Seeing, thinking, and feeling: emotion-regulating effects of gaze-directed cognitive reappraisal

Cognitive reappraisal (CR) is an emotion-regulatory (ER) process that is theorized to operate via changes in appraisals. CR is distinct from attentional deployment (AD), an ER process that is theorized to operate via changes in attention. However, a recent neuroimaging study has suggested that the ER effects of CR might largely be explained by AD. In this study, I manipulated CR while holding visual AD constant across CR conditions. In a randomized within-subjects design, 54 participants used CR to increase and decrease emotion in response to unpleasant pictures. This was compared with simply viewing the pictures. On all trials, gaze was directed to a circumscribed area of the pictures. Even with gaze held constant across conditions, increase reappraisals led to higher ratings of emotional intensity, greater corrugator activity, and greater autonomic arousal. In addition, decrease reappraisals led to lower ratings of emotional intensity and lower corrugator activity, the latter of which held only when gaze was directed to arousing information. Overall, the results suggest that changes in appraisal are the likely mechanism for the ER effects of CR.