Verbal humour preventively regulates negative emotions in trait anxiety individuals: ERP evidence

This study investigated whether verbal humour could preventively regulate negative emotions in high trait anxiety (HTA) and low trait anxiety (LTA) individuals, exploring underlying cognitive neural mechanisms using ERPs and ERO. In a two-factor mixed design, humorous stimuli elicited more positive emotions than neutral condition, with greater emotional improvement in the LTA group. Humour also modulated subsequent negative-stimulus processing: LTA individuals showed reduced P2 amplitude in the humorous condition, indicating decreased early attention to negative stimuli, whereas both groups showed enhanced LPC, suggesting altered late evaluative processing. During humour processing, humorous stimuli elicited larger LAN and sustained LAN amplitudes, reflecting increased cognitive resource allocation during incongruity detection and resolution. LTA individuals further showed stronger late humour-related processing than HTA individuals, as indexed by larger LPP amplitude and greater theta activity. Supplementary analyses showed that Theta negatively predicted LPP, Beta negatively predicted downstream P2, and the Beta-LAN association was present only in the HTA group. However, delta-based regression and mediation analyses provided limited support for specific upstream-downstream pathway. Overall, verbal humour appears to function as a preventive regulator of negative emotions by affecting subsequent early and late processing of negative stimuli, and this effect is moderated by trait anxiety.