Emotional Anticipation Research Articles

Anticipatory emotion regulation of a highly arousing stressor in adulthood and old age

Objectives Most studies of emotion regulation across the lifespan have focused on how individuals manage their emotions during or after emotional events. However the current study examined how anticipatory emotion regulation behavior, a process that occurs before an emotional event has been experienced, influenced young (Mage = 19.66) and older (Mage = 70.02) adults’ affective experience, physiological reactivity, and task performance. Method Participants were first provided with a detailed description of an upcoming evaluative stress task, but were able to regulate their affective state by selecting one video to watch from a selection of 8 videos labelled by valence and arousal before completing the stressful task. Results Participants across age groups were more likely to select a positive video, and participants who made positive selections initially felt better than those who selected negative content, though they experienced sharper mood declines than those who selected a negative video. Negative selections were linked to better performance on the speech task across age groups. Conclusions These findings suggest that, when anticipating a negative situation, participants preemptively increase positive emotions. However, while positive selections served to temporarily improve mood, the effects did not last throughout the stress task. These results provide more evidence for age similarity than age differences in anticipatory emotion regulation effects and behaviors.

What drives problematic online gaming? The role of IT identity, maladaptive cognitions, and maladaptive emotions

This study examines the role of IT identity, maladaptive cognitions, and maladaptive emotions on problematic online gaming. By collecting multiwave survey data, embeddedness, self-efficacy, and perceived enjoyment are found to be key determinants of IT identity. Furthermore, IT identity positively influences intrusive thought, thought suppression, emotion irreplaceability, and negative emotion anticipation. Finally, intrusive thought, thought suppression, and negative emotion anticipation collectively predict problematic online gaming and fully mediate the effect of IT identity on problematic online gaming. This study contributes to the literature by offering noteworthy insights on the formation of problematic online gaming and identifying implications for effectively curbing problematic online gaming.

Erratum to: Keep calm and carry on: electrophysiological evaluation of emotional anticipation in the second language

Erratum to: Keep calm and carry on: electrophysiological evaluation of emotional anticipation in the second language

SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE PROGNOSTIC ABILITY OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT

Background. This article considers the prediction ability (anticipation of future events) in preschool children with hearing impairment. The ability to anticipate the results of their interaction with the surrounding social world is by no means unimportant in the social adaptation of children with hearing impairment. Prediction in preschool children with hearing impairment is a rather poorly studied topic. There are studies about particular types of anticipation, such as emotional anticipation. Based on analysis of previous studies, a detailed study of the structural and functional characteristics of the prognostic ability of children with hearing impairment compared with children with neurotypical development is significant. Objective. To learn about the ability of hearing-impaired preschoolers to anticipate future situations. Design. The empirical study involved 50 children aged 5–7 years with hearing impairment and without developmental disabilities, attending preschool educational institutions of the Republic of Tatarstan. The following methods were used: “Ugadaika” [“Guessing Game”] (L.I. Peresleni, V.L. Podobed) and the authors’ methodology “Prognostic Stories”, developed by teachers at Kazan Federal University. Results. In children with hearing impairment, we identified ineffective methods of carrying out predictive activities, irrational forecasting strategies, forecasting difficulties in certain areas of relationships and activities, as well as problems of mastering the rules in a normative situation. Conclusion. The study confirmed the importance of external regulation in the social life of a child with a hearing impairment, which helps the children to predict more successfully in organized activities than in free ones. The most developed relationships in children with hearing impairment are in the child — parent domain. In their own forecasting, children with hearing impairment are more characterized by a passive position; in most situations, the children pointed to other participants, most often adults, as the subjects of future events.

Supplemental Material for How Anticipatory Information Shapes Subsequent Emotion Regulation

Supplemental Material for How Anticipatory Information Shapes Subsequent Emotion Regulation

Keep calm and carry on: electrophysiological evaluation of emotional anticipation in the second language.

Investigations of the so-called ‘foreign language effect’ have shown that emotional experience is language-dependent in bilingual individuals. Response to negative experiences, in particular, appears attenuated in the second language (L2). However, the human brain is not only reactive, but it also builds on past experiences to anticipate future events. Here, we investigated affective anticipation in immersed Polish–English bilinguals using a priming paradigm in which a verbal cue of controlled affective valence allowed making predictions about a subsequent picture target. As expected, native word cues with a negative valence increased the amplitude of the stimulus preceding negativity, an electrophysiological marker of affective anticipation, as compared with neutral ones. This effect was observed in Polish–English bilinguals and English monolinguals alike. The contrast was non-significant when Polish participants were tested in English, suggesting a possible reduction in affective sensitivity in L2. However, this reduction was not validated by a critical language × valence interaction in the bilingual group, possibly because they were highly fluent in English and because the affective stimuli used in the present study were particularly mild. These results, which are neither fully consistent nor inconsistent with the foreign language effect, provide initial insights into the electrophysiology of affective anticipation in bilingualism.

A Study on the Influence of Safety Perception on the Visit Intention of Haeundae Beach Tourists: Focused on the Extended Goal-Directed Behavioral Model

Lee, M. S.; Lee, J. Y.; Han, U. L.; Park, J. H., and Lee, C. W., 2019. A study on the Influence of safety perception on the visit intention of Haeundae beach tourists: Focused on the extended goal-directed behavioral model. In: Lee, J.L.; Yoon, J.-S.; Cho, W.C.; Muin, M., and Lee, J. (eds.), The 3rd International Water Safety Symposium. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 91, pp. 211-215. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of safety perception on visit intention of Haeundae Beach visitors by applying extended goal-directed behavioral model. To achieve the goal of this study, a total of 243 surveys were collected from beach visitors who have visited Haeundae in recent 3 years. The collected data were analyzed and interpreted by SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 20.0. For the analysis, frequency analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, validity test, correlation analysis and structural equation model analysis were performed. All tests were performed using a .05 significance level. The results of this study were as follows. First, attitude, subjective norm and positive anticipatory emotion had a significant relationship with desire. Second, negative anticipatory emotion and perceived behavioral control had not significant effect on desire. Third, safety perception had a significant effect on desire and visit intention. Fourth, desire and visit intention were significantly related. In conclusion, it is important to increase the level of safety perception in order to expand the number of visitors in Haeundae Beach.

Preparing for the Worst: Evidence that Older Adults Proactively Downregulate Negative Affect.

Previous studies have only investigated age-related differences in emotional processing and encoding in response to, not in anticipation of, emotional stimuli. In the current study, we investigated age-related differences in the impact of emotional anticipation on affective responses and episodic memory for emotional images. Young and older adults were scanned while encoding negative and neutral images preceded by cues that were either valid or invalid predictors of image valence. Participants were asked to rate the emotional intensity of the images and to complete a recognition task. Using multivariate behavioral partial least squares (PLS) analysis, we found that greater anticipatory recruitment of the amygdala, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and hippocampus in older adults predicted reduced memory for negative than neutral images and the opposite for young adults. Seed PLS analysis further showed that following negative cues older adults, but not young adults, exhibited greater activation of vmPFC, reduced activation of amygdala, and worse memory for negative compared with neutral images. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to provide evidence that the "positivity effect" seen in older adults' memory performance may be related to the spontaneous emotional suppression of negative affect in anticipation of, not just in response to, negative stimuli.

Autonomic regulation in response to stress: The influence of anticipatory emotion regulation strategies and trait rumination.

According to the neurocognitive framework for regulation expectation, adaptively regulating emotions in anticipation of a stressful event should help individuals deal with the stressor itself. The goal of this study was twofold: first, the authors compared the influence of adaptive versus maladaptive anticipatory emotion regulation (ER) on the autonomic system during anticipation of, confrontation with, and recovery from a stressor; second, they explored whether trait rumination moderated this relationship. The authors collected data from 56 healthy female undergraduates during a public speaking task. The task involved 4 phases: baseline, anticipatory ER, stressor, and recovery. Participants were assigned to 1 of 2 anticipatory ER instructions (reappraisal or catastrophizing). Heart rate variability (HRV) indexed autonomic regulation. Results confirmed that HRV was higher in the reappraisal than in the catastrophizing group (over all time points, except for baseline). Trait rumination levels moderated the effect of anticipatory ER strategy on HRV during the stressor phase. Specifically, whereas for low ruminators reappraisal (versus catastrophizing) in the anticipation phase led to higher HRV when confronted to the stressor, high ruminators demonstrated lower HRV in that same condition. To conclude, over all participants, using reappraisal during the anticipation phase allowed participants to better cope with stress. However, only low, but not high ruminators could profit from the beneficial effect of anticipatory reappraisal on autonomic regulation. Even though further research is needed, this study suggests that, in female undergraduates, the tendency to ruminate is associated with abnormal anticipatory ER that might hinder an adaptive response to a stressor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Anticipating the unknown: The stimulus-preceding negativity is enhanced by uncertain threat

Anticipating the future is an important psychological process that facilitates adaptive functioning. The stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) is an event-related potential index of anticipation that is elicited in the several hundred milliseconds before an outcome occurs. The SPN is elicited by emotional stimuli, such as electric shocks, and has been proposed to reflect emotional anticipation. To better characterize the functional significance of the SPN, the current study examined the effects of uncertain threat on SPN amplitude. Fifty-three participants from the community completed a task that compared the SPN when anticipating uncertain threat (a 50% chance of electric shock), certain threat (a 100% chance of electric shock), and safety (a 0% chance of electric shock). The SPN was enhanced by uncertain threat relative to certain threat and safety. Thus, the SPN appears to be specifically sensitive to uncertainty above and beyond threat. These results replicate and extend previous findings and inform theoretical accounts regarding the functional significance of the SPN. Furthermore, the findings highlight the utility of the SPN as a measure of anticipation and a tool for research on the effects of uncertainty, in line with recent calls for the development of additional laboratory-based measures of responding to uncertainty.

Computer-Based Executive Function Training for Combat Veterans With PTSD: A Pilot Clinical Trial Assessing Feasibility and Predictors of Dropout.

Background: While evidence-based PTSD treatments are often efficacious, 20–50% of individuals continue to experience significant symptoms following treatment. Further, these treatments do not directly target associated neuropsychological deficits. Here, we describe the methods and feasibility for computer-based executive function training (EFT), a potential alternative or adjunctive PTSD treatment.Methods: Male combat veterans with full or partial PTSD (n = 20) and combat-exposed controls (used for normative comparison; n = 20) completed clinical, neuropsychological and functional neuroimaging assessments. Those with PTSD were assigned to EFT (n = 13) or placebo training (word games; n = 7) at home for 6 weeks, followed by repeat assessment. Baseline predictors of treatment completion were explored using logistic regressions. Individual feedback and changes in clinical symptoms, neuropsychological function, and neural activation patterns are described.Results: Dropout rates for EFT and placebo training were 38.5 and 57.1%, respectively. Baseline clinical severity and brain activation (i.e., prefrontal-insula-amygdala networks) during an emotional anticipation task were predictive of treatment completion. Decreases in clinical symptoms were observed following treatment in both groups. EFT participants improved on training tasks but not on traditional neuropsychological assessments. All training completers indicated liking EFT, and indicated they would engage in EFT (alone or as adjunctive treatment) if offered.Conclusion: Results provide an initial framework to explore the feasibility of placebo-controlled, computerized, home-based executive function training (EFT) on psychological and neuropsychological function and brain activation in combat veterans with PTSD. Clinical severity and neural reactivity to emotional stimuli may indicate which veterans will complete home-based computerized interventions. While EFT may serve as a potential alternative or adjunctive PTSD treatment, further research is warranted to address compliance and determine whether EFT may benefit functioning above and beyond placebo interventions.

All Aboard for "SAM": A New Anticipatory Conceptual Model for Passenger Preconsumption in Cruise Tourism

Anticipation in the cruise sector is nothing new, and passengers are most likely to have to wait for their trips after purchase. Anticipation theory has shown that levels of anticipation will initially be high after purchase then decrease, rising again before the event takes place. Extant research has considered anticipation but has not focused on changes in emotions in this anticipatory time phase. This study is particularly useful to cruise tour operators because of the lengthy booking periods in this sector compared to other holiday types. This research note considers anticipation theory and analyzes the impacts of anticipatory emotion with cruise passengers. It proposes a new Spiked Anticipation Model (SAM), which identifies how consumer anticipation can vary during the prejourney phase. SAM considers anticipatory emotions and time, and spikes are noted as the cruise anticipatory journey progresses. The research has also shown that there are a variety of both positive and negative anticipatory emotions that can be expressed during this stage. This investigation will extend academic understanding of anticipatory theory and provide cruise company managers with a clearer understanding of consumer emotions in this phase that will help them to identify which services and products their cruise passengers may require in this preconsumptive journey stage, thus potentially enhancing customer satisfaction and increasing revenues.

The Role of Pattern Extrapolation in the Perception of Dynamic Facial Expressions in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Changes in the intensity and type of facial expressions reflect alterations in the emotional state of the agent. Such “direct” access to the other’s affective state might, top-down, influence the perception of the facial expressions that gave rise to the affective state inference. Previously, we described a perceptual bias occurring when the last, neutral, expression of offsets of facial expressions (joy-to-neutral and anger-to-neutral), was evaluated. Individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) and matched typically developed (TD) individuals rated the neutral expression at the end of the joy-offset videos as slightly angry and the identical neutral expression at the end of the anger-offset videos as slightly happy (“overshoot” bias). That study suggested that the perceptual overshoot response bias in the TD group could be best explained by top-down “emotional anticipation,” i.e., the involuntary/automatic anticipation of the agent’s next emotional state of mind, generated by the immediately preceding perceptual history (low-level mind reading). The experimental manipulations further indicated that in the HFA group the “overshoot” was better explained by contrast effects between the first and last facial expressions, both presented for a relatively long period of 400 ms. However, in principle, there is another, more parsimonious, explanation, which is pattern extrapolation or representational momentum (RM): the extrapolation of a pattern present in the dynamic sequence. This hypothesis is tested in the current study, in which 18 individuals with HFA and a matched control group took part. In a base-line condition, joy-offset and anger-offset video-clips were presented. In the new experimental condition, the clips were modified so as to create an offset-onset-offset pattern within each sequence (joy-to-anger-to-neutral and anger-to-joy-to-neutral). The final neutral expressions had to be evaluated. The overshoot bias was confirmed in the base-line condition for both TD and HFA groups, while the experimental manipulation removed the bias in both groups. This outcome ruled out pattern extrapolation or RM as explanation for the perceptual “overshoot” bias in the HFA group and suggested a role for facial contrast effects in HFA. This is compatible with the view that ASD individuals tend to lack the spontaneous “tracking” of changes in the others’ affective state and hence show no or reduced emotional anticipation.

Anticipating the good and the bad: A study on the neural correlates of bivalent emotion anticipation and their malleability via attentional deployment

In everyday life, we often deliberate about affective outcomes of decisions which can be described as ambivalent; i.e. positive and negative at the same time. For example, when looking forward to meet a dear friend at her/his favorite concert although one dislikes the music that is being performed. Thus, anticipation of bivalent emotions and their volitional regulation is an important ingredient of everyday choices. However, previous studies investigating neural substrates involved in anticipating emotional events mostly focused on anticipating either negative emotions (punishment) or positive emotions (reward) in isolation, thus inducing either of them separately. Furthermore, these studies rather focused on the effortful down-regulation of affect (i.e. reducing negative or positive affect), whereas such conflict situations may also require us to deploy attention on and thereby upregulate anticipated emotions in order to resolve a decision conflict (e.g., by focusing on positive consequences while orienting away from negative consequences of that same situation). To address this gap, we performed a series of three fMRI-experiments using simple visual and auditory stimuli in order to (i) determine the neural correlates involved when anticipating a bivalent affective outcome that is both positive and negative at the same time – related to a conflict situation and (ii) investigate their malleability during anticipation via voluntary emotion regulation using attentional focusing. In these studies, we (i) demonstrate that brain areas involved in anticipating positive (ventral striatum) and negative (anterior insula) emotional events are co-activated when anticipating the occurrence of both punishment and reward at the same time and (ii) provide evidence that attention on either the positive or the negative correlates with a shift in activations of these co-activated neural networks and associated anticipated emotions towards either the positive (increased activity in ventral striatum, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex) or the negative (increased activity in insula) aspect of the upcoming bivalent outcome. In summary, we provide self-report and neural evidence for the assumption that affective brain systems associated with the processing of bivalent anticipated emotions can be voluntarily controlled by cognitive emotion regulation strategies.

Attention and anticipation in response to varying levels of uncertain threat: An ERP study.

Individual differences in responding to uncertainty have been proposed as a key mechanism of how anxiety disorders develop and are maintained. However, most empirical work has compared responding to uncertain versus certain threat dichotomously. This is a significant limitation because uncertainty in daily life occurs along a continuum of probability, ranging from very low to high chances of negative outcomes. The current study investigated (1) how varying levels of uncertainty impact attention and anticipatory emotion, and (2) how these effects are moderated by individual differences in risk factors for anxiety disorders, particularly intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and worry. Participants (n = 65) completed a card task in which the probability of shock varied across trials. Two event-related potential components were examined: the P2, an index of attention, and the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN), an index of anticipation. The P2 tracked the level of uncertainty and was smaller for more uncertain outcomes. Participants higher in IU exhibited greater differences in the P2 across levels of uncertainty. The SPN did not track specific levels of uncertainty but was largest for uncertain threat compared with certain threat and safety. Greater worry was associated with blunting of the SPN in anticipation of all outcomes. Thus, attention appears to be sensitive to variations in uncertainty, whereas anticipation seems sensitive to uncertainty globally. The two processes appear to be distinctly related to anxiety risk factors. These results highlight the value of examining multiple aspects of anticipatory responding to varying levels of uncertainty for understanding risk for anxiety disorders.

The neuroelectric dynamics of the emotional anticipation of other people's pain.

When we observe a dynamic emotional facial expression, we usually automatically anticipate how that expression will develop. Our objective was to study a neurocognitive biomarker of this anticipatory process for facial pain expressions, operationalized as a mismatch effect. For this purpose, we studied the behavioral and neuroelectric (Event-Related Potential, ERP) correlates, of a match or mismatch, between the intensity of an expression of pain anticipated by the participant, and the intensity of a static test expression of pain displayed with the use of a representational momentum paradigm. Here, the paradigm consisted in displaying a dynamic facial pain expression which suddenly disappeared, and participants had to memorize the final intensity of the dynamic expression. We compared ERPs in response to congruent (intensity the same as the one memorized) and incongruent (intensity different from the one memorized) static expression intensities displayed after the dynamic expression. This paradigm allowed us to determine the amplitude and direction of this intensity anticipation by measuring the observer’s memory bias. Results behaviorally showed that the anticipation was backward (negative memory bias) for high intensity expressions of pain (participants expected a return to a neutral state) and more forward (memory bias less negative, or even positive) for less intense expressions (participants expected increased intensity). Detecting mismatch (incongruent intensity) led to faster responses than detecting match (congruent intensity). The neuroelectric correlates of this mismatch effect in response to the testing of expression intensity ranged from P100 to LPP (Late Positive Potential). Path analysis and source localization suggested that the medial frontal gyrus was instrumental in mediating the mismatch effect through top-down influence on both the occipital and temporal regions. Moreover, having the facility to detect incongruent expressions, by anticipating emotional state, could be useful for prosocial behavior and the detection of trustworthiness.

Altered brain activation and connectivity during anticipation of uncertain threat in trait anxiety.

In the research field of anxiety, previous studies generally focus on emotional responses following threat. A recent model of anxiety proposes that altered anticipation prior to uncertain threat is related with the development of anxiety. Behavioral findings have built the relationship between anxiety and distinct anticipatory processes including attention, estimation of threat, and emotional responses. However, few studies have characterized the brain organization underlying anticipation of uncertain threat and its role in anxiety. In the present study, we used an emotional anticipation paradigm with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the aforementioned topics by employing brain activation and general psychophysiological interactions (gPPI) analysis. In the activation analysis, we found that high trait anxious individuals showed significantly increased activation in the thalamus, middle temporal gyrus (MTG), and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), as well as decreased activation in the precuneus, during anticipation of uncertain threat compared to the certain condition. In the gPPI analysis, the key regions including the amygdala, dmPFC, and precuneus showed altered connections with distributed brain areas including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), inferior parietal sulcus (IPS), insula, para-hippocampus gyrus (PHA), thalamus, and MTG involved in anticipation of uncertain threat in anxious individuals. Taken together, our findings indicate that during the anticipation of uncertain threat, anxious individuals showed altered activations and functional connectivity in widely distributed brain areas, which may be critical for abnormal perception, estimation, and emotion reactions during the anticipation of uncertain threat.

Supplemental Material for Autonomic Regulation in Response to Stress: The Influence of Anticipatory Emotion Regulation Strategies and Trait Rumination

Supplemental Material for Autonomic Regulation in Response to Stress: The Influence of Anticipatory Emotion Regulation Strategies and Trait Rumination

Optical mapping of prefrontal brain connectivity and activation during emotion anticipation

Accumulated neuroimaging evidence shows that the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is activated during emotion anticipation. The aim of this work is to examine the brain connectivity and activation differences in dlPFC between the positive, neutral and negative emotion anticipation by using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The hemodynamic responses were first assessed for all subjects during the performance of various emotion anticipation tasks. And then small-world analysis was performed, in which the small-world network indicators including the clustering coefficient, average path length, average node degree, and measure of small-world index were calculated for the functional brain networks associated with the positive, neutral and negative emotion anticipation, respectively. We discovered that compared to negative and neutral emotion anticipation, the positive one exhibited enhanced brain activation in the left dlPFC. Although the functional brain networks for the three emotion anticipation cases manifested the small-world properties regarding the clustering coefficient, average path length, average node degree, and measure of small-world index, the positive one showed significantly higher clustering coefficient and shorter average path length than those from the neutral and negative cases. Consequently, the small-world network indicators and brain activation in dlPPC were able to distinguish well between the positive, neutral and negative emotion anticipation.

T20. Improvements in PTSD Symptom Severity are Associated With Greater Activation in the Hippocampus During Anticipation of Negative Stimuli

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is often associated with distorted emotional contextualization of memories, leading to re-experiencing symptoms and flashbacks in novel situations. The hippocampus is integrally involved in both memory and emotional regulation. Individuals with PTSD often have reduced hippocampal activity during memory-related tasks. Here, we investigated whether time-dependent improvement in PTSD symptom severity correlated with changes in hippocampal activity during an emotional anticipation task.