Implicit emotion regulation affects the emotional information updating function of high trait ruminators: An ERP study.

Trait ruminators have negative emotionality, and their emotional information updating function may be impaired. According to the Auto-motive Model of Nonconscious Goal, implicit emotion regulation can improve both an individual's negative emotions and cognitive function while consuming fewer cognitive resources. It is unclear whether implicit emotion regulation affects the updating function in trait ruminators. Experiment 1 recruited 28 high trait ruminators and 28 low trait ruminators to complete the face 2-back task, exploring the characteristics of updating different emotional information in high and low trait ruminators. Experiment 2 recruited 59 high trait ruminators and randomly assigned them to a priming group of 30 and a control group of 29. A word-matching paradigm was used to initiate their implicit emotion regulation, followed immediately by the same face 2-back task as in Experiment 1. The priming group matched idioms containing implicit emotion regulation meanings, while the control group matched idioms without such meanings. Simultaneous EEG monitoring was conducted during this process to reveal the effects and mechanisms of implicit emotion regulation on emotional experience and updating function in high trait ruminators. The results showed that high trait ruminators had impaired positive information updating; implicit emotion regulation improved the positive information updating function of high trait ruminators, decreased the prefrontal P2 amplitude for all emotional information updating, and increased the LPP amplitude for positive information updating. The study provides more specific intervention targets and novel intervention approaches for future interventions targeting rumination and its behavioral symptoms.