Powers John P, Kako Nadia, McIntosh Daniel N, McRae Kateri
University of Denver, Department of Psychology, 2155 S. Race St., Denver, CO, USA.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2022 Apr;174:17-28. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.01.012. Epub 2022 Jan 29.
To better understand how cognitive context can impact emotion regulation through cognitive reappraisal, we evaluated the effects of an additional mentalizing instruction on reappraisal. This manipulation models an existing therapeutic technique in which a client is instructed to imagine advising a friend in a similar situation. We examined the effects of this manipulation on self-reported affect and difficulty as well as fMRI measures of neural function. We hypothesized that the mentalizing context would facilitate the cognitive processing and performance of reappraisal due to the engagement of common neurocognitive resources across these processes. We trained participants to reappraise negative pictures using reinterpretation, and crossed mentalizing with reappraisal in a within-subjects factorial design. Self-report results indicated that the mentalizing instruction did not impact reappraisal performance. We did, however, identify neural interactions between mentalizing and reappraisal. The particular patterns of interaction suggested that reappraisal processing may have been dominant and mentalizing processing diminished when both were instructed. Overall, our findings suggested that mentalizing and reappraisal did engage shared neurocognitive resources, but this overlap resulted in competition between these processes rather than facilitation. We discuss potential mechanisms and identify directions for future research. This study was preregistered at https://osf.io/ym28u/.
为了更好地理解认知背景如何通过认知重评影响情绪调节，我们评估了额外的心理化指导对重评的影响。这种操作模拟了一种现有的治疗技术，即指导来访者想象在类似情境中给朋友提供建议。我们研究了这种操作对自我报告的情感和难度以及神经功能的功能磁共振成像测量的影响。我们假设，由于这些过程中共同的神经认知资源的参与，心理化背景将促进重评的认知加工和表现。我们训练参与者使用重新解释来重评负面图片，并在被试内析因设计中将心理化与重评交叉。自我报告结果表明，心理化指导并未影响重评表现。然而，我们确实发现了心理化与重评之间的神经交互作用。特定的交互模式表明，当同时进行指导时，重评加工可能占主导地位，而心理化加工减弱。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，心理化和重评确实利用了共享的神经认知资源，但这种重叠导致了这些过程之间的竞争而非促进作用。我们讨论了潜在机制并确定了未来研究的方向。本研究已在https://osf.io/ym28u/上进行了预注册。
