Are Emotion Regulation Strategies Associated With Visual Attentional Breadth for Emotional Information in Youth?

Abstract

Attentional deployment is currently considered as one of the most central mechanisms in emotion regulation (ER) as it is assumed to be a crucial first step in the selection of emotional information. According to the broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions are associated with attentional broadening and negative emotions with attentional narrowing toward emotional information. Given that ER strategies relying on attentional deployment (i.e., rumination, cognitive reappraisal and distraction) have the possibility to influence positive and negative emotions by (re)directing one’s attention, there could be an association with one’s attentional scope. The current study investigated the association between the general (trait) use of three specific ER strategies and visual attentional breadth for positive, negative, and neutral information in a selected sample of 56 adolescents (M = 12.54, SD = 1.72; 49% girls) at risk for developing psychopathology. First, participants self-reported on their overall use of different ER strategies. Next, the previously validated Attentional Breadth Task (ABT) was used to measure visual attention breadth toward emotional information. No evidence was found for the relationship between 2 specific ER strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and rumination) and visual attentional breadth for neutral, positive and negative emotional information. Surprisingly, “distraction” was associated with visual attentional narrowing, which was unrelated to the valence of the emotion. These unexpected results indicate the multifaceted relationship between trait ER, distraction specifically, and visual attentional breadth for emotional information. Future research, especially in younger age groups, could further elaborate on this research domain.

Task-irrelevant threatening information is harder to ignore than other valences.

“…This attentional narrowing effect has been equally shown for positive and threatening stimuli (Álvarez-San Millán et al, 2022; Goodhew & Edwards, 2022). However, individual differences in emotion regulation might modulate this effect (Boelens et al, 2021). Further, a recent study (Gokce et al, 2021) has shown that positive affective pictures could increase WM capacity compared to neutral pictures, which could also be behind the increased performance for positive stimuli we observed.…”

Always look on the bright side of life: Individual differences in visual attentional breadth for understanding temperament and emotion regulation in adolescents

“…Instead adaptive ER implies the flexible use of a range of ER strategies to meet contextual demands (Blanke et al, 2020). In line with this, previous work in adolescents has revealed that high trait levels of distraction resulted in more attentional narrowing (Boelens et al, 2021). Distraction is only seen as an adaptive strategy when it is flexibly used and combined with other strategies such as acceptance (Wolgast and Lundh, 2017).…”

Tai Chi exercise improves working memory capacity and emotion regulation ability

“…For example, When Tai Chi is practiced, the practitioner is first asked to relax, to be calm and gentle, to leave all distractions behind, and to focus all attention on their breathing and senses, which is a kind of attention training. Attention deployment is now considered to be one of the core mechanisms in emotion regulation (Boelens et al, 2021) and a prior emotion regulation strategy that has an important impact on the generation, maintenance, or modification of emotions.…”

“…Thus, it is predicted that there is an association between emotional regulation (ER) and the visual attention breadth of emotional information (Fredrickson and Joiner, 2002). Similarly, there is a multifaceted relationship between distraction strategies in emotion regulation strategies and the visual attention breadth for emotional information (Boelens et al, 2021). Tai Chi practice makes individuals pay attention to body posture, action sequences, breathing, and strength at all times, allowing the individuals to increase attention breadth and improve their emotion regulation.…”