| The set of experiments described in this dissertation use the social neuroscience approach to examine the perceptual and neural correlates of two commonly used emotion regulation strategies: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Regular use of expressive suppression is linked with several indicators of unhealthy functioning because it inhibits emotional expression without decreasing emotional experience (see Gross, 2007, for review). In contrast, regular use of cognitive reappraisal is more beneficial and linked with several indicators of healthy functioning because it decreases emotional experience through the re-interpretation of emotional events. Current conceptual foundations and theories of emotion regulation form the framework for guiding these experiments and are described in Chapter 1.;Even though emotional visual stimuli are interesting and informative, there is little research on the perceptual correlates of emotion regulation. To this end, the experiments described in Chapters 2--4 were designed to identify the perceptual processes underlying cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. In Chapter 2, I describe a novel method for identifying emotional areas of interest within complex visual images. This method is used to conduct perceptual analyses of emotion regulation in the eye-tracking experiments described in Chapters 3 and 4.;In Chapter 3, I describe an experiment examining naturalistic gaze patterns correlated with cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. In Chapter 4, I describe a gaze-controlled experiment to further examine the role of gaze as a mechanism of emotion regulation success, as measured by self-reports of emotional experience. Taken together, the results of these studies suggest that gaze plays an important role in emotion regulation but may not be necessary for successful emotion regulation.;In Chapter 5, I describe an event-related brain potential experiment examining the electrophysiological correlates of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. In contrast to prior research (Foti & Hajcak, 2008; Hajcak, Moser, & Simons, 2006; Hajcak & Nieuwenhuis, 2006; Krompinger, Moser, & Simons, 2008; Moser et al., 2006, 2009), preliminary results suggest that the late positive potential (LPP) is reduced for expressive suppression but not for cognitive reappraisal. Finally, in the sixth and last chapter, I end with concluding remarks, implications for basic research, and potential clinical applications. |
