Stimulus arousal level and savoring: An electrocortical investigation

Savoring is an effective positive emotion up-regulation strategy that has been shown to increase electrocortical and subjective response to positive and neutral pictures. In the emotion down-regulation literature, engaged emotion regulation strategies, which involve substantial processing of stimulus content, have been found to be better suited to low-arousing stimuli. Further, prior work had suggested that savoring might be less effective for neutral versus positive pictures (using ratings) and for pictures of cute animals compared to people - results that could be construed as evidence of savoring's reduced efficacy for high-arousing stimuli. Nonetheless, limitations observed for negative emotion down-regulation may not apply for positive emotion up-regulation, in which increased engagement with highly arousing stimulus content may facilitate rather than hinder emotion regulation goals. Here we set out to determine whether savoring would be moderated by stimulus arousal level - an inquiry with practical and theoretical implications. Participants (N = 90, after exclusions) were asked to savor or view high- and low-arousing positive pictures while EEG and picture ratings were recorded. Results showed that savoring increased the late positive potential (LPP), arousal and valence ratings to high- and low-arousing pictures. Bayesian results were consistent with the absence of an interaction between stimulus arousal level and condition for the LPP, but yielded anecdotal evidence that savoring might be more effective at increasing arousal ratings of high- versus low-arousing pictures. Therefore, there is no reliable evidence that savoring is compromised for high-arousing stimuli, in contrast with engaged strategies in the negative emotion down-regulation literature.