Affective congruency effects in the evaluation task can be explained by either spreading of activation or response competition. Eliminating effects of response compatibility by using other tasks (semantic categorisation, naming task) typically also eliminates affective congruency effects. However, there is no need for processing the affective information of the stimuli in these tasks either, which could be necessary for an affectively mediated spreading of activation (Spruyt et al., 2007, 2009, 2012). We introduced a new task to further test this hypothesis. (...) The valent/neutral-categorisation task does not confound affective congruency with response compatibility, but still requires a processing of the stimuli's valence. No affective congruency effect was obtained with this task in two experiments, disfavouring a conditional spreading activation account. On the other hand, a significant priming effect was found for associated word pairs in Experiment 1, providing evidence for the sensitivity of the task to detect spreading activation processes. (shrink)

Current psychological theories of performance anxiety focus heavily on relating performers’ physiological and mental states to their abilities to maintain focus and execute learned skills. How task-specific expertise and past experiences moderate the degree to which individuals become anxious in a given performance context are not well accounted for within these theories. This review considers how individual differences arising from learning may shape the psychobiological, emotional, and cognitive processes that modulate anxious states associated with the performance of highly trained skills. (...) Current approaches to understanding performance anxiety are presented, followed by a critique of these approaches. A connectionist model is proposed as an alternative approach to characterising performance anxiety by viewing performers’ anxious states at a specific time point as jointly determined by experience-dependent plasticity, competition between motivational systems, and ongoing cognitive and somatic states. Clarifying how experience-dependent plasticity contributes to the emergence of socio-evaluative anxiety in challenging situations can not only help performers avoid developing maladaptive emotional responses, but may also provide new clues about how memories of past events and imagined future states interact with motivational processes to drive changes in emotional states and cognitive processing. (shrink)

Upregulation of implicit positive affect (PA) can act as a mechanism to deal with negative affect. Two studies tracked temporal changes in positive and negative affect (NA) assessed by self-report and the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT; Quirin, Kazén, & Kuhl, 2009). Study 1 observed the predicted increases in implicit PA after exposure to a threat-related film clip, which correlated positively with the speed of recognising a happy face among an angry crowd. Study 2 replicated increases in implicit (...) PA after exposition to the same film clip, and showed that such increases were enhanced by priming self-referential stimuli. The findings are discussed against the background of personality systems interaction (PSI) theory (Kuhl, 2000, 2001), which emphasises the role of the implicit self in affect regulation. (shrink)

The adaptation aftereffect plays a critical role in human development and survival. Existing studies have found that, compared with general individuals, individuals with learning disability, autism and dyslexia show a smaller amount of non-affective-based cognitive adaptation aftereffect. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether individuals with depression or depression tendency show similar phenomenon in the adaptation aftereffect, and whether such depression tendency occurs in the non-affective-based cognitive or emotional adaptation aftereffect. To address this question, the present study conducted two experiments. Experiments 1A (...) and 1B used the emotional facial expression adaptation paradigm to examine whether Chinese participants showed the emotional adaptation aftereffect and whether the emotional adaptation aftereffect was influenced by physical features of faces, respectively. Experiment 2 recruited two groups of participants, with high and low depression, respectively, to examine whether they showed differences in the emotional or cognitive adaptation aftereffect. Results showed that Chinese participants showed the typical emotional adaptation aftereffect, which was not influenced by physical features of faces. More importantly, compared to the low-depression group, the high-depression group showed a smaller emotional adaptation aftereffect, but the two groups showed a similar cognitive adaptation aftereffect. These results suggest that level of depressive symptoms is associated with the emotional adaptation aftereffect. (shrink)

How do affective feelings arise? Most theories consider that affective feelings result from the appraisals of an event, these appraisals being the consequences of automatic evaluations processes th...

This article presents a meta-analysis of the impact of minimal exposure to affective stimuli on the emergence of enduring conscious affective feelings. Theories often assume that such affective feelings are linked to automatic appraisals of events (i.e. in the absence of an evaluative processing goal). However, few studies have tested this hypothesis. Moreover, they have provided divergent results. We propose a meta-analysis of these studies to get a clearer picture on this issue. The meta-analysis includes 22 studies (37 effect sizes; (...) combined N = 2159) in which participants were repeatedly exposed to affective stimuli in the absence of an evaluative processing goal before their mood was measured. In this analysis, we focused on the type of stimulus presentation (i.e. visible vs. masked) as well as on the type of stimulus (i.e. faces, pictures, words). The results indicate that the effect of a stimulus is moderated by the visibility of the stimuli. Repeated exposure to visible stimuli leads to congruency effects (i.e. positive stimuli lead to positive feelings), whereas exposure to masked stimuli leads to contrast effects (i.e. positive stimuli lead to negative feelings). Moreover, these effects seem to be restricted to some types of stimuli, with no detectable effects of emotional faces. (shrink)

Although emotion regulation has traditionally been conceived as a deliberative process, there is growing evidence that many emotion-regulation processes operate at implicit levels. This special issue of Cognition and Emotion showcases recent advances in theorising and empirical research on implicit emotion regulation. Implicit emotion regulation can be broadly defined as any process that operates without the need for conscious supervision or explicit intentions, and aims at modifying the quality, intensity, or duration of an emotional response. Implicit emotion regulation is likely (...) to be pervasive in everyday life and may contribute considerably to the effectiveness of emotion regulation. Research in this area has developed several valid methods for measuring and manipulating implicit emotion. The contributions to this special issue highlight the significance of implicit emotion regulation in psychological adaptation, goal-directed behaviour, interpersonal behaviour, personality functioning, and mental health. (shrink)

Kalisch et al. propose a positive appraisal style as the key mechanism that underlies resilience. The present authors suggest that flexibility in emotion processing is more conducive to resilience than a general positivity bias. People may achieve emotional flexibility through counter-regulation – a dynamic processing bias toward positive stimuli in negative contexts and negative stimuli in positive contexts.