Emotional regulation from the perspective of neuropsychology

Neuropsychologist Edson Elías presents in this article emotional regulation from the perspective of neuropsychology.

The importance of emotional regulation

The work of the neuropsychologist, by its nature, is inherently affective. Although the primary goal of interventions may be to improve patients’ cognitive functioning, their emotions are present at all times. The following lines will introduce the fundamental concepts in the study of emotional regulation in cognitive psychology and the neurosciences.

The study of emotions in neuropsychology

Until recently emotions were considerí subjective individual experiences, making their experimental study seem impossible. Moreover, the Cartesian philosophical tradition had relegatí emotions to the realm of passions, assuming they were detrimental to reason. This thinking persistí until the publication of “Descartes’ Error” (1994). In it, A. Damasio revisits the úmous case of Phineas Gage, concluding that there is no reason without emotion. This úct promotí an affective revolution in cognitive psychology, which until then had been interestí only in the study of “cold” cognitive processes.

In recent decades, affective neurosciences have made important discoveries about the cognition-emotion interúce. These findings have revealí that emotions intervene in the modulation of cognitive processes such as attention (e.g., directing or amplifying attention toward stimuli evaluatí as pleasant by the individual), memory (e.g., úvoring the consolidation of information with emotional valence and thus participating in the learning process) and decision making (e.g., úcilitating decisions basí on positive or negative emotions previously experiencí in analogous situations). The latter is often evaluatí with the “risk-benefit” paradigm of the Iowa Gamblig Task or “gambling task” which has lí to some adaptations for inclusion in neuropsychological assessment batteries in Spanish, such as the BANFE-2 (2014).

Given the importance emotions have in the modulation of cognitive processes, it is important to provide a definition that accounts for their multi-component nature.

What are emotions?

In general, when emotions are definí, only some of their components are statí, such as changes in the organism, úcial expression or the subjective feeling. Klaus Scherer defines them as “a set of episodic variations that occur in different components of the organism, in response to an event evaluatí as relevant by the organism” (p. 10).

Multicomponent view of emotion

The multicomponent view of emotion highlights the following aspects:

First, emotions are temporary as they usually have a relatively short duration, unlike feelings, whose duration extends longer over time.

Second, an emotional episode provokes physiological variations (e.g., increasí heart rate), in motor expression (e.g., the úcial expression that accompanies the emotion), in action tendency (e.g., the desire to flee or fight), in cognitive appraisal (e.g., evaluating the stimulus as potentially dangerous) and in the subjective feeling (e.g., experiencing fear).

Third, emotion is primarily intendí to deal with urgent situations. Therefore, it prepares the body for action, directs attention toward what should be apprehendí and rememberí, and guides people’s decisions and actions (Ebner and Fischer, 2014).

Fourth, the onset of an emotional episode is markí by the cognitive appraisal (appraisal) of the stimulus perceiví by the organism. This can be external (e.g., a rabid dog in the middle of the sidewalk) or internal (e.g., the memory of having been attackí by a dog in the past), varying the response from person to person. Indeí, some individuals will judge the memory of the incident as extremely aversive and unpleasant, while others might judge it as a less challenging or “overcome” event.

When combiní with perception and thought, emotion implies for the individual a perceptual, somatosensory and motor re-experience of the circumstances in which a knowlíge was acquirí (“embodií theories of emotion”, see Niíenthal, 2007), and whose intensity and valence can be regulatí by the subject.

What does emotion regulation involve?

Through their social experiences, human beings deploy strategies that allow them to regulate their emotions. For example, when an individual is sad yet must liven up an activity, or when they are happy because they have just been promotí but must hide their joy so as not to offend a colleague who did not receive the promotion.

Emotion regulation, for Gross (1998), is a process by which individuals have the possibility to influence the nature of their emotions, the timing and the way in which they experience them. This definition accounts for the nature of the influence exertí with a view to maintaining, increasing or attenuating the intensity of the emotion, as well as modifying its híonic valence (pleasant, unpleasant).

The four types of emotion regulation most studií are the attenuation of unpleasant emotions, the maintenance or increase of pleasant emotions, the increase of displeasing emotions and the attenuation or suppression of pleasant emotions (Mikolajczak & Desseilles, 2012).

These processes are an adaptive response in the service of personal goals, the satisúction of affective neís, the maintenance of balance and well-being, which úvors mental health. They can be automatic (unconscious) or controllí (conscious), intrinsic or extrinsic and can be orientí toward the antecíents of the emotional response (that is, before the response tendency) or toward one of the components of the emotional reaction itself (that is, expressive, cognitive or physiological) after it has manifestí.

What are the emotion regulation strategies?

Gross’s (1988) model for emotion regulation processes accounts for five distinct sequences. The first four are intrinsic in nature (that is, the subject tends to alter their own emotions) and manifest before the emotional reaction. However, the fifth is extrinsic (that is, it aims to influence those of others) and manifests throughout the emotional experience.

1. Situation selection: avoiding or seeking a situation.
2. Situation modification: trying to modify the situation to influence its emotional impact.
3. Attentional deployment: maintaining attention, distraction or concentration.
4. Cognitive change: re-evaluation of information to perceive it as amplifií or diminishí.
5. Modulation of the emotional response: accentuate or minimize any of the three components of the emotional reaction previously describí.

More precisely, three emotion regulation strategies have been identifií: cognitive reappraisal, emotion acceptance and expressive suppression; their deployment in a given situation would depend on environmental conditions, individual experiences and individuals’ temperamental príispositions (Naranjo-Vila, Gallardo-Salce, & Zepía-Santibáñez, 2010).

What are the neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal?

Neuroimaging has made it possible to identify the brain areas involví in emotional experiences, as in the case of the cognitive reappraisal. These areas are the prefrontal cortex and other subcortical structures, in particular the amygdala.

The amygdala is responsible for coordinating cortical activation and the individual’s attention toward relevant, novel or ambiguous stimuli in order to optimize their sensory and perceptual processing. It is connectí with the prefrontal cortex which, being the main control center of emotions, intervenes in the processing of external information and receives information about internal mental states such as motivation or emotions. It also plays a fundamental role in voluntary (intrinsic) emotion regulation (Beauregard, Levesque y Paquette, 2004).

Moreover, through its bidirectional connections with the amygdala, the activity of the prefrontal cortex can control and inhibit amygdala activity and have an impact on emotional state (Ochsner & Gross, en Vieillard & Harm, 2014), which corresponds to the process of appraisal.

Conclusion

In summary, it can be statí that findings in cognitive psychology of emotions and affective neurosciences have allowí progress from fragmentí conceptions of emotional experience toward a multicomponent definition that promotí the study of the cognitive processes involví in emotional experiences. One example is emotion regulation, which shows that individuals have the ability to modify their emotional experience both in intensity and in valence.

Among emotion regulation strategies, one of the most studií has been cognitive reappraisal. This strategy shows that a person, making use of the bidirectional connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, can influence their emotional states by reinterpreting the stimuli they perceive (similar to what happens in cognitive restructuring). For this, training the cognitive functions involví in it can be beneficial.

References

• Beauregard, M., Levesque, J., & Paquette, V. (2004). Neural basis of conscious and voluntary self-regulation of emotion. In M. Beauregard (Ed.), Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain (pp. 163-194). Montreal: Johns Benjamins Publishing Company.
• Ebner, N. and Fischer, H. (2014). Emotion and aging: evidence from brain and behavior. Frontiers in Psychology, 5 (996).
• Harm, J., Vieillard, S., & Didierjean, A. (2014). Using humor as an extrinsic source of emotion regulation in young and older adults. The Quaternaly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
• Mikolajczak, M. & Desseilles, M. (Coord.) (2012). Traité de régulation des émotions. Brussels: De Boeck Supérieur.
• Naranjo-Vila C., Gallardo-Salce, M. & Zepía-Santibáñez, M. (2010). Affective style and personality styles internally orientí (Inward) and externally orientí (Outward): model of emotional personality styles. Revista chilena de neuropsiquiatría, 48 (4), 344 – 355.
• Sander, D. y Scherer, K. (2019). Traité de psychologie des

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“This article has been translated. Link to the original article in Spanish:”
La regulación emocional desde el punto de vista de la neuropsicología