title: Effects of regulating positive emotions through reappraisal and suppression on verbal and non-verbal recognition memory.
abstract: Previous research has suggested that regulating emotions through reappraisal does not incur cognitive costs. However, in those experiments, cognitive costs were often assessed by recognition memory for information that was contextually related to the emotionally evocative stimuli and may have been incorporated into the reappraisal script, facilitating memory. Furthermore, there is little research on the cognitive correlates of regulating positive emotions. In the current experiment, we tested memory for information that was contextually unrelated to the emotional stimuli and could not easily be related to the reappraisal. Participants viewed neutral and mildly positive slides and either reappraised, suppressed their emotions, or viewed the images with no emotion regulation instruction. At the same time, they heard abstract words that were unrelated to the picture stimuli. Subsequent verbal recognition memory was lower after reappraising than viewing, whereas non-verbal recognition memory (of the slides) was higher after reappraising, but only for positive pictures and when participants viewed the positive pictures first. Suppression had no significant effect on either verbal or non-verbal recognition scores, although there was a trend towards poorer recognition of verbal information. The findings support the notion that reappraisal is effortful and draws on limited cognitive resources, causing decrements in performance in a concurrent memory task.
authors: Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. cortner@tru.ca
authors: Catherine N M
authors: CN
authors: Ortner
authors: Monica
authors: M
authors: de Koning
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D013060:Speech; D055815:Young Adult
references: Clin Psychol Rev. 2010 Mar;30(2):217-37
references: 20015584
references: J Exp Psychol Gen. 2010 Aug;139(3):520-34
references: 20677897
references: Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2008 Apr;17(2):153-158
references: 25425765
references: Int J Psychophysiol. 2012 Mar;83(3):348-56
references: 22198163
references: Emotion. 2008 Oct;8(5):714-9
references: 18837622
references: Emotion. 2007 May;7(2):354-65
references: 17516813
references: Emotion. 2008 Feb;8(1):132-7
references: 18266524
references: Biol Psychiatry. 2009 Aug 1;66(3):199-200
references: 19577042
references: Behav Genet. 2012 Sep;42(5):778-86
references: 22976548
references: J Pers Soc Psychol. 2003 Aug;85(2):348-62
references: 12916575
references: J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008 Dec;95(6):1526-40
references: 19025300
references: J Pers Soc Psychol. 2000 Sep;79(3):410-24
references: 10981843
references: J Exp Psychol Gen. 2004 Sep;133(3):339-54
references: 15355143
references: Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2009 Sep;33(8):1215-26
references: 19539645