title: The impact of verbal framing on brain activity evoked by emotional images.
abstract: Emotional stimuli generally command more brain processing resources than non-emotional stimuli, but the magnitude of this effect is subject to voluntary control. Cognitive reappraisal represents one type of emotion regulation that can be voluntarily employed to modulate responses to emotional stimuli. Here, the late positive potential (LPP), a specific event-related brain potential (ERP) component, was measured in response to neutral, positive and negative images while participants performed an evaluative categorization task. One experimental group adopted a "negative frame" in which images were categorized as negative or not. The other adopted a "positive frame" in which the exact same images were categorized as positive or not. Behavioral performance confirmed compliance with random group assignment, and peak LPP amplitude to negative images was affected by group membership: brain responses to negative images were significantly reduced in the "positive frame" group. This suggests that adopting a more positive appraisal frame can modulate brain activity elicited by negative stimuli in the environment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA. mkisley@uccs.edu
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Kisley
authors.forename: Alana M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Jenna M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.forename: Andrea E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Naftz
authors.forename: Jesse T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Regnier
authors.forename: Deana B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Davalos
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult