Stimulus appraisal modulates cardiac reactivity to briefly presented mutilation pictures

Emotional reactions to threatening situations can be either advantageous for human adaptation or unfavorable for physical and mental health if sustained over prolonged periods of time. These contrasting effects mostly depend on the individual's capacity for emotion regulation. It has been shown, for example, that changing appraisal can alter the course of emotional processing. In the present study, the influence of stimulus appraisal over cardiac reactivity to briefly presented (200ms) mutilation pictures was tested in the context of an affective classification task. Heart rate and reaction time of twenty-four undergraduate students were monitored during the presentation of pictures (neutral or mutilated bodies) in successive blocks. In one condition (real), participants were told that the pictures depicted real events. In the other condition (fictitious), they were told that the pictures were taken from movie scenes. As expected, the results showed a more pronounced bradycardia to mutilation pictures, in comparison to neural pictures, in the real context. In the fictitious context, a significant attenuation of the emotional modulation (defensive bradycardia) was observed. However, this attenuation seemed to be transient because it was only observed in the first presentation block of the fictitious context. Reaction time to classify mutilation pictures, compared to neutral pictures, was slower in both contexts, reflecting the privileged processing of emotionally laden material. The present findings show that even briefly presented mutilation pictures elicit a differential cardiac reactivity and modulate behavioral performance. Importantly, changing stimulus appraisal attenuates the emotional modulation of cardiac reactivity (defensive bradycardia).