intervention. More importantly, the results showed that the lag paths from a previous measure of EMB on later cognitive reappraisal were positive and significant. The cross-lagged paths from cognitive reappraisal to EMB were not significant. The intervention to increase EMB showed significant indirect effects on cognitive reappraisal via EMB. The findings not only support that the intervention of EMB had a sustained effect but also evidenced that EMB had a causal effect on cognitive reappraisal. This suggests a promising way to enhance cognitive reappraisal for application in the treatment of clinical emotion disorders.

Spending time alone is a virtually inevitable part of daily life that can promote or undermine well-being. Here, we explore how the language used to describe time alone - such as "me-time", "solitude", or "isolation" - influences how it is perceived and experienced. In Study 1 (N = 500 U.S adults), participants evaluated five common labels for time alone. Descriptive and narrative evidence revealed robust interindividual variability and significant mean differences in how these labels were evaluated. Overall, "me-time" was rated most positively, and "isolation" was rated least positively (but not negatively). In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated the linguistic framing of time alone, describing it as either "me-time" or "isolation". Participants (N = 176 U.S undergraduates) then spent 30 min physically alone without in-person or digital interaction. Notably, positive affect increased for "me-time" participants but decreased for "isolation" participants. Negative affect decreased in both conditions, but the magnitude of the decrease was greater after "me-time". People's beliefs about being alone improved after "me-time" but not after "isolation". Further, we explored participants' behaviours and thoughts while alone. These findings demonstrate meaningful variation in how people perceive different time alone labels and provide preliminary evidence that simple linguistic shifts may enhance subjective experiences of time alone.

Greed is the insatiable desire for more of the things that one values, combined dissatisfaction over what one currently has. Research found that greedy people find dishonest, unethical, and immoral behaviour more acceptable, disregard the negative outcomes for others, and are more likely to engage in such behaviours. The current research examined whether being greedy is associated with lower scores on moral emotions (guilt and shame) related to dishonest, unethical, and immoral behaviour. Study 1 (N = 397) found that dispositional greed was unambiguously associated with lower scores on guilt proneness, but, with sometimes higher scores on shame proneness, using various different measures of guilt and shame proneness. Study 2 (N = 550) found that greedy people expected to experience less guilt and shame after committing a moral transgression, compared to less greedy people. Exploratory analyses revealed that greedier people expected less regret when transgressing, but more regret when not doing so (perhaps related to foregoing a benefit). Also, greedier people expected more positive emotions, such as happiness and satisfaction after committing transgressions (perhaps related to rejoicing over the obtained benefit). These findings provide novel insights into how emotions interplay with immoral behaviour and greed.

This study investigated the effects of emotional valence on prospective memory (PM) performance in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) compared to healthy controls. Using an emotional version of the Virtual Week paradigm, we examined how positive, negative, and neutral emotional content influenced both event-based and time-based PM tasks. Thirty-one participants with TBI and 31 matched healthy controls completed the computerised PM measure over three simulated days, and a recognition task to assess the retrospective component of PM. Participants with TBI performed less accurately than controls across all conditions. For event-based tasks, positive emotional content enhanced PM performance in both groups. Time-based tasks showed a different pattern, with neutral content leading to better performance. Analysis of the retrospective component revealed a significant group by valence interaction: participants with TBI showed enhanced recognition of negative stimuli in time-based tasks, while healthy controls maintained high recognition accuracy across all valence conditions. These findings suggest a complex interaction between emotional valence, task type, and PM components in TBI, with implications for cognitive rehabilitation strategies.

The aim of the study was to analyse brain responses to offensive words and compare them with non-vulgar negative words. We hypothesised differences in ERP amplitudes within the first 200 ms after the word's onset and late modulation related to the processing of vulgar words. Twenty-five volunteers viewed briefly presented (500 ms) sets (each n = 20) of vulgar, negative, and neutral adjectives. Four time windows were analysed, corresponding to the N1 (80-120 ms), the P150 (130-180 ms), the N400 (350-450 ms), and the late positive potential (LPP, 500-700 ms) components of the ERP. There were no differences noted on the earliest component. There was a significant result on the P150 with the highest amplitudes evoked to negative adjectives and the lowest amplitudes evoked to the vulgar adjectives. The effect indicates less demanding attentional engagement for offensive language during the first lexico-semantic analysis stage. There was also LPP modulation with the highest amplitudes evoked in response to the vulgar words. Swearwords seem to be a special category marked early and late in visual processing, based not on valence or arousal attributes, but rather on social taboo defiance, which does not necessitate heightened levels of attentional capture, but engages more elaborate semantic re-analysis.

Mental imagery consists in the formation of internal visual representations in the absence of external stimulation. Recent findings indicate that fear conditioning with imagined percepts generalises to the corresponding visual percepts, as measured by skin conductance response and self-reported fear, despite the visual stimulus never being paired with the unconditioned stimulus. The present study aimed to determine whether fear conditioning acquired via mental imagery could affect subsequent attention. Participants first completed a fear conditioning task in which an imagined CS+ (e.g. an imagined red square) was associated with shock and an imagined CS- (e.g. an imagined blue square) was neutral. Subsequently, they engaged in a visual search task for a shape-defined target. In Experiment 1, a singleton distractor was presented in a hue corresponding to either the imagined CS+ or CS-. No conditioning effect was observed at the group level. In Experiment 2, we employed a more sensitive visual search task and found an unexpected bias toward the imagined CS- colour, which might have been perceived as a safety signal. Crucially, in both experiments, the attentional bias toward the imagined CS+ colour was positively correlated with participants' ability to form vivid mental images. Overall, our data suggest that the influence of fear conditioning through mental imagery on subsequent attention depends on individuals' capacity for vivid mental imagery.

Attentional capture by emotionally salient stimuli is adaptive, permitting identification of possible threats; however, an excessive bias towards emotional stimuli can interrupt goal-directed behaviour. This is especially relevant in psychiatric disease, where severe emotional distress can interfere with daily function. As such, understanding the mechanisms by which emotional stimuli compete for attentional resources is a critical area of investigation. Previous studies using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigms observe that emotional distractors disrupt the detection of subsequent stimuli, referred to as emotion-induced blindness (EIB). Our study expands upon this work, characterising how temporal and perceptual factors shape the emergence and intensity of EIB. Contrary to previous assumptions regarding temporal dynamics of EIB, we found that effects of emotional distractors persisted across prolonged image presentation durations. Further, we investigated the extent to which the depth of distractor processing influences EIB using a distractor recall task. While recall was predictive of EIB magnitude, a significant effect of emotional distractors on target detection was nonetheless present even without conscious recall of the distractor. These findings demonstrate the robustness of the EIB effect in RSVP in the context of temporal and perceptual manipulations.

The human brain optimises cognitive resource allocation to enhance the processing speed and efficiency of vital information for better survival and adaptation in response to threat signals. Previous studies found that fearful expressions, as visual cues signalling threats, can not only have advantages in entering and remaining in awareness, but also enhance subsequent perceptual processing of low-spatial-frequency (LSF) information. However, it remains unknown whether the enhanced perceptual processing of LSF induced by fearful expressions also grants LSF information a competitive advantage in awareness. To this end, we employed a binocular rivalry paradigm to measure awareness of Gabor patches with low or high spatial frequencies following the rapid priming of fearful versus neutral expressions. The results revealed that the relative dominance of LSF over high-spatial-frequency (HSF) Gabor patches was markedly heightened following brief exposure to fearful compared with neutral expressions. This effect was found for both upright and inverted expressions, indicating it is independent of face configuration. Our study thus suggests a feature-based perceptual optimisation mechanism with evolutionary significance, potentially optimising cognitive resource allocation in threatening situations.

This study investigated the effect of top-down interventions on a bottom-up attentional phenomenon: emotion-induced blindness (EIB). A previous study found that the distraction from an emotional image can be reduced by providing a warning about the distractor category. We tested the benefits of image-specific or categorical warnings. Participants performed an RSVP task with erotic or neutral distractor images, with or without warnings. Three pre-registered experiments tested different warnings: a preview of the upcoming distractor image (Experiment 1, N = 48), a different image from the same distractor category (Experiment 2, N = 48), or a text warning identifying the distractor category (Experiment 3, N = 48). In all experiments, warnings decreased the distraction caused by erotic images. Previewing the distractor image provided much more benefit (77.6% reduction) than presenting a same-category image (34.3% reduction) or text warning (34.9% reduction). We suggest that the preview images either primed the processing of distractor images or inhibited processing of distractors by providing a negative template. The benefits from other warnings demonstrate that knowing the distractor category is sufficient for some reduction in the EIB effect. Our results show that the EIB effect can be reduced by both image-specific and categorical foreknowledge.