Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis is concerned with the automatic emotion regulation by executive function.It has been reported that engagement in several kinds of executive function tasks can successfully inhibit unpleasant emotions.Until very recently, however, the effect of executive function has received much less empirical attention.The present study focused on the role of executive function in emotion regulation and sought to answer two main questions.The first question is whether activation of executive function is an important component in attenuation of emotional responses.The second question was how prior activation of executive function attenuates subsequent emotion.To answer the first question, four experiments were comprised.Experiment 1 revealed that engagement in an executive function task can implicitly attenuate subsequent emotion.Experiment 2 revealed that the prior executive function task performance enhanced executive function, and that this activated executive function affected the subsequent task performance.These results supported the notion that activated executive function implicitly attenuates subsequent emotional responses.To exclude other explanations, Experiment 3 revealed that lack of resources following a prior executive function task performance could not attenuate subsequent emotion.Finally, this notion was also supported by Experiment 4 examining ERPs.Taken together, the results supported the notion that the activation of executive function is an important component in the attenuation of emotional responses.To answer the second question, two experiments were comprised.First, Experiment 5 sought to test whether prior executive function task performance modulates both up-and down-regulation.This experiment established that executive function task performance can affect only the inhibitory aspects of subsequent emotion processing.Next, Experiment 6 was conducted to investigate whether prior activation of IV executive function modulates bottom-up processes of emotion and found that the activation of executive function can affect the bottom-up processes of emotion.Taken together, the two experiments supported the notion that the enhancement of executive function mainly helps the sensory control of emotions only.In the final part of this thesis, these findings were combined to clarify the role of executive function in emotion regulation.With the consequence of this study, I sought to discuss the mechanism of emotion regulation.
Authors: Saea Iida, 沙依亜 飯田
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W570433864