The HED Task Catalog is under development. IDs are not stable until formal release. Comments are welcome at github.com/hed-standard/hed-task/issues.

Emotion Regulation Task

HED task ID: hedtsk_emotion_regulation

Family: Emotion elicitation and regulation tasks

Also known as: Cognitive Reappraisal Task, ER Task

View affective images under instructions to reappraise or passively view; self-reported affect, physiological responses, and neural activity index emotion regulation ability.

Description

Participants view emotionally evocative stimuli (typically IAPS images) and are instructed to either passively view them (“look” condition) or regulate their emotional response using cognitive reappraisal (e.g., reinterpreting a car accident as a movie scene). After each trial, participants rate their emotional experience. Reappraisal successfully reduces subjective negative affect and modulates neural activity: it increases dorsolateral and ventrolateral PFC activation while decreasing amygdala activation, demonstrating top-down prefrontal regulation of emotion generation systems.

Inclusion test

An experiment is an instance of this task when its procedure matches, it manipulates at least one of the listed variables, and it records at least one of the listed measures.

Procedure

Participants view emotionally evocative images and are instructed to regulate their emotional response using a specified strategy (e.g., cognitive reappraisal, suppression, or distraction) or to simply attend.

Manipulation

Regulation strategy (reappraise, suppress, distract, attend); image valence (negative, positive); regulation timing (before vs. during viewing).

Measurement

Self-reported affect (valence, arousal); physiological responses (SCR, corrugator EMG, startle); fMRI prefrontal-amygdala modulation; ERP (LPP reduction).

Variations

Named versions that change what the participant experiences or does. The identifier of a variation is hedvar_<task>__<variation>.

Variation

Description

Justification

Reinterpretation/Reappraisal

hedvar_emotion_regulation__reinterpretation_reappraisal

Reinterpret emotional meaning of stimulus (core paradigm).

Participant cognitively reframes stimulus meaning; changes cognitive strategy instructions

Distancing/Detachment

hedvar_emotion_regulation__distancing_detachment

Adopt third-person or distant observer perspective.

Third-person perspective taking; distinct cognitive strategy

Distraction/Attentional Deployment

hedvar_emotion_regulation__distraction_attentional_deployment

Redirect attention to non-emotional aspects.

Attention redirected away from stimulus; different regulatory mechanism

Expressive Suppression

hedvar_emotion_regulation__expressive_suppression

Inhibit behavioral expression of emotion.

Inhibit visible emotional response; behavioral output regulation

Acceptance/Mindful Awareness

hedvar_emotion_regulation__acceptance_mindful_awareness

Observe emotion without attempting to change it.

Non-judgmental observation; different regulatory stance

Situation Selection/Modification

hedvar_emotion_regulation__situation_selection_modification

Choose or alter emotion-eliciting situations (rare in lab).

Choice between stimuli or contexts; different task structure with decision component

Up-Regulation

hedvar_emotion_regulation__up_regulation

Increase emotional response intensity (contrast with down-regulation).

Amplify rather than down-regulate emotional response; opposite regulatory direction

Regulation of Positive vs. Negative Emotions

hedvar_emotion_regulation__regulation_of_positive_vs_negative_emotions

Separate paradigms for savoring and dampening.

Valence manipulation changes emotional context of regulation

Implicit Emotion Regulation

hedvar_emotion_regulation__implicit_emotion_regulation

Habitual/automatic regulation without instruction.

No explicit instruction to regulate; tests implicit regulatory processes

Cognitive processes

This task is designed to engage the following processes:

Key references

  • Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299. (DOI)

  • Ochsner, K. N., Bunge, S. A., Gross, J. J., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2002). Rethinking feelings: An fMRI study of the cognitive regulation of emotion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(8), 1215-1229. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Ochsner, K. N., Silvers, J. A., & Buhle, J. T. (2012). Functional imaging studies of emotion regulation: A synthetic review and evolving model of the cognitive control of emotion. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1251, E1-E24. (DOI, PubMed)

Further references

  • Buhle, J. T., Silvers, J. A., Wager, T. D., et al. (2014). Cognitive reappraisal of emotion: A meta-analysis of human neuroimaging studies. Cerebral Cortex, 24(11), 2981–2990. (DOI)

  • Kohn, N., Eickhoff, S. B., Scheller, M., Laird, A. R., Fox, P. T., & Habel, U. (2014). Neural network of cognitive emotion regulation: An ALE meta-analysis and MACM analysis. NeuroImage, 87, 345–355. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Dörfel, D., Lamke, J. P., Hummel, F., Wagner, U., Ott, S., & Sammer, G. (2014). Common and differential neural networks of emotion regulation by detachment, reinterpretation, distraction, and expressive suppression. NeuroImage, 101, 298–309. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Morawetz, C., Bode, S., Derntl, B., & Heekeren, H. R. (2017). The effect of strategies, goals and stimulus material on the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation: A meta-analysis of fMRI studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 72, 111–128. (DOI, PubMed)