Article (Scientific journals)
What our eyes tell us about feelings: Tracking pupillary responses during emotion regulation processes
Kinner, Valerie, L.; Kuchinke, Lars; Dierolf, Angelika et al.
2017In Psychophysiology, 54 (4)
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Keywords :
Emotion regulation; Emotional arousal; Peripheral physiology; Pupil dilation; Skin conductance responses
Abstract :
[en] Emotion regulation is essential for adaptive behavior and mental health. Strategies applied to alter emotions are known to differ in their impact on psychological and physiological aspects of the emotional response. However, emotion regulation outcome has primarily been assessed via self‐report, and studies comparing regulation strategies with regard to their peripheral physiological mechanisms are limited in number. In the present study, we therefore aimed to investigate the effects of different emotion regulation strategies on pupil dilation, skin conductance responses, and subjective emotional responses. Thirty healthy females were presented with negative and neutral pictures and asked to maintain or up‐ and downregulate their upcoming emotional responses through reappraisal or distraction. Pupil dilation and skin conductance responses were significantly enhanced when viewing negative relative to neutral pictures. For the pupil, this emotional arousal effect manifested specifically late during the pupillary response. In accordance with subjective ratings, increasing negative emotions through reappraisal led to the most prominent pupil size enlargements, whereas no consistent effect for downregulation was found. In contrast, early peak dilations were enhanced in all emotion regulation conditions independent of strategy. Skin conductance responses were not further modulated by emotion regulation. These results indicate that pupil diameter is modulated by emotional arousal, but is initially related to the extent of mental effort required to regulate automatic emotional responses. Our data thus provide first evidence that the pupillary response might comprise two distinct temporal components reflecting cognitive emotion regulation effort on the one hand and emotion regulation success on the other hand.
Disciplines :
Animal psychology, ethology & psychobiology
Author, co-author :
Kinner, Valerie, L.;  Ruhr-Universität Bochum - RUB > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology
Kuchinke, Lars;  International Psychoanalytic University Berlin > Methods and Evaluation
Dierolf, Angelika ;  University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) > Integrative Research Unit: Social and Individual Development (INSIDE)
Merz, Christian, J.;  Ruhr-Universität Bochum - RUB > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology
Otto, Tobias;  Ruhr-Universität Bochum - RUB > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology
Wolf, Oliver, T.;  Ruhr-Universität Bochum - RUB > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology
External co-authors :
yes
Language :
English
Title :
What our eyes tell us about feelings: Tracking pupillary responses during emotion regulation processes
Publication date :
January 2017
Journal title :
Psychophysiology
ISSN :
1469-8986
Publisher :
Blackwell, Oxford, United Kingdom
Volume :
54
Issue :
4
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Funders :
DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DE]
Available on ORBilu :
since 03 December 2018

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