In (visual) search for a new distraction: the efficiency of a novel attentional deployment versus semantic meaning regulation strategies

Abstract

Cognitive emotion regulation strategies are considered the king’s highway to control affective reactions. Two broad categories of cognitive regulation are attentional deployment and semantic meaning. The basic distinctive feature between these categories is the type of conflict between regulatory and emotional processes for dominance, with an early attentional selection conflict in attentional deployment and a late appraisal selection conflict in semantic meaning. However, prior studies that tested the relative efficacy of these two regulatory categories varied the type and the degree of conflict. Our major goal was to test the relative efficacy of a novel attentional deployment strategy (visual search distraction) and a classic semantic meaning strategy (reappraisal) that have a different type of conflict but a matched degree of conflict. Specifically, visual search distraction involves a strong degree of attentional selection conflict manifested in attending subtle non-emotional features that are camouflaged within potent negative emotional stimuli. Reappraisal involves a strong degree of appraisal selection conflict manifested in construing neutral reappraisals that rely on potent negative emotional appraisals. Based on our theoretical model we hypothesized and found that visual search distraction was as effective as cognitive reappraisal in down-regulating the experience of low intensity of negative emotion (Study 1), but more effective, less effortful, and more strongly blocking emotional information processing than cognitive reappraisal when regulating high intensity (Study 2). A final study ruled out a demand characteristics explanation by showing that participants’ expectations about how they should feel diverged from how they actually reported feeling following regulation (Study 3). Our findings suggest that the basic difference in the type rather than degree of conflict between attentional deployment and semantic meaning determines strategies’ outcome.

Optimizing emotion regulation in borderline personality disorder: why and when strategies do and do not work

“…In one study, HCs were shown images of varying intensities and instructed to either implement engagement reappraisal or disengagement distraction following image exposure. Consistent with theory, the effectiveness of the strategies was comparable following exposure to low intensity images, but distraction was more effective than reappraisal following high intensity image exposure (Sheppes et al, 2014b).…”

Automatic Reappraisal-Based Implementation Intention Produces Early and Sustainable Emotion Regulation Effects: Event-Related Potential Evidence

“…This self-regulation strategy has been established to effectively downregulate subjective emotional experiences (Ochsner et al, 2004 ; Ray et al, 2010 ), emotion-expressive behavior (Gross, 1998 ), and amygdala activation (Chen et al, 2017 ). However, recent studies indicate that the controlled reappraisal (CR) initiated by explicit and conscious instructions is less effective and more effortful in high than in low emotional intensity (Sheppes et al, 2014 ; Shafir et al, 2015 ). For example, CR resulted in weaker modulation of self-reported negative experience compared with distraction (Shafir et al, 2015 ) or attentional deployment (Sheppes et al, 2014 ) even though CR was as effective as these strategies in downregulating low-intensity negative emotions.…”

Remembering and Responding to Distressing Autobiographical Memories: Exploring Risk and Intervention Targets for Posttraumatic Stress in Traumatized Refugees

“…For example, in contrast to sad or distressing memories among nontrauma populations, distressing memory recollection in severely traumatized individuals may elicit intense and unwanted negative emotion (e.g., fear); the levels of distress as well as the link to PTS symptom severity in the present data are consistent with this hypothesis. This may be important insofar as emotion regulation via alternative evaluation and meaning making of the negative stimuli may be less adaptive, less effective, and thus less preferred in the context of high negative emotional intensity (Shafir, Schwartz, Blechert, & Sheppes, 2015; Sheppes, Brady, & Samson, 2014; Sheppes, Catran, & Meiran, 2009; Silvers, Weber, Wager, & Ochsner, 2015). Thus, a self-distanced perspective may be functionally incongruent in the context of intense acutely distressing and unwanted autobiographical memories, demanding greater effort and cognitive control than a self-immersed perspective (Silvers et al, 2015).…”