Emotion Induction Research Articles

Linking brain-heart interactions to emotional arousal in immersive virtual reality.

The subjective experience of emotions is linked to the contextualized perception and appraisal of changes in bodily (e.g., heart) activity. Increased emotional arousal has been related to attenuated high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), lower EEG parieto-occipital alpha power, and higher heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP) amplitudes. We studied emotional arousal-related brain-heart interactions using immersive virtual reality (VR) for naturalistic yet controlled emotion induction. Twenty-nine healthy adults (13 women, age: 26 ± 3) completed a VR experience that included rollercoasters while EEG and ECG were recorded. Continuous emotional arousal ratings were collected during a video replay immediately after. We analyzed emotional arousal-related changes in HF-HRV as well as in BHIs using HEPs. Additionally, we used the oscillatory information in the ECG and the EEG to model the directional information flows between the brain and heart activity. We found that higher emotional arousal was associated with lower HEP amplitudes in a left fronto-central electrode cluster. While parasympathetic modulation of the heart (HF-HRV) and parieto-occipital EEG alpha power were reduced during higher emotional arousal, there was no evidence for the hypothesized emotional arousal-related changes in bidirectional information flow between them. Whole-brain exploratory analyses in additional EEG (delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma) and HRV (low-frequency, LF, and HF) frequency bands revealed a temporo-occipital cluster, in which higher emotional arousal was linked to decreased brain-to-heart (i.e., gamma→HF-HRV) and increased heart-to-brain (i.e., LF-HRV → gamma) information flow. Our results confirm previous findings from less naturalistic experiments and suggest a link between emotional arousal and brain-heart interactions in temporo-occipital gamma power.

Unpleasant emotions and task-unrelated thoughts and their associations with amygdala activity during emotional distraction: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Previous emotion regulation studies revealed that emotional distraction decreases unpleasant emotions. This study examined whether distraction tasks decrease unpleasant task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) and unpleasant emotions when recalling stressful daily interpersonal events. Amygdala activity was examined to assess implicit emotional changes using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The behavioral data of 20 university students (mean age: 20.35 ± 1.42 years; range: 18–24 years) and fMRI data of 18 students were examined. As an emotion induction procedure, participants initially freely recalled memories of daily stressful interpersonal events and then responded to a series of questions about their recalled memories presented on a monitor. In the distraction experiment, the questions were re-represented as an emotional stimulation; a distraction task (nonconstant or constant finger tapping) or rest condition was then performed, and ratings were given for attentional state, thought types conceived during the tasks, and emotional state. Decreases in unpleasant emotions and TUTs were defined as distraction effects. We found that unpleasant TUTs decreased in the nonconstant relative to rest condition (p < .05). Furthermore, increased right amygdala activation positively correlated with unpleasant emotions, and bilateral amygdala activation correlated with unpleasant TUTs only in the rest condition, indicating the existence of amygdala activation associated with unpleasant emotions and thoughts. However, such associations were not under nonconstant or constant conditions, indicating distraction effects. Notably, this study showed that emotional distraction can decrease the degree of unpleasant emotions and the occurrence of unpleasant thoughts regarding common daily emotions.

“Powered by emotions”: Exploring emotion induction in out‐of‐school authentic science learning

AbstractThis study explored the impact of authentic out‐of‐school learning on students' beliefs about their science learning efficacy and career aspirations. The learning activity, designed following an authentic learning framework, was led by research scientists. We examined how students' emotions, induced in an authentic scientific activity, mediated the connection between the perceived authenticity and the self‐efficacy/aspiration beliefs. Data were gathered from 177 secondary science students participating in an out‐of‐school activity using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Three questionnaires were applied: (1) Perceived authenticity (Post, 7 items, Likert scale); (2) Semantic differential emotion questionnaire (SDEQ) (Pre‐Post, 5 items); and (3) Beliefs questionnaire in two parts: Self‐efficacy and science aspirations (pre‐post, 7 + 5 items, Likert scale). The collected data were integrated into quantitative models of affect with authenticity as an independent variable, the differences in the pre‐post belief structures as the dependent variable, and the emotions as mediators. Multiple regression analyses were performed to develop the models by evaluating the size and significance of the relationships between the variables. The results indicated the perceived authenticity significantly predicted both self‐efficacy and the career aspiration pre‐post differences. However, emotions behaved as a mediating variable only for self‐efficacy growth. An additional model evaluated the connection between students' emotions learning science in school and their experience of authenticity and emotions in the out‐of‐school activity. The study contributes to the literature by revealing underlying affective mechanisms related to out‐of‐school authentic science activities and suggesting theoretical and empirical justifications.

Emotion dysregulation and posttraumatic stress symptom severity: The influence of cortisol reactivity following idiographic emotion inductions.

Emotion dysregulation plays a central role in the etiology and maintenance of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Individual differences in physiological responses to emotionally evocative events may influence the strength of this association. The objective of this study was to test whether cortisol reactivity following idiographic emotion induction tasks moderated the relation between emotion dysregulation and PTSS severity. Participants were 94 community women currently experiencing intimate partner violence and using substances (age: M = 40.5 years; 35.2% Black; 61.5% unemployed). PTSS severity was assessed at baseline via a clinician-administered diagnostic interview. Participants provided a self-report of emotion dysregulation at baseline. Samples of salivary cortisol were collected pre-, during, and postidiographic emotion inductions during an experimental session. A significant emotion dysregulation by cortisol reactivity interaction was found (b = 0.18, p = .02). Emotion dysregulation was related to PTSS severity for those with high (b = 0.13, p < .001), but not low (b = -0.001, p = .99), levels of cortisol reactivity following idiographic emotion inductions. Findings provide novel evidence of the interplay of emotion dysregulation and cortisol reactivity, an indicator of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system axis stress reactivity, following emotionally evocative stimuli in relation to PTSS severity. Information from this study may help to identify individuals who are at highest risk of more severe PTSS. Future work is needed to replicate findings among diverse populations impacted by trauma (e.g., veterans, men). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Depression, higher level of tension induction, and impaired coping strategies in response to stress in women with PCOS correlate with clinical and laboratory indices of hyperandrogenism and not with central obesity and insulin resistance.

to examine the mental condition, self-esteem, and ways of coping with stress in women with PCOS compared to age and BMI-matched healthy controls and to correlate them with clinical and laboratory hyperandrogenism, central obesity, and IR. 42 women with PCOS and 39 controls were assessed for the above-mentioned psychological measures and correlated with serum hormonal and metabolic parameters. Compared to controls, women with PCOS had more symptoms of depression (p = 0.026), a higher level of tension induction (p = 0.032), were more prone to alcohol consumption (p = 0.015), and were less likely to use the strategy of active coping in stressful situations (p = 0.014) and to seek instrumental (p = 0.048) and emotional support (p = 0.043). The presence of hirsutism correlated negatively with the level of emotional induction (R = -0.32, p < 0.05), and androgenic alopecia positively with the hedonistic tone (R = 0.36, p < 0.05). Serumtestosterone (TST) correlated positively with the likelihood of seeking instrumental support in stressful situations (R = 0.31, p < 0.05) and with emotional focus (R = 0.34, p < 0.05). Serum androstenedione (A4-dione) correlated negatively with the escape behavior (R = -0.32, p < 0.05). No correlations were found between waist circumference and IR with the studied psychological measures. Women with PCOS are characterized by depression, higher levels of tension induction, and impaired coping strategies in stressful situations, which correlate with clinical and laboratory indices of hyperandrogenism and not with central obesity and IR.

FBSA-Net: A novel model based on attention mechanisms for emotion recognition in VR and 2D scenes

Recent studies have found that electroencephalographic (EEG) features from different frequency bands and different brain regions contribute differently to emotion recognition (ER) in virtual reality (VR) and two-dimensional (2D) scenes. Despite achievements in the task of ER in both VR and 2D environments, there has not been much prior effort to develop a unified ER model that can be applied to both VR and 2D environments. We propose a novel Frequency-Band-Spatial-based Attention Network, named FBSA-Net, for ER in VR and 2D scenes. Specifically, FBSA-Net adaptively captures the frequency-band-spatial relationship of EEG signals through cascade fusion of frequency-band attention (FBA) module and spatial attention (SA) module. The FBA module can automatically assign FBA weights to each band feature. The SA module then applies the ProbeParse attention mechanism to adaptively explore channel relationships both within and across brain regions, thus facilitating a comprehensive understanding of the global features of the EEG signals. The model's efficacy was validated through the VRSDEED dataset, created from emotion induction experiments using VR and 2D induction programs. Multiple comparative experiments have shown that FBSA-Net achieved state-of-the-art recognition results on VRSDEED datasets, achieving average recognition accuracies of 96.63% and 96.49% in VR and 2D scenes, respectively. The research results indicate that the significant contribution of FBSA-Net is not only reflected in the ability to provide ER using the same model in VR and 2D environments, but also in its excellent ability to distinguish between the emotional states in these two scenarios, providing a valuable reference for using the same model for ER.

A Multimodal Dataset for Mixed Emotion Recognition

Mixed emotions have attracted increasing interest recently, but existing datasets rarely focus on mixed emotion recognition from multimodal signals, hindering the affective computing of mixed emotions. On this basis, we present a multimodal dataset with four kinds of signals recorded while watching mixed and non-mixed emotion videos. To ensure effective emotion induction, we first implemented a rule-based video filtering step to select the videos that could elicit stronger positive, negative, and mixed emotions. Then, an experiment with 80 participants was conducted, in which the data of EEG, GSR, PPG, and frontal face videos were recorded while they watched the selected video clips. We also recorded the subjective emotional rating on PANAS, VAD, and amusement-disgust dimensions. In total, the dataset consists of multimodal signal data and self-assessment data from 73 participants. We also present technical validations for emotion induction and mixed emotion classification from physiological signals and face videos. The average accuracy of the 3-class classification (i.e., positive, negative, and mixed) can reach 80.96% when using SVM and features from all modalities, which indicates the possibility of identifying mixed emotional states.

Coping with emotional pain: An experimental comparison of acceptance vs. avoidance coping

The present study compared multi-methodically and multi-dimensionally the effects of acceptance and avoidance coping with emotional pain, both between and within-group. Convenience sampling was used, with 88 participants included (81.8% females; Mage = 21.75 years) and being randomly assigned to one of two instructed groups: (a) Acceptance followed by avoidance of pain sensations and thoughts, and (b) Avoidance followed by acceptance. All participants underwent an emotional pain induction procedure three times involving negative autobiographical recall and an emotional-pain standardized script. In the first emotion induction, no instructions were given whereas in the other two, participants were instructed to use the techniques they were trained in. On both autobiographical and emotional-pain script tasks, participants who used firstly avoidance and secondly acceptance exhibited significantly lower mean heart rate and higher mean heart rate variability RR index across time. Also, in the last emotional pain induction, on both tasks, acceptance resulted in lower physiological activation than avoidance. No significant differences were found for the self-report of negative affect. Overall, acceptance vs. avoidance differences were mostly found in the physiological outcomes, suggesting the importance of including objective measures when examining coping techniques. Our findings suggest that ACT's concept of creative hopelessness is supported, as participants may have to use firstly use ineffective coping strategies to better understand what methods are most effective for managing pain. To our knowledge, this study is the first study to compare acceptance vs. avoidance coping with emotional pain both between and within-group, using a multi-method and multi-dimensional approach.

Borderline personality disorder and learning: The influences of emotional state and social versus nonsocial feedback

BackgroundBorderline personality disorder (BPD) has been associated with decision-making deficits, yet such deficits may be context dependent, particularly emotional state and social context. Reinforcement learning models offer an avenue to pinpoint decision-making impairments. The current study used reinforcement learning models to examine whether feedback type (social vs. nonsocial) or emotional state (neutral vs. negative) influence the association between BPD and decision making. MethodAdults (N = 131) with a range of BPD symptoms completed a diagnostic interview and a computerized learning task after neutral and negative emotion inductions. We examined accuracy, learning rate, and exploration. ResultsWe conducted linear models to examine the association between BPD criteria, feedback type, and emotional state on learning parameters and learning accuracy. We found that the negative emotion condition was associated with greater exploration, particularly for those with elevated BPD features. Furthermore, elevated BPD features were associated with impaired accuracy when aiming to avoid loss. A 3-way interaction between BPD, emotion, and feedback indicated that, for people with higher BPD features, learning performance was further impaired when receiving social feedback in the negative emotion condition. LimitationsSeveral limitations warrant mention, including a relatively homogenous sample, possible co-occurring diagnoses, and methodological consideration with the learning task. ConclusionsThe present study underscored the link between BPD and learning impairments. Amplified learning alterations under negative social contexts have important implications for identifying optimal venues to teach new skills (of relevance to treatment) for those with BPD.

Integrating sound effects and background music in Robotic storytelling – A series of online studies across different story genres

Social robots as storytellers combine advantages of human storytellers – such as embodiment, gestures, and gaze – and audio books – large repertoire of voices, sound effects, and background music. However, research on adding non-speech sounds to robotic storytelling is yet in its infancy. The current series of four online studies investigates the influence of sound effects and background music in robotic storytelling on recipients’ storytelling experience and enjoyment, robot perception, and emotion induction across different story genres, i.e. horror, detective, romantic and humorous stories. Results indicate increased enjoyment for romantic stories and a trend for decreased fatigue for all genres when adding sound effects and background music to the robotic storytelling. Of the four genres examined, horror stories seem to benefit the most from the addition of non-speech sounds. Future research should provide guidelines for the selection of music and sound effects to improve the realization of non-speech sound-accompanied robotic storytelling. In conclusion, our ongoing research suggests that the integration of sound effects and background music holds promise for enhancing robotic storytelling, and our genre comparison provides first guidance of when to use them.

The inductive effect of musical mode types on emotions and physiological responses: Chinese pentatonic scales versus Western major/minor modes.

The value of music lies in its ability to evoke emotions. People can gain emotional experiences in music and can also regulate their own emotions through music. Music has its own structural rules, and exploring the relationship between musical structure and emotions is an important approach to understanding the mechanism of music-induced emotions. Musical mode refers to the arrangement of intervals around the tonic, presenting different musical modes based on the central tone and the arrangement of intervals, including Chinese pentatonic modes and Western major and minor modes. Musical morphology indicates significant differences in the construction intensity of traditional Chinese pentatonic modes and major and minor modes, affecting their mode forms and thus determining their adaptability to external influences. Exploring the modalities of music and the effects of individual music training experiences on emotion induction; validating whether musical modes exhibit cross-cultural universality in the process of emotion induction. This study recruited 65 university students as participants (34 with music training experience, 31 without music training experience). Through a passive listening paradigm using the GEMS and combined with a biofeedback equipment, it explored the differences in behavioral and physiological indicators (skin conductance, temperature, heart rate) of emotional experiences (basic and aesthetic emotions) influenced by the modal forms of Chinese traditional pentatonic modes and Western major and minor modes. Firstly, the arousal level of music emotion is a primary factor influencing individuals' aesthetic emotional experiences in music, which is related to the intensity of modal construction in music; Secondly, the emotional pleasure and skin temperature change induced by pentatonic music are greater than those induced by major and minor modes; Thirdly, the arousal level, electrodermal change, and heart rate variability of major and minor modes are greater than those of pentatonic music; Finally, music training experience enhances college students' familiarity and preference for pentatonic music, thereby strengthening the electrodermal physiological indicators of emotional experiences. The different modal forms of music express different levels of emotional arousal, leading to differences in individuals' emotional dimensions and physiological indicators in music. Additionally, individuals' music training experiences and cultural backgrounds also influence their experience of music emotions.

Apples and oranges: PTSD patients and healthy individuals are not comparable in their subjective and physiological responding to emotion induction and bilateral stimulation.

Bilateral stimulation is a core element of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy, a psychotherapeutic intervention for the treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Promising previous findings showed measurable physiological effects of bilateral stimulation in healthy individuals, but studies that replicated these findings in PTSD patients are sparse. 23 patients with PTSD and 30 healthy controls were confronted with affective standard scripts (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant) while bilateral tactile stimulation was applied. Monolateral and no stimulation served as control conditions. Noise-induced startle reflex response (valence measure) and galvanic skin response (arousal measure) were used for physiological responses and the valence and arousal scale of the Self-Assessment-Manikin for subjective responses. Both groups showed a subjective distress reduction for unpleasant scripts and a subjective attention increase for positive scripts under bilateral stimulation. In healthy individuals, this was also for physiological measures, and a general startle-reducing effect of bilateral stimulation in the absence of affective stimuli was found. In PTSD patients, however, the effects were restricted on the subjective level, and no concomitant physiological effects were observed. The findings indicate, that generalizing the effects of BLS in healthy individuals to PTSD patients may be problematic. The herein-reported group differences can be explained by PTSD-specific peculiarities in emotion processing and cognitive processing style.

The Role of Sound in the Immersive Experience

To create an immersive experience, it is not important to have a plethora of stimuli for different sensors, but to have their coherence, or in other words, multi-sensory integration. This coherence becomes the necessary basis for immersing oneself in a story, a game, a movie, or any other experience. Sound plays a key role in creating such an experience, both by accompanying the action and emphasizing the narrative flow, and as an independent actor that takes a central role and directs attention. The aim of the paper and poster is to explore the means by which sound can influence immersion in computer-generated virtual environments and the psychological mechanisms involved in the musical induction of emotions. The main question to be answered is how these techniques and models can be used to create a sense of immersion. The first part of the article examines immersiveness itself. The second part is devoted to the practical aspects of sound design for immersive technologies, describing the tools and techniques used to create realistic and compelling soundscapes. The third part touches briefly on the psychological mechanisms behind the induction of musical emotions. Taking a holistic view of these components and using them to reveal each other is how sound can create a sense of presence and place.

Influence of Sociocultural Proximity on Emotional Induction through Music.Perspectives for Therapeutic and Educational Interventions

Influence of Sociocultural Proximity on Emotional Induction through Music.Perspectives for Therapeutic and Educational Interventions

The neural correlates of reinforcement sensitivity theory: A systematic review of the frontal asymmetry and spectral power literature.

The original Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (oRST) proposes two systems of approach (BAS) and avoidance (BIS) motivation to underpin personality and behavior. The revised-RST (rRST) model separates avoidance motivation into passive (BIS; anxiety) and active (FFFS; fear) systems. Prior research has attempted to map RST onto lateralized frontal asymmetry to provide a neurophysiological marker of RST. The main aim is to examine the relationships of the o/rRST scales with trait (baseline) and state (manipulated through experimental paradigms) frontal asymmetry. A systematic review was conducted, resulting in 158 studies designated to neuroimaging research. In total, 54 studies were included in this review using either frontal asymmetry or spectral power. The results were split into three main categories: resting frontal alpha asymmetry (N = 23), emotional induction and state-related frontal alpha asymmetry (N = 20), and spectral analysis (N = 16). Findings indicated that BAS was associated with enhanced left frontal asymmetry at baseline and during state-related paradigms. Findings for BIS were more inconsistent, especially at rest, suggesting that BIS, in particular, may require active engagement with the environment. Only 9 of the 54 papers included used the revised RST model, highlighting the need for more rRST research.

Research progress on emotion recognition by combining virtual reality environment and electroencephalogram signals

Emotion recognition refers to the process of determining and identifying an individual's current emotional state by analyzing various signals such as voice, facial expressions, and physiological indicators etc. Using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals and virtual reality (VR) technology for emotion recognition research helps to better understand human emotional changes, enabling applications in areas such as psychological therapy, education, and training to enhance people's quality of life. However, there is a lack of comprehensive review literature summarizing the combined researches of EEG signals and VR environments for emotion recognition. Therefore, this paper summarizes and synthesizes relevant research from the past five years. Firstly, it introduces the relevant theories of VR and EEG signal emotion recognition. Secondly, it focuses on the analysis of emotion induction, feature extraction, and classification methods in emotion recognition using EEG signals within VR environments. The article concludes by summarizing the research's application directions and providing an outlook on future development trends, aiming to serve as a reference for researchers in related fields.

Pentatonic sequences and monaural beats to facilitate relaxation: an EEG study.

In two studies we investigated if specific acoustic stimulations could be more effective to induce a relaxation response in comparison to silence. Acoustic stimulations included monaural beats and musical sequences based on a pentatonic scale. In the first study, 47 participants evaluated monaural beats and pentatonic sequences presented through loudspeakers and varying along three frequencies (0.2, 2, 4 Hz). In the second study, 31 participants relaxed with their eyes closed for 10 min during a passive listening of monaural beats and a pentatonic sequence presented through loudspeakers. A silence condition was introduced as control. All auditory stimuli were designed with a temporal modulation of 0.2 Hz. Concomitant EEG was recorded with a 64-channel system and spectral analysis was performed on delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma oscillations to test if each of the three auditory stimulations had a significant effect on EEG spectral power in comparison to silence. In the first study, pentatonic sequences were evaluated as more pleasant and more relaxing than monaural beats. Pleasantness and relaxation were inversely related to frequency. Visual imagery and emotion induction had higher frequency and were rated with a more positive valence in pentatonic sequences than in monaural beats. In the second study monaural beats in comparison to silence strongly decreased beta and gamma oscillations in the first three minutes and strongly increased theta oscillations in the last three minutes. Pentatonic sequences increased delta, theta, and alpha oscillations in the last three minutes while decreasing beta, and gamma oscillations for the whole auditory stimulation. The results show that auditory signals with a very low temporal modulation (0.2 Hz) could be more effective than silence in inducing a relaxation response. Although 0.2 Hz monaural beats were effective in inducing a relaxation response, they tended to be perceived as unpleasant. Pentatonic sequences could be considered as a better alternative to promote relaxation by auditory stimulation.

Brief emotion regulation strategies to reduce alcohol craving: Mediating role of state difficulties in emotion regulation

ObjectiveThis study experimentally compared the effects of emotion regulation (ER) strategies on alcohol craving and examined the mediating effect of state difficulties in emotion regulation (S-DER) on the relationship between negative/positive emotion and alcohol craving. Method417 participants (76.74% women, Mage = 20.76 years) endorsing past-month heavy/binge drinking were randomly assigned to one of four ER conditions (positive reappraisal, distancing, distraction, and acceptance). Participants completed state assessments, including negative/positive emotion, S-DER, and alcohol craving, prior to (T0) and after (T1) engaging in a negative emotion induction task. Subsequently, participants completed an ER strategy task based on their assigned ER strategy condition and completed a third state assessment (T2). ResultsTime had a significant quadratic effect on alcohol craving, such that craving increased from T0 to T1 and decreased from T1 to T2. There was no significant effect of ER strategy condition on craving. Change in S-DER mediated the relationship between the change in negative/positive emotion and the change in craving, with emotional modulation and emotional acceptance facets of S-DER dominating the mediating effect during negative emotion induction and ER strategy induction, respectively. ConclusionsResults suggest interventions targeting S-DER's emotional modulation and acceptance facets could reduce acute craving when experiencing undesired emotions.

Negative emotions disrupt intentional synchronization during group sensorimotor interaction.

Emotions play a fundamental role in human interactions and trigger responses in physiological, psychological, and behavioral modalities. Interpersonal coordination often entails attunement between individuals in various modalities. Previous research has elucidated the mechanisms of interpersonal synchronization and the emotions aroused by joint action: cardiac activity aligns in disputing marital couples, spectators share enjoyment in observing live dance performances, and joint finger-tapping evokes positive emotions. However, little is known about the impact of emotions on intentional interpersonal synchronization. To address this problem, we conducted an experiment in 2022 asking 60 participants to engage in a three-way finger-tapping synchronization task. We systematically induced emotional states (positive, neutral, and negative) with social comparison feedback using success-failure manipulations. An analysis of behavior synchronization using the Kuramoto order parameter revealed that negative emotion induction significantly diminished time spent in synchrony compared to positive induction. Moreover, the results exposed incremental struggles in attaining higher levels of synchronization (Q2-Q3) after the induction of negative emotions. These outcomes further substantiate the necessity of integrating the indices of agents' emotions into interpersonal synchronization and coordination models. We discuss the implications of this work for research on interpersonal emotion in joint action and applied outcomes in emotion-aware technologies and interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Multilevel analysis of positive emotional induction: Which is the role of gender and valence on cognitive control processes?

How emotions are processed affects people's cognition and behavior. One of the most used measures to study the physiological component of emotions is heart rate (HR), where greater HR variation (range) implies greater emotional processing. Several investigations established the importance of gender modulation of these processes due to the different cultural treatment given to emotions among genders. However, very heterogeneous results are reported today, and few studies incorporated these parameters when investigating emotion modulation of cognitive processes according to individual factors. The present work consists of two studies. In a pilot study, 97 young adults, through the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM), ranged the valence and arousal to select two positive and neutral videos. The second study analyses the role of gender and valence in the variation of subjective (SAM) and physiological (HR) indicators of emotional processing associated with performance in two cognitive tasks (Stroop and Tower of London) under two different emotional conditions. Participants were 60 adults, who were randomly assigned to positive or neutral video visualization, and their HR was registered. There was a tendency for women to have higher HR during positive videos than in neutral. While the subjective reports indicated variances in the appraisal of the videos, the heart rate did not exhibit differences across the experimental conditions. Few studies integrate emotional and cognitive components, and include physiological and subjective measures of emotional processing. These findings illustrate the importance of including various measures of emotional and cognitive processing.