Cognition and Emotion

Spending time alone is a virtually inevitable part of daily life that can promote or undermine well-being. Here, we explore how the language used to describe time alone - such as "me-time", "solitude", or "isolation" - influences how it is perceived and experienced. In Study 1 (N = 500 U.S adults), participants evaluated five common labels for time alone. Descriptive and narrative evidence revealed robust interindividual variability and significant mean differences in how these labels were evaluated. Overall, "me-time" was rated most positively, and "isolation" was rated least positively (but not negatively). In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated the linguistic framing of time alone, describing it as either "me-time" or "isolation". Participants (N = 176 U.S undergraduates) then spent 30 min physically alone without in-person or digital interaction. Notably, positive affect increased for "me-time" participants but decreased for "isolation" participants. Negative affect decreased in both conditions, but the magnitude of the decrease was greater after "me-time". People's beliefs about being alone improved after "me-time" but not after "isolation". Further, we explored participants' behaviours and thoughts while alone. These findings demonstrate meaningful variation in how people perceive different time alone labels and provide preliminary evidence that simple linguistic shifts may enhance subjective experiences of time alone.

Failed replication attempts have raised concerns over the prevalence of publication bias and false positive results in the psychological literature. Using a sample of 65,970 test statistics from Cognition & Emotion and Emotion, this article assesses the credibility of results in emotional research. All test statistics were converted to z-scores and analysed with Z-curve. A Z-curve analysis provides information about the amount of selection bias, the expected replication rate and the false positive risk. Lastly, Z-curve is used to determine an alpha level that lessens the false positive risk without unnecessary loss of power. The results show evidence of selection bias in emotional research, but trend analyses showed a decrease over time. Based on the z-curve estimates, we predict a 15% and 70% success rate in replication studies. Therefore, replication studies should increase sample sizes to avoid type-II errors. The risk of false positives with the traditional alpha level of 5% is between 5% and 33%. Lowering alpha to 1% is sufficient to reduce the false positive risk to less than 5%. In sum, our findings may alleviate concerns about high false positive rates among emotional researchers. However, selection bias and low power remain challenges to be addressed.

Emotional inertia (i.e. the tendency for emotions to persist over time) is robustly associated with lower wellbeing. Yet, we know little about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Good quality sleep and frequent use of adaptive cognitive emotion regulation (CER) strategies reduce the persistence of negative affect (NA) over time. However, whether sleep and adaptive CER strategy use work in concert to reduce NA inertia is unclear. In the current study, participants (N = 245) watched a series of film clips and rated how each clip made them feel on negative and positive affective states. Emotion ratings were collected again after a short rest period to determine the persistence of clip-induced affect. Standardised questionnaires were used to index participants' sleep quality and tendency to engage in adaptive CER strategies. Autoregressive models demonstrated that better sleep quality was associated with lower NA inertia (d = 0.25). This association also held when controlling for mean and variability of NA. Interestingly, the association between adaptive CER strategy use and NA inertia was observed irrespective of whether sleep quality was good, average, or poor (d = 0.13). These findings suggest that sleep and adaptive CER strategies hold independent rather than interdependent roles in maintaining emotional wellbeing.

Associations between screen time and mental health may be driven by increased use in young people with heightened symptoms as a means of modifying negative mood. However, the direct effect of technology use on mood remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the effect of active and passive social media use on an induced sad or neutral mood by randomising young people (16-24 years; N = 116) to a sad or neutral mood induction task and assessing mood after being instructed to engage in active or passive social media use. We found both active and passive social media use alleviated sad mood but had no effect on neutral mood. Active social media use was associated with functional emotion regulation strategies relative to passive social media use. These findings suggest a possible beneficial effect of social media use on sad mood, however, longer-term effects on mental health are yet to be determined.

Rumination is a key feature of depression and contributes to its onset, maintenance, and recurrence. Researchers have proposed that biases in the attentional processing of emotional information may underlie rumination, and particularly, the brooding component. This investigation evaluated associations between attentional biases for emotional images and rumination, including both brooding and reflection, in currently and never depressed participants. In two separate studies, participants viewed sets of four emotional images (happy, sad, threatening, and neutral) for 8 s in a free-viewing eye-tracking paradigm. In both studies, currently depressed individuals attended to happy face images and happy naturalistic images significantly less than never depressed individuals. In Study 2, currently depressed individuals attended to sad naturalistic images significantly more than never depressed individuals. There were no statistically significant associations between attentional biases and any of the forms of rumination, independent of their shared relationship with depression symptoms. These findings call into question the robustness of the link between attentional biases and rumination.

The development of emotion regulation (ER) in early childhood is shaped by the development of cognitive skills, particularly executive functions (EF). However, it remains unclear whether specific types of EFs differentially predict ER strategies across various emotional contexts. The current study aimed to explore the association between children's EFs (e.g. attentional control, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility) and children's cognitive vs. behavioural ER strategies preference for sad, fear, and anger contexts. Participants were 78 8- to 12-year-old Latine or part-Latine children (50% female, low- to middle-SES category) recruited in Southern California. Across sadness, fear, and anger contexts, greater reports of cognitive ER strategies were predicted by higher attentional control and being female. However, no significant association was found between children's EFs and their reports of behavioural ER strategies. Specifically, in events triggering sadness (as opposed to fear or anger), higher attentional control predicted a greater report of cognitive ER strategies, whereas lower attentional control predicted a greater report of behavioural ER strategies. Our findings offer valuable additional insights into the existing literature, highlighting the link between children's increased EF skills, their higher preferences for cognitive ER strategies, and their reduced reliance on behavioural ER strategies.

Research suggests that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have life-long consequences on emotional functioning. However, it is unclear how ACEs shape the dynamic features of everyday emotions. In the current preregistered study with two adult ecological momentary assessment samples (Ns = 122 and 121), we examined the linear and curvilinear associations of ACEs with daily emotion dynamic features. We expected ACEs to show linear associations with a higher baseline level, variability, and inertia of negative emotions, as well as a lower baseline level of positive emotions. Moreover, we expected ACEs to show U-shaped curvilinear associations with the variability of negative and positive emotions. The results did not support our hypotheses. Instead, ACEs showed an inverted U-shaped association with the baseline level and variability of negative emotions. Furthermore, ACEs also showed a U-shaped association with the baseline level of positive emotions and a linear association with higher variability of positive emotions. However, all associations were present in only one of the two samples. Our study underscores the critical need to incorporate a broad spectrum of ACEs in research samples to adequately capture their developmental consequences and the role of ACEs in contributing to the baseline level and variability of daily emotions.

People often think about how things could have been better or worse. People make these upward and downward comparisons in different situations and with differing emotional consequences. We investigated whether the direction of counterfactual comparisons affects people's judgements of counterfactual closeness. In four preregistered experiments (N = 2,142), participants saw vignettes where agents lost or won a luck-based game. In Experiments 1, 2, and 4, participants judged counterfactual closeness in two ways: if a counterfactual outcome almost happened, and if it easily could have happened. These judgments were affected by different factors, but did not substantially differ based on the direction of comparison. In Experiments 3 and 4, participants predicted agents' emotions - whether losers would be sad, winners would be happy, and whether both would be surprised by the outcome. Emotion predictions showed similar patterns regardless of whether agents lost or won. Participants predicted stronger emotional reactions when the prior probability of the counterfactual outcome was high rather than low, though this effect was somewhat stronger when agents lost. Together, these findings join recent work in suggesting that Almost and Easily judgments tap into distinct forms of counterfactual closeness, and also suggest this distinction is robust to the direction of counterfactual reasoning.

Negative self-schemas are fundamental to social anxiety disorder and contribute to its persistence, thus understanding how to change schemas is of critical importance. Memory-based interventions and associated theories propose that reconstructing autobiographical memories tethered to schemas with conceptual details that challenge the associated expectations will lead to schema change. Here, we test this proposal in a between-subjects behavioural experiment with undergraduate participants with social anxiety. All participants were asked to recall aversive social memories, evaluated these memories on a series of scales, including estimates of reoccurrence, and provided ratings of negative and positive schema beliefs. Next, half the participants reconstructed (rescripted) these aversive memories with conceptual details that challenged the active schema (conceptual condition) and the other half reconstructed the memories with additional experiential details (perceptual condition). All participants provided again evaluations of the original memory and their schema beliefs. Our analysis revealed that the conceptual condition led to significant reductions in negative self-schemas, increases in positive self-schemas, and decreases in estimates of future negative event reoccurrence. Thus, effective schema-change, both a weakening of negative schemas and a strengthening of more positive, adaptive schemas, is dependent on altering the underlying meaning of associated autobiographical memories.

There is a speed-accuracy trade-off in perception. The ability to quickly extract sensory information is critical for survival, while extended processing can improve our accuracy. It has been suggested that emotions can change our style of processing, but their influence on processing speed is not yet clear. In three experiments, combining online and laboratory studies with different emotion induction procedures, we investigated the influence of both affective states, manipulated with music, and individual traits in sensory-processing sensitivity on the ability to rapidly segregate two visual flashes. Across studies, the musical manipulations pushed participants towards either rapid or slow processing. Individual variations in sensory-processing sensitivity modulated these effects. Our findings demonstrate that affective states, influenced by music, can shift the balance between fast and slow visual processing, altering our perceptual experience. These results also emphasize the interaction of individual traits in sensory processing and affective states.

The present study examines the association between people's interoceptive representation of physical sensations and the recognition of vocal and facial expressions of emotion. We used body maps to study the granularity of the interoceptive conceptualisation of 11 positive emotions (amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, desire, love, joy, interest, pride, relief, and triumph) and a new emotion recognition test (Emotion Expression Understanding Test) to assess the ability to recognise emotions from vocal and facial behaviour. Overall, we found evidence for distinct interoceptive conceptualizations of 11 positive emotions across Asian American, European American, and Latino/a American cultures, as well as the reliable identification of emotion in facial and vocal expressions. Central to new theorising about emotion-related representation, the granularity of physical sensations did not covary with emotion recognition accuracy, suggesting that two kinds of emotion conceptualisation processes might be distinct.

In fear differential conditioning, stimuli that resemble the conditioned stimulus (CS+) are more likely to trigger fear responses. Excessive fear responses on stimuli not like CS + are often associated with anxiety. However, the threat judgments process and how this process manifests itself differently in subgroups with different generalisation rule applications, is unclear. This study examines whether anxiety biases the threat decision process in fear generalisation paradigm and whether subgroups characterised by different generalisation gradients was interpreted differently by drift-diffusion model. We gathered behavioural data through a binary fear generalisation judgment task and clustered participants based on their responses. Reaction time distributions and individual scale scores were analyzed using the hierarchical drift-diffusion model. The model results suggested that similarity and state anxiety facilitated evidence-gathering processes that favoured "threat" judgments, but at the same time, state anxiety weakened the effect of stimulus similarity as evidence. Further cluster analyses revealed that this effect of anxiety on threat judgments only held true for specific subgroups of participants. This pioneering computational modelling effort in fear generalisation underscores the significant role of strategy preference and its complex interaction with anxiety in shaping stimulus processing.

Enthusiasm is a relatively under-explored emotion. The current research explores the unique characteristics of enthusiasm by examining its cognitive appraisals (Study 1, N = 300) and response types (Study 2, N = 298) and comparing it with joy and hope. Participants in both studies recalled and rated events where they felt enthusiasm, joy, or hope. Study 1 revealed that enthusiasm occurs in pleasurable, intense situations linked to desired goals. More than joy, it is driven by goal-achievement anticipation. Compared to hope, enthusiasm is associated with more control, less uncertainty, and immediate relevance. Study 2 defines enthusiasm as a positive, energetic state marked by smiling, presence, fulfilment, and thoughts of positive outcomes. Compared to joy, it incites more eagerness, risk willingness, and inclination to join a movement. More than hope, it triggers immediate action without contemplation of negative outcomes. We conclude that enthusiasm is a positive, energetic condition often triggered by pleasurable, intense situations aligning with desired goals. It differs from joy and hope. Enthusiasm drives action when goals are attainable, and risks will likely pay off. Hope emerges when a goal is uncertain and distant. Joy typically follows goal accomplishment and is associated with feelings of connection and a desire to savour the moment.

Cognitive models of depression posit that persistent negative self-referent thinking (PNSRT) is an important vulnerability factor for depressive symptoms. The mechanisms involved are still understudied, especially in adolescence. PNSRT has been assessed by a behavioural decision-making task, namely the emotional reversal learning task (ERLT). Within the ERLT, PNSRT is operationalised as the learning rate for negative self-reference. The first aim of the current study is to examine the association between PNSRT and depressive symptoms at baseline and follow-up. Second, the current study investigated associations of PNSRT with temperamental and emotion regulation variables. We found no significant effect between PNSRT and baseline depressive symptoms, although the small effect size pointed in the expected direction. No significant prospective effect was found. Additionally, adolescents with greater capacity for response inhibition and better attentional control exhibited less PNSRT. No other significant associations were found with other temperamental dimensions or emotion regulation variables. In conclusion, while the small effect size of the cross-sectional association between PNSRT and depressive symptoms points in the expected direction, no significant evidence was found that PNSRT acts as either a concomitant or precursor to depressive symptomatology. However, the current study did find a relation between low effortful control and PNSRT.

Anxiety can impair the central executive functioning in working memory (WM). Further, the adverse effect of anxiety on the central executive would be greater when threat-related distractors are present. This study investigated the effect of task-irrelevant emotional faces on WM updating in social anxiety. Forty-one socially anxious (SA) and thirty-nine non-anxious (NA) participants completed an emotional face interference n-back task coupled with eye movement recording. The results showed that, in the 2-back task, SA participants had longer reaction times in the angry-neutral and neutral-neutral interference conditions than in the no-interference condition, whereas NA participants had longer reaction times in the happy-neutral and neutral-neutral interference conditions than in the no-interference condition. In addition, SA participants initially fixated on angry faces more frequently and spent more time looking at them, whereas NA participants initially fixated on happy faces more frequently and spent more time looking at them. This study suggests that attentional bias towards social threats reduces the efficiency rather than effectiveness of WM updating in social anxiety. Moreover, SA individuals are better at resisting interference from task-irrelevant positive stimuli, while NA individuals are better at resisting interference from task-irrelevant threatening stimuli.

We investigated the impact of situational awe on topic-specific interest and recognition memory for information presented in immersive planetarium films. Adult participants (N = 131) were recruited among science centre visitors who were going to view one of the films shown in the science centre's planetarium. Participants responded to questions about prior knowledge, topic-specific interest in the film and background information before viewing one of the three planetarium films. After the film, they completed the topic-specific interest scale, epistemically-related emotion scales, situation-specific awe scale, critical thinking disposition scale and a recognition task of the film contents. The results showed that during viewing planetarium films participants experienced awe, but the strength of this emotion varied among films. Additionally, situation-specific awe was strongly associated with another epistemic emotion, namely surprise. As for the recognition task performance, awe decreased error and nonsense detection, and increased false recognition of inferential statements. Finally, awe was found to substantially increase topic-specific interest. These results present evidence that awe has potential to prompt individuals to become more interested in science-related topics.

Investigating social context effects and emotional modulation of attention in a laboratory setting is challenging. Electroencephalography (EEG) requires a controlled setting to avoid confounds, which goes against the nature of social interaction and emotional processing in real life. To bridge this gap, we developed a new paradigm to investigate the effects of social context and emotional expressions on attention in a laboratory setting. We co-registered eye-tracking and EEG to assess gaze behavior and brain activity while participants performed a discrimination task followed by feedback. Video clips of one second in which a confederate displayed either positive, neutral or negative expressions were presented as feedback to the discrimination task. Participants' belief was manipulated by telling them that the videos were selected either by the computer (non-social condition) or by the experimenter in the adjacent room that observed them via videochat (social condition). We found that emotional expressions modulated late attention processing in the brain (EPN and LPC), but neither early processing (P1) nor saccade latency. Social context did not influence any of the variables studied. We conclude this new paradigm serves as a stepping stone to the development of new paradigms to study social interaction within EEG experiments.

This study investigates the temporal dynamics and affective associations related to executive function (EF) performance in primary school classrooms using an intensive longitudinal design. Data were collected from 35 students aged 8.9 to 11.4 years. Participants reported their affective experiences and completed EF measures three times daily following a fixed sampling schedule. The data collection spanned two consecutive school weeks across three primary school classrooms. Utilising Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling (DSEM), we examined 505 measurements of EF tasks and self-reported affective states over two weeks. The findings reveal significant within-person variability in EF, accounting for 52% of the observed variance, with performance declining later in the day and week. At the within-person level, positive affect was associated with improved EF performance, while negative affect was associated with poorer EF. No significant between-person relationships were found. These results underscore the importance of considering within-person processes and affective experiences in educational settings and highlight the need for further research employing intensive longitudinal methods to better understand the nuanced dynamics of affect and EF in real-world classroom environments.