Emotion regulation across dimensions of emotional response: A multimodal comparison of emotion regulation strategies

Emotion regulation is essential for successful adaptation to a changing environment, and impairments in this capacity are strongly associated with psychopathology. Despite an extensive pool of existing literature, most investigations on specific strategies of emotion regulation have generally been limited to subjective reports of emotional experience. Effects on psychophysiology have been examined with less rigour and coherence, thus limiting a comprehensive understanding of the different regulation mechanisms. In this study, 61 healthy undergraduate students took part in an emotion regulation task in which they were asked to either passively observe neutral and negative stimuli or regulate emotions using one of four regulation strategies: distraction, reappraisal, distancing, or suppression. Participants' emotional responses were measured using subjective reports (valence and arousal ratings), autonomic responses (heart rate, respiration, pupil dilation, electrodermal and electromyographic activity), and EEG activity to assess the effects of different regulation strategies on the various dimensions of emotional response. Initial results point to differential modulation of the emotional response across different strategies and outcome metrics.