The effect of different emotion regulation strategies: The monitoring choice distraction results in the
greatest LPP modulation, independent of the emotional intensity of an image.
Name: Jip de Bruin Student number: 11238003
Supervisors: Sylvia D. Kreibig & James J. Gross Date: June 14, 2020
ABSTRACT
Emotion regulation is defined as the process of influencing the emotion generation trajectory. One important component in emotion regulation is monitoring whether an initially chosen regulation strategy is still the most effective one in the present situation. Monitoring emotion regulation decisions is fundamental in the regulation process since not correcting ineffective decisions will result in the failure of emotion regulation. The effectiveness of the use of distraction and reappraisal in response to images with a high and low emotional intensity are well documented. However, the neuro-affective consequences of decisions actively made in monitoring emotion regulation remain scarce. In this preliminary analysis, the emotional response of 17 participants on an emotion regulation task with negatively valanced images was measured using electroencephalography (EEG). The present study investigated the effect of switching between emotion regulation strategies (distraction versus reappraisal) on the late positive potential (LPP), compared to using the same regulation strategy during an emotion regulation task. Hypothesized was that in trials with a high emotional intensity, switching to distraction or maintaining to use distraction was associated with higher regulatory success. This study found that switching to distraction or maintaining to use distraction during an emotion regulation task with negative images resulted in the highest regulatory success, independent of the emotional intensity of the image. These findings need to be interpreted with caution and completion of this analysis with a lager and well-distributed sample size is necessary to determine if these preliminary results will still hold true.
Keywords: emotion regulation choice, late positive potential, cognitive reappraisal, distraction, monitoring decisions
INTRODUCTION
Emotions are essential elements of our everyday life. They can be seen as guiding tools to provide us with the best course of action, but they can also be harmful (Schwarz & Clore, 1983). Inappropriate duration, frequency or intensity of an emotion in a specific context can make an emotion maladaptive (Gross & Jazaieri, 2014). Therefore, adequately regulating emotions is a fundamental aspect of our life and psychological well-being.
Emotion regulation is defined as the process of influencing the emotion generation trajectory (Gross et al., 2011). According to the process model of emotion regulation, emotions can be regulated at five time points in the emotion generation process (Gross, 1998). These five time points represent the following emotion regulation families: (1) situation selection, (2) situation modification, (3) attentional deployment, (4) cognitive change, and (5) response modulation. Each of these five families of emotion regulation has its primary impact on a different component of the emotion generation process. Different strategies therefore have different effects on the final emotion (Gross, 1998). Situation selection can be described as avoiding or selecting a specific situation, whereas modification of the situation can be done by altering certain aspects of the initial situation. For example, giving a presentation can be stressful, but changing the environment of the presentation to an online presentation through Zoom might be less stressful. Deployment of attention can be used to focus on and attend to specific aspects of a situation, change of cognition is changing the meaning or valuation of a situation or specific aspect of the situation, and response modulation refers to changing the response tendencies after the emotion is fully generated (Gross, 1998). This research will focus on attentional deployment and cognitive change strategies in emotion regulation.
One form of attentional deployment is distraction. In this emotion regulation strategy, the goal is to switch the internal focus to a neutral object or situation by producing unrelated thoughts and by disengaging the attention from the emotional components in the situation (Gross, 1998; Gross & John, 2003). Cognitive reappraisal or for short reappraisal is a form of the regulatory family cognitive change and has an effect on later stages of the emotion generation process than distraction. Reappraisal is a strategy in which
the emotional meaning of a situation is changed, by cognitively transforming the situation to be less negative (Gross, 1998).
The extended process model of emotion regulation suggests that emotion regulation decisions are made with interactive and iterating valuation systems including key regulatory stages (Gross, 2015). The first stage in this model is the identification stage, in which it is determined whether the emotion needs to be regulated. Next is the selection stage, in which a choice has to be made on which regulatory strategy to use. The final stage is the implementation stage, which corresponds to monitoring whether the initially chosen strategy is still the most effective one in the present situation. Monitoring emotion regulation decisions consists of choosing to continue using the initially chosen strategy, switch to another regulation strategy or deciding to stop regulating the emotion (Gross, 2015). Several factors can determine these regulation decisions. Previous research has shown that there is a regulatory preference for using distraction in situations with a high emotional intensity, whereas reappraisal is preferred in situations with a low emotional intensity (Sheppes et al., 2011; Shafir et al., 2016). In addition, distraction has been shown to be more effective in modulating the emotional response in situations with a high emotional intensity, relative to reappraisal. But in situations with a low emotional intensity, reappraisal has shown to be equally effective as distraction in modulating the emotional response (Shafir et al., 2015).
One specific Event Related Potential (ERP) that can be measured in the brain is thought to reflect the increased processing of, and attention to emotional stimuli: the Late Positive Potential (LPP). It can be measured using electroencephalography (EEG). The LPP is therefore a useful tool to track the emotional processing during an experimental task and measures the emotional response (DeCicco
et al., 2014). Shafir et al. (2015) showed that in response to stimuli
with a high emotional intensity, implementation of distraction resulted in stronger LPP modulation compared to implementation of reappraisal. While valuable, this experiment did not include the option to actively make a decision to maintain using the initial strategy or to switch from the initial strategy.
The implementation stage is of great importance in adequately monitoring emotion regulation decisions and ultimately ensuring adaptive outcomes. Monitoring emotion regulation decisions is fundamental in the emotion regulation process since not
correcting ineffective decisions will result in the failure of emotion regulation. The effectiveness of the use of distraction and reappraisal in response to images with a high and low emotional intensity are well documented. However, the neuro-affective consequences of decisions actively made in monitoring emotion regulation remain scarce. Dorman Ilan et al. (2020) were one of the first to investigate this. They found that for high intensity but not for low intensity images switching to or maintaining to use distraction resulted in the greatest LPP modulation.
The present study wished to replicate this study to find out how well its results can be generalized to a different population. The aim of the present study is therefore to investigate the effects of switching between emotion regulation strategies (distraction versus reappraisal) compared to using the same regulation strategy on the LPP during an emotion regulation task with negative images. Hypothesized is that in trials with a high emotional intensity, switching to distraction or maintaining to use distraction is associated with a stronger reduction of the LPP compared to maintaining to implement or switch to reappraisal. In trials with a low emotional intensity, the implementation of distraction is thought to be equally effective in reducing the LPP as the implementation of reappraisal. To test these hypotheses, this study will investigate the response to high and low emotional intensity images while EEG is being conducted.
METHODS
This study was part of a larger project of 22-days in which various aspects of sleep, sleep bruxism, and emotion regulation were assessed. The study was conducted at the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory on the Stanford University Campus.
Participants
Before participants could take part in the study, they had to go through a prescreening which consisted of an online survey and a phone survey. After participants were considered eligible, they provided informed consent and were enrolled in the study. Data was collected from 17 participants with normal or corrected to normal vision (mean age: 27.2 years, SD: 4.2, female: 12, ethnicity: 10 Caucasian, 5 Asian and 2 Hispanic or Latino participants). In contrast
to the study of Dorman Ilan et al. (2020), the present study included participants with sleep bruxism as well as healthy participants.
Participants were considered ineligible if they met any of the following criteria: current self-reported oral or periodontal disease, temporomandibular (TMD) disorder, currently undergoing any type of sleep bruxism treatment, current illness or chronic health problems, medication intake, significant exposure to tobacco or nicotine products, caffeine use disorder (exclusion for more than 3 cups of caffeine a day), current pregnancy or pregnancy within the past year, current sleep health impairment, shift work, uncommon sleep environment, past or planned travel during the duration of the study without appropriate acclimation time for time zone adjustment, skin allergies or sensitivities and presence of certain hairstyles that would interfere with the application of scalp electrodes.
Study components
During the 22 days, there were two laboratory assessments (T1 and T2). The present report included only the T1 laboratory assessment. The study consisted of the following subsequent steps: (1) T1 trait individual differences survey, not relevant for the present report; (2) a virtual introduction to the study; (3) T1 at-home polysomnography assessment, not relevant for the present report; (4) T1 laboratory assessment; (5) two-week ambulatory assessment, with ecological momentary assessment of emotion and emotion regulation 5 times a day, not relevant for the present report; (6) T2 state health and well-being survey, not relevant for the present report; (7) T2 at-home polysomnography assessment, not relevant for the present report; (8) T2 laboratory assessment, not relevant for the present report. An overview of the components of this study is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Overview of the study components, the present report focused on the T1 laboratory assessment.
Emotion regulation task
To test the emotional response of participants, this study used a laboratory-based emotion regulation task. The task consisted of negatively valenced images, categorized as images with a high emotional intensity and images with a low emotional intensity. Standardized arousal and valance ratings were used to categorize images as high intensity (n= 120, Marousal = 6.41, Mvalence= 2.16) and as low intensity (n=120, Marousal= 4.87, Mvalence= 3.35). The ratings differed significantly between groups (both Fs > 391, Ps= <2*10-16). The 240 selected images were selected from previously validated datasets (IAPS: Lang et al., 2008; Dan-Glauser & Scherer, 2011; EmoPicS: Wessa et al., 2010; Shafir et al., 2015). The image size was 1296 x 792 pixels and they were presented in color on a monitor with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, at a viewing distance of approximately 63 cm. During the task, participants were instructed to apply two emotion regulation strategies to decrease their emotional response. The emotion regulation strategies that were included in the task were distraction and reappraisal. A third watch condition was added, where participants were instructed not to regulate their emotions but to allow natural thoughts and feelings. In additionto measuring the emotional response with EEG, eye-movements and other psychological measures were obtained during the task that are not relevant for the present report.
Emotion regulation task protocol
First, participants were presented with a cue screen with the initial instruction watch, reappraise or distract, and were asked to use this instruction to regulate their emotions when the first presentation of the image appeared on the screen. The participants were then asked to choose between distraction or reappraisal (monitoring choice) before being shown the image for a second time. With this choice element in the task, the final experimental conditions consisted of the combination of the initial instruction (watch, reappraise, distract), the emotional intensity of the image (low, high), and the monitoring choice of the participant (distract, reappraise). This resulted in the 12 experimental conditions shown in Table 1. The task consisted of two parts: a 20-minute introduction to the emotion regulation strategies followed by six blocks of performing the experimental task. Each block consisted of 20 trials, resulting in 120 trials in total.
Task introduction
First, participants were instructed on how to use the various emotion regulation conditions: distraction, reappraisal, and watch. For the distraction condition, participants were told to start focusing all of their thoughts on an object, situation or action that is neutral and completely unrelated to the picture, as soon as the picture was on the screen. For the reappraisal condition, participants were told to start focusing on the picture as soon as the picture was on the screen but to reinterpret the image in a way that made them feel less negative. For the watch condition, participants were asked to watch the picture and allow themselves to naturally experience the feelings and thoughts that arose. The order of the introduction per condition was alternated. Additionally, participants were instructed not to take their gaze off the images and to limit their head movements during the task.
After this introduction, participants were trained to implement the strategies with examples. Subsequently, participants were trained on a more complete version of the choice trial including the three conditions. Participants were first presented with a negative image and instructed to either just watch, reappraise or distract. Then, they were asked to choose whether they wanted to use distraction or reappraisal as strategy before being shown the same image again. To train the participants on all possible combinations, they were being told which strategy to use during the second presentation of the image in six practice trials.
Experimental
condition Emotional intensity of the image
Instruction before the first image
Monitoring choice after the first image
LDD low distract distract
LDR low distract reappraise
HDD high distract distract
HDR high distract reappraise
LRD low reappraise distract
LRR low reappraise reappraise
HRD high reappraise distract
HRR high reappraise reappraise
LWD low watch distract
LWR low watch reappraise
HWD high watch distract
HWR high watch reappraise
Trial sequence
The trial sequence was as follows: a fixation cross (2100 – 2900 ms), a cue word with the emotion regulation strategy (2500 ms), a black screen (400 – 800 ms), the first image presentation (3000 ms), a choice screen, a black screen (400, 600 or 800 ms), the second image presentation (3000 ms). An example of an experimental trial and its sequence is shown in Figure 2.
Data acquisition
EEG equipment
The continuous EEG data was acquired with the BioSemi Actiview software and Active Two EEG system (BioSemi B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands). 32 Ag/AgCl electrodes were placed on the scalp according to the international 10-20 system. The reference electrodes during acquisition were formed by the Common Mode Sense (CMS) active electrode and the Driven Right Leg (DRL) passive electrode, at locations C1 and C2 on the scalp. SignaGel (Parker Laboratories Inc., Fairfield, United States) was used as conductive gel for the EEG electrodes. The DC amplifier used in this experiment had a sampling rate of 512 Hz and the EEG offset levels were kept below 20 µV.
Data processing
Offline signal processing was performed using EEGLAB (Delorme & Makeig, 2004) and the ERPLAB toolbox (Lopez-Calderon & Luck, 2014) in Matlab R2017b (MathWorks,Natick, United States). The raw EEG data was down-sampled to 256 Hz, re-referenced to channel locations M1 and M2 and the baseline was set to 200 ms pre-stimulus. A high pass filter with the cut off at 0.05 Hz and a low pass
filter with the cut off at 20 Hz was applied. Within every condition, epochs were extracted and analyzed from -200 ms to 3000 ms after stimulus onset. A moving window peak-to-peak amplitude function was applied as artifact rejection tool. Trials were rejected when they exceeded activity of 80 mV within 200 ms. The LPP was constructed by scoring the averaged activity at Cpz, Cz, Pz, P1 and Cp2 (LPP channels) in the 12 experimental conditions. The LPP was defined as the mean amplitude between 300 and 3000 ms after stimulus onset.
Data analysis
First, it was tested whether prior findings could be demonstrated in the current dataset. Specifically, whether there was an effect of emotional intensity on the initial LPP and whether distraction was the most effective strategy to reduce the LPP amplitude in trials with a high emotional intensity. To test this, a 2 x 3 ANOVA was performed with emotional intensity (high, low) and initial instruction (watch, reappraise, distract) as repeated measures factors and the mean amplitude of the initial LPP as dependent variable.
Second, to test the effects of switching between emotion regulation strategies (distraction versus reappraisal) on the LPP, the variable LPP modulation was created. The LPP modulation variable was created by subtracting the post choice LPP amplitude from the initial LPP amplitude, with higher scores resulting in greater regulatory success. Subsequently, a 2 x 3 x 2 ANOVA was conducted with the repeated measures factors; emotional intensity (high, low), initial instruction (watch, reappraise, distract) and monitoring choice (reappraise, distract) and LPP modulation as dependent variable.
Figure 2. The sequence of an experimental trial.
RESULTS
Analyzing the initial LPP
The 2 x 3 ANOVA showed a significant main effect of initial instruction (F(2, 80) = 9.04, p < 0.001) and emotional intensity (F(1, 80) = 17.00 , p < 0.001). The LPP was significantly lower for images with a low emotional intensity (M = -0.44, SE = 0.91) than for images with a high emotional intensity (M = 2.80, SE = 0.91), which is shown in Figure 3. Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no interaction effect of initial instruction x emotional intensity found (F(2, 80) = 0.68, p = .51).
Follow up analyses of the main effect of initial instruction showed a significant difference between the initial LPP of distract and the initial LPP of watch (t(66) = 2.53, p = .014), with the initial LPP of distract (M = -1.07, SE = 1.44) being significantly lower than the initial LPP of watch (M = 2.93, SE = 1.44). Unlike expected, there were no significant difference found between the initial LPP of watch and the initial LPP of reappraise (t(66) = 0.77, p = .45) and between the initial LPP of distract and the initial LPP of reappraise (t(66) =1.68, p = .10). The mean amplitudes of the initial LPPs are visualized in Figure 4.
The expected interaction effect of emotional intensity and initial instruction was not found in the current dataset. Only main effects of emotional intensity and initial instruction on the LPP were found. Using the initial instruction distract resulted in a significantly lower LPP than the LPP of the watch instruction. The LPP of the reappraise instruction did not significantly differ from the LPP of the watch and the distract instruction. This suggests that only the use of distraction resulted in a significantly reduced LPP, independent of the emotional intensity of the image (Figure 5).
Figure 3. The mean amplitude of the initial LPP by emotional intensity high and low, with error bars that represent the 95%
confidence interval (CI). Figure 5. The LPP of the first image with the initial instruction: distraction,
The main effect of emotional intensity on the initial LPP
Figure 4. The mean amplitude of the initial LPP by initial instruction (distract, reappraise and watch) with 95% CI error bars.
The LPP of the first image by initial instruction
Distraction Reappraisal Watch
***
The LPP modulation after the second image presentation The 2 x 3 x 2 ANOVA showed a significant main effect of monitoring choice (F(1, 176) = 9.64 p = .002), with the implementation of distraction as monitoring choice resulting in greater LPP modulation (M = 2.24, SE = 1.64) compared to the implementation of reappraisal (M = -1.07, SE = 1.64) (shown in Figure 6). The initial LPP with the corresponding post monitoring choice LPP are shown in Figure 7.
In addition, a significant main effect of emotional intensity was found (F(1, 176) = 4.28, p = .040); images with a high emotional intensity resulted in greater LPP modulation (M = 1.69, SE = 1.27) compared to images with a low emotional intensity (M = -0.52, SE = 1.27). The third significant main effect found was the effect of initial instruction (F(2, 176) = 4.58 p = .001) on the LPP modulation.
Follow up analyses showed that the LPP modulation with the initial instruction distract was significantly different from the LPP modulation with the initial instruction watch (t(134) = -2.55, p = .012). No significant differences were found between the LPP modulation with initial instruction reappraise and the initial instruction watch (t(134) = -1.42, p = .16). Subsequently, no significant difference was found between the LPP modulation with the initial instruction reappraise and the initial instruction distract (t(134) = -1.20, p = .23), shown in Figure 8. Unlike expected, no The initial LPP with the corresponding post choice LPP after making the
monitoring choice to distract or to reappraise
Figure 7: The LPP of the first image with the initial instruction; watch, distract and reappraise, and the corresponding post choice LPP after making the monitoring decision: distract or reappraise. The LPP channels are the averaged activity of the channels Cpz, Cz, Pz, P1 and Cp2.
Initial instruction: Distraction Monitoring choice: Distraction
Monitoring choice: Reappraisal
Figure 6. The mean LPP modulation by monitoring choice distract and reappraise with 95% CI error bars. A positive deviation from 0 indicates more regulatory success and a negative deviation indicates less regulatory success.
Initial instruction: Reappraisal
Monitoring choice: Reappraisal
Initial instruction: Watch Monitoring choice: Distraction
Monitoring choice: Reappraisal
Figure 7. The LPP of the first image with the initial instruction (watch, distraction and reappraisal) and the corresponding post choice LPP after making the monitoring choice to distract or to reappraise.
Monitoring choice: Distraction
significant interaction effect was found for emotional intensity x monitoring choice (F(1, 176) = 1.83, p = .18). Additionally, no significant interaction effects were found for initial instruction x monitoring choice (F(2, 176) = 1.96, p = .14) and emotional intensity x initial instruction x monitoring choice (F(2, 176) = 0.07, p = .94).
DISCUSSION
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of
switching between emotion regulation strategies (distraction versus reappraisal) compared to using the same regulation strategy on the LPP during an emotion regulation task with negative images. Hypothesized was that in trials with a high emotional intensity, switching to distraction or maintaining to use distraction was associated with a stronger reduction of the LPP compared to maintaining or switching to reappraisal. In trials with a low emotional intensity, the implementation of distraction was thought to be equally effective in reducing the LPP as the implementation of reappraisal.
The present study found that switching to distraction or maintaining to use distraction during an emotion regulation task with negative images resulted in the strongest LPP reduction, independent of the emotional intensity of the image and independent of the initial
instruction. This thus suggests that choosing to regulate with the strategy distraction results in the greatest LPP modulation and therefore the highest regulatory success.
This research question and hypothesis were built around several important assumptions. First, the assumption that images with a low emotional intensity would cause a lower initial LPP than images with high emotional intensity. The present study did find a significantly lower initial LPP for images with a low emotional intensity compared to images with a high emotional intensity.
A second assumption for this research question was that the emotion regulation strategies distraction and reappraisal would both be effective in reducing the amplitude of the initial LPP relative to the initial LPP amplitude without an emotion regulation strategy (watch condition). More specific, based on prior research it was hypothesized that distraction would be more effective than reappraisal for images with a high emotional intensity but that for images with a low emotional intensity distraction and reappraisal would be equally effective in reducing the initial LPP. The present study was unable to replicate this prior finding. Only the use of distraction resulted in a significantly lower initial LPP compared to the watch condition, and this was independent of the emotional intensity of the image.
Distraction is a cognitive disengagement strategy that has an effect early in the emotion generation process and has shown to be an effective strategy for regulating emotions in the short term. Reappraisal is an emotion regulation strategy that needs more cognitive engagement and therefore has an impact later in the emotion generation process. The timepoint at which distraction and reappraisal reduce the LPP has been shown to be different (Thiruchselvam et al., 2011). Distraction affects the LPP around 300 ms after stimulus onset and reappraisal around 1500 ms after stimulus onset. Since the present study calculated the mean amplitude of the LPP from 300 ms to 3000 ms after stimulus onset and did not specifically take these temporal effects into account in the first analysis of the initial LPP, a secondary analysis was conducted to evaluate the main effect of initial instruction on the initial LPP in two separate time windows (300-1500 ms and 1500-3000 ms). This secondary analysis revealed that the initial LPP of reappraisal was not significantly different from the initial LPP of watch in either one of The main effect of initial instruction on the LPP modulation
Figure 8. The mean LPP modulation by initial instruction watch, reappraise and distract with 95% CI error bars.
the time windows (300 -1500 ms: t(66)= 0.50, p = .62) and 1500 - 3000 ms: t(66)=0.89, p = .37).
This finding emphasizes that the initial use of reappraisal was not effectively reducing the LPP relative to the LPP of the watch instruction. Not finding the expected interaction effect of initial instruction and emotional intensity on the initial LPP and not finding the interaction effect of emotional intensity and monitoring choice on the LPP modulation may have resulted from this.
One first possible explanation for the present findings could be that the implementation of reappraisal was not adequately executed by the participants. Since the task included an extensive 20-minute task introduction and training in which participants had to practice verbally with the implementation of each strategy it is important to look for other possible explanations.
Since participants could anticipate on regulating their emotions with distraction or reappraisal it could be argued that participants could already have started implementing distraction before the actual cue screen or image was presented. Distraction is not dependent on the actual image, whereas reappraisal is. Therefore, distraction could have been the more practiced strategy in the task which could have resulted in greater success. However, interpretation of the present findings should be treated with caution, since the number of subjects (17) that participated in this study was limited because of time constraints. If the difference between the initial LPP of reappraisal and the initial LPP of watch is small, the sample size could have been too small to detect a clear difference. Therefore, analysis of the whole dataset (150 participants) should be completed to determine with certainty if the initial instruction reappraisal was effective in reducing the initial LPP in the current study design.
A second possible explanation could be that the present study included participants with sleep bruxism, in contrast to the study of Dorman Ilan et al. (2020), where only healthy participants were included in the study. Previous studies have suggested an association between sleep bruxism, affective disturbances and emotion regulation (Manfredini et al., 2005; Basson et al., 2010; Giraki et al., 2010 & Molina et al., 2015). The present sample included 7 participants with sleep bruxism, which could have influenced the present findings. Completing the analysis with the full dataset and adding an additional between-subjects analysis is necessary to determine if including participants with sleep bruxism
was a cause of finding that reappraisal did not effectively reduce the initial LPP. Another aspect of the present study that deviated from the study design of Dorman Ilan et al. (2010) was not including the emotional intensity of the image on the cue screen of the initial instruction in the task. Anticipating on the emotional intensity of the image before it appeared on the screen might have influenced the emotional response and this alteration in the present study design should therefore be kept in mind when comparing the results of the present study with the study of Dorman Ilan et al. (2020).
One third possible explanation for the current findings could be related to the fact that the present study did not take the different ways in which the strategy reappraisal can be implemented into account. Distinctions can be made between a situation-focused implementation of reappraisal and a self-focused implementation of reappraisal. When using the focused type of reappraisal, the self-relevance of the situation is reevaluated by making yourself more detached from the situation. When using the situation-focused type of reappraisal, the context and actions of others are reevaluated (Ochsner et al., 2004). Since the instruction to use reappraisal in this task was to reinterpret the image in a way that makes you feel less negative, participants could have used a situation-focused or self-focused implementation of reappraisal. Willroth and Hilimire (2016) showed that only situation-focused reappraisal was effective in reducing the LPP and implementation of self-focused reappraisal was not. Not specifying in more detail which type of reappraisal to implement in the present study could explain why reappraisal did not effectively reduce the initial LPP.
It is important to mention several limitations of the present study design and data analysis. First, this study decided to focus on analyzing the neuro-affective consequences of the monitoring decisions made in the emotion regulation task. Additionally, the behavioral preference of monitoring decisions made in the task could have been included in the data analysis to give a more complete view of a possible preference for a strategy in combination with the neuro-affective consequence of choosing this strategy. A second possible limitation of the current data analysis is that by averaging across trials, the changes in the emotional response from trial to trial are ignored. Adding an additional analysis using linear mixed models can overcome this limitation. A limitation of the present study design was that the monitoring options only included maintaining or switching
but did not include the option to stop regulating the emotional response. It is important to address these limitations in future studies to get a more complete view of the implementation stage of emotion regulation and the neuro-affective consequences of monitoring decisions.
To summarize, the present study found that choosing distraction as monitoring choice resulted in a significantly greater LPP modulation than choosing the monitoring choice reappraisal independent of the emotional intensity of the image and independent of the initial instruction. This thus suggests that choosing to maintain using distraction or switch to distraction resulted in the highest regulatory success in the emotion regulation task. As this was a preliminary analysis, these findings need to be interpreted with caution and completing this study with a lager and well-distributed sample size is necessary to determine if these preliminary results will still hold true.
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