Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Soc Neurosci. 2012;7(5):510-24. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2012.667573. Epub 2012 Feb 28.
The neurophysiological study of emotion regulation focused on the strategy of reappraisal-i.e., the cognitive reinterpretation of a stimulus. Reappraisal reduces emotional expression, the experience of both negative and positive feelings, and the amplitude of an event-related potential (ERP)-the late positive potential (LPP). In contrast, the strategy of expressive suppression (ES), being the inhibition of emotional expression, has been reported to reduce subjective feelings of positive, but not negative emotion, and has not yet been investigated with ERPs. We focused on the LPP to assess the correlates of ES in the context of humor perception. Twenty-two female participants rated sequences of humorous (H) and non-humorous (NH) pictures, while their zygomaticus muscle was recorded. A spontaneous (SP) condition, in which participants attended naturally to the pictures, resulted in higher ratings of funniness, increased smiling, and increased LPP amplitude for H compared to NH stimuli. An ES condition, in which participants suppressed their facial reactions, resulted in reduced smiling, without affecting subjective ratings. LPP amplitude did not differ between H and NH stimuli during ES, suggesting equal allocation of processing resources to both stimuli. These results suggest that, similarly to reappraisal, ES modifies the way the brain processes positive emotional stimuli.
情绪调节的神经生理学研究集中于再评价策略，即对刺激的认知重新解释。再评价可减少情绪表达、负性和正性感觉体验以及事件相关电位（ERP）-晚期正电位（LPP）的幅度。相比之下，表达抑制（ES）策略，即情绪表达的抑制，已被报道可减少正性感觉体验，但不会减少负性情绪体验，且尚未用 ERP 进行研究。我们专注于 LPP，以评估在幽默感知背景下 ES 的相关性。22 名女性参与者在观看幽默（H）和非幽默（NH）图片序列的同时记录他们的颧肌活动。在自然观看图片的自发（SP）条件下，H 图片比 NH 图片的有趣程度评分更高，笑容更多，LPP 幅度更大。在 ES 条件下，参与者抑制面部反应，笑容减少，但主观评分没有差异。在 ES 期间，H 和 NH 刺激之间的 LPP 幅度没有差异，表明两种刺激都得到了同等的处理资源分配。这些结果表明，与再评价类似，ES 改变了大脑处理正性情绪刺激的方式。
