Frontal EEG and emotion regulation: Electrocortical activity in response to emotional film clips is associated with reduced mood induction and attention interference effects

Abstract

Frontal EEG activity is thought to reflect affective dispositions, but may also reflect the emotional demands of a specific context combined with the capability to regulate emotions in that context. The present study examined this hypothesis by testing whether frontal EEG activity during mood inductions versus a resting baseline predicted emotion regulation. EEG was recorded while participants (N = 66, 40 females) received a fearful, sad, or neutral mood induction. Emotion regulation was measured following the mood inductions as self-reported change in negative mood and as attention interference in a task with mood-congruent emotional distracters. Greater frontal EEG activity during the mood inductions versus baseline was associated with more effective emotion regulation: less post-induction sadness and anxiety and reduced mood-congruent attention interference effects. Effects did not differ between the left and right hemispheres. Results support the hypothesis that frontal EEG activity reflects both emotional context and emotion-regulatory capabilities. Keywords EEG; emotion regulationGreater left frontal EEG activity measured during resting conditions has been associated with a disposition for behavioral approach and the expression of approach-related emotions such as happiness and anger, whereas relatively greater resting right frontal EEG activity has been associated with a disposition for behavioral withdrawal and the expression of avoidance-related emotions such as sadness, fear, and anxiety (e.g., Coan & Allen, 2004;Harmon-Jones & Allen, 1998;Hugdahl & Davidson, 2003;Schmidt & Fox, 1998). Such findings have been used to support the dispositional view of frontal EEG, and are consistent with research on traumatic brain injury due to stroke showing that damage to the left frontal cortex compromises the ability to down-regulate negative emotion (House, Dennis, Molyneux, Warlow, & Hawton, 1989;Watson et al., 1995), although a meta-analysis of lesion studies failed to support this hypothesis (Carson et al., 2000).Complementing this dispositional view, the capability model of frontal EEG asymmetry suggests that while EEG activity may reflect such general affective dispositions, individual © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptBiol Psychol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 December 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript differences in frontal EEG may more accurately be thought of as emerging from the interaction between the emotional...

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