Sad Induction Research Articles

Reality-based sadness induction fosters affect-congruency in music preference.

Reality-based sadness induction fosters affect-congruency in music preference.

The Neural Basis of Fear Promotes Anger and Sadness Counteracts Anger.

In contrast to cognitive emotion regulation theories that emphasize top-down control of prefrontal-mediated regulation of emotion, in traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine, different emotions are considered to have mutual promotion and counteraction relationships. Our previous studies have provided behavioral evidence supporting the hypotheses that “fear promotes anger” and “sadness counteracts anger”; this study further investigated the corresponding neural correlates. A basic hypothesis we made is the “internal versus external orientation” assumption proposing that fear could promote anger as its external orientation associated with motivated action, whereas sadness could counteract anger as its internal or homeostatic orientation to somatic or visceral experience. A way to test this assumption is to examine the selective involvement of the posterior insula (PI) and the anterior insula (AI) in sadness and fear because the posterior-to-anterior progression theory of insular function suggests that the role of the PI is to encode primary body feeling and that of the AI is to represent the integrative feeling that incorporates the internal and external input together. The results showed increased activation in the AI, parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), posterior cingulate (PCC), and precuneus during the fear induction phase, and the activation level in these areas could positively predict subsequent aggressive behavior; meanwhile, the PI, superior temporal gyrus (STG), superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) were more significantly activated during the sadness induction phase, and the activation level in these areas could negatively predict subsequent feelings of subjective anger in a provocation situation. These results revealed a possible cognitive brain mechanism underlying “fear promotes anger” and “sadness counteracts anger.” In particular, the finding that the AI and PI selectively participated in fear and sadness emotions was consistent with our “internal versus external orientation” assumption about the different regulatory effects of fear and sadness on anger and aggressive behavior.

Induced sadness increases persistence in a simulated slot machine task among recreational gamblers.

Gambling may constitute a strategy for coping with depressive mood, but a direct influence of depressive mood on gambling behaviors has never been tested via realistic experimental designs in gamblers. The current study tested whether experimentally induced sadness increases persistence on a simulated slot machine task using real monetary reinforcement in recreational gamblers. Sixty participants were randomly assigned to an experimental (sadness induction) or control (no emotional induction) condition, and then performed a slot machine task consisting of a mandatory phase followed by a persistence phase. Potential confounding variables (problem gambling symptoms, impulsivity traits, gambling cognitions) were measured to ensure that the experimental and control groups were comparable. The study showed that participants in the sadness condition displayed greater gambling persistence than control participants (p = .011). These data support the causal role of negative affect in decisions to gamble and persistence, which bears important theoretical and clinical implications. (PsycINFO Database Record

Regulating Rumination by Anger: Evidence for the Mutual Promotion and Counteraction (MPMC) Theory of Emotionality.

Unlike the strategy of cognitive regulation that relies heavily on the top-down control function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which was recently found may be critically impaired in stressful situations, traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine views different types of emotionality as having mutual promotion and counteraction (MPMC) relationships, implying a novel approach that requires less cognition to emotional regulation. Actually, our previous studies have indicated that anger responses could be successfully regulated via the induction of sadness, and this efficiency could not be influenced by stress, thus providing evidences for the hypothesis of “sadness counteracts anger” (SCA) proposed by the MPMC theory of emotionality (Zhan et al., 2015, 2017). In this study, we experimentally examined the MPMC hypothesis that “anger counteracts rumination” (ACR) which postulates that rumination may be alleviated by the anger emotion. In Study 1, all participants were initially caused state rumination and then induced anger, joy or neutral mood, the results showed that the rumination-related affect was alleviated after anger induction relative to that after joy or neutral mood induction. In Study 2, female participants with high trait rumination were recruited and divided into two groups for exposure to an anger or neutral emotion intervention, the result indicated that the anger intervention group exhibited a greater decline in trait rumination than the neutral emotion intervention group. These findings provided preliminary evidence supporting the hypothesis of ACR, which suggested a new strategy that employs less cognitive resources to regulating state and trait rumination by inducing anger.

Regulating Anger under Stress via Cognitive Reappraisal and Sadness.

Previous studies have reported the failure of cognitive emotion regulation (CER), especially in regulating unpleasant emotions under stress. The underlying reason for this failure was the application of CER depends heavily on the executive function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), but this function can be impaired by stress-related neuroendocrine hormones. This observation highlights the necessity of developing self-regulatory strategies that require less top-down cognitive control. Based on traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine, which examine how different types of emotions promote or counteract one another, we have developed a novel emotion regulation strategy whereby one emotion is used to alter another. For example, our previous experiment showed that sadness induction (after watching a sad film) could reduce aggressive behavior associated with anger [i.e., “sadness counteracts anger” (SCA)] (Zhan et al., 2015). Relative to the CER strategy requiring someone to think about certain cognitive reappraisals to reinterpret the meaning of an unpleasant situation, watching a film or listening to music and experiencing the emotion contained therein seemingly requires less cognitive effort and control; therefore, this SCA strategy may be an alternative strategy that compensates for the limitations of cognitive regulation strategies, especially in stressful situations. The present study was designed to directly compare the effects of the CER and SCA strategy in regulating anger and anger-related aggression in stressful and non-stressful conditions. Participants’ subjective feeling of anger, anger-related aggressive behavior, skin conductance, and salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase levels were measured. Our findings revealed that acute stress impaired one’s ability to use CR to control angry responses provoked by others, whereas stress did not influence the efficiency of the SCA strategy. Compared with sadness or neutral emotion induction, CER induction was found to reduce the level of subjective anger more, but this difference only existed in non-stressful conditions. By contrast, irrespective of stress, the levels of aggressive behavior and related skin conductance after sadness induction were both significantly lower than those after CER induction or neutral emotion induction, thus suggesting the immunity of the regulatory effect of SCA strategy to the stress factor.

Perseverate or decenter? Differential effects of metacognition on the relationship between parasympathetic inflexibility and symptoms of depression in a multi-wave study

Depression often is characterized by inflexible autonomic and metacognitive processes that interfere with effective self-regulation. However, few studies have integrated these factors to improve the prediction of which individuals are at greatest risk for depression. Among 134 undergraduates, we evaluated whether parasympathetic inflexibility (a lack of reduction in respiratory sinus arrhythmia) in response to a sadness induction involving loss would prospectively predict symptoms of depression across four waves of follow-up over twelve weeks. Furthermore, we evaluated whether metacognitive components of perseverative cognition (PC) and decentering (identified by a principal component analysis) would moderate this relationship in opposite directions. Multilevel modeling demonstrated that the relationship between parasympathetic inflexibility and prospective symptoms of depression was exacerbated by PC, but attenuated by decentering. Furthermore, individuals with parasympathetic inflexibility, PC, and low decentering were at greatest risk for symptoms of depression across follow-up. These results support the utility of integrating autonomic and metacognitive risk factors to identify individuals at risk for depression.

You'll feel better in the morning: slow wave activity and overnight mood regulation in interepisode bipolar disorder.

Sleep disturbances are prominent correlates of acute mood episodes and inadequate recovery in bipolar disorder (BD), yet the mechanistic relationship between sleep physiology and mood remains poorly understood. Using a series of pre-sleep mood inductions and overnight sleep recording, this study examined the relationship between overnight mood regulation and a marker of sleep intensity (non-rapid eye movement sleep slow wave activity; NREM SWA) during the interepisode phase of BD. Adults with interepisode BD type 1 (BD; n = 20) and healthy adult controls (CTL; n = 23) slept in the laboratory for a screening night, a neutral mood induction night (baseline), a happy mood induction night, and a sad mood induction night. NREM SWA (0.75-4.75 Hz) was derived from overnight sleep EEG recordings. Overnight mood regulation was evaluated using an affect grid pleasantness rating post-mood induction (pre-sleep) and the next morning. Overnight mood regulation did not differ between groups following the sad or happy inductions. SWA did not significantly change for either group on the sad induction night compared with baseline. In BD only, SWA on the sad night was related to impaired overnight negative mood regulation. On the happy induction night, SWA increased relative to baseline in both groups, though SWA was not related to overnight mood regulation for either group. These findings indicate that SWA disruption may play a role in sustaining negative mood state from the previous night in interepisode BD. However, positive mood state could enhance SWA in bipolar patients and healthy adults.

Maladaptive mood repair, atypical respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and risk of a recurrent major depressive episode among adolescents with prior major depression.

Because depressive illness is recurrent, recurrence prevention should be a mainstay for reducing its burden on society. One way to reach this goal is to identify malleable risk factors. The ability to attenuate sadness/dysphoria (mood repair) and parasympathetic nervous system functioning, indexed as respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), are impaired during depression and after it has remitted. The present study therefore tested the hypothesis that these two constructs also may mirror risk factors for a recurrent major depressive episode (MDE). At time 1 (T1), 178 adolescents, whose last MDE had remitted, and their parents, reported on depression and mood repair; youths' RSA at rest and in response to sad mood induction also were assessed. MDE recurrence was monitored until time 2 (T2) up to 2 years later. Mood repair at T1 (modeled as a latent construct), and resting RSA and RSA response to sadness induction (RSA profile), served to predict onset of first recurrent MDE by T2. Consistent with expectations, maladaptive mood repair predicted recurrent MDE, above and beyond T1 depression symptoms. Further, atypical RSA profiles at T1 were associated with high levels of maladaptive mood repair, which, in turn, predicted increased risk of recurrent MDE. Thus, maladaptive mood repair mediated the effects of atypical RSA on risk of MDE recurrence. This study documented that a combination of behavioral and physiological risk factors predicted MDE recurrence in a previously clinically referred sample of adolescents with depression histories. Because mood repair and RSA are malleable, both could be targeted for modification to reduce the risk of recurrent depression in youths.

QEEG correlates of emotionally negative state induced by autobiographic script in patients with affective disorder and healthy controls

The elucidation of the brain circuitry underlying neural bases of mood and emotion represents the essential aim of modern neuroscience and psychiatric research. The aims of the study was to identify QEEG correlates of autobiographically induced emotionally neutral and emotionally negative situation (sadness) using the QEEG methods sLORETA (standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography)and eLORETA connectivity in remitted patients with bipolar affective disorder (BAP) ( N = 30), depression ( N = 20) and healthy controls ( N = 30). Within-group comparisons (pairwise t -tests) using log-transformed values of sLORETA images(emotionally neutral vs. negative emotional state) revealed that autobiographical induction of sadness in healthy volunteers led to the increase of neuronal activity (current density in the gamma frequency band) in subgenual and anterior cingulate (Brodmann area 25, 32, 34). Patients with BAP (sadness) showed more pronounced activation of limbic and mediofrontal areas (BA 10, 11, 24, 25, 32, 33, 47). This “hyperactivation” can be considered as a trait marker of BAP, which can be identified even in patients in remission. In contrast, between-group comparisons (in both neutral and negative emotional state) were not associated with any significant changes in brain activity in healthy volunteers compared to patients with BAP.

Access to autobiographical memory as an emotion regulation strategy and its relation to dispositional mindfulness

Mindfulness research has extensively focused on mechanisms that make it work. Emotional regulation (ER) has been proposed as one of the mechanisms to explain the effects of mindfulness on health. ER is composed of a broad set of strategies, such as the use of autobiographical memory (AM), which refers to the recollection of personally experienced past events to regulate the emotion (i.e., remembering a positive past event in order to calm anxiety). Authors suggest that mindfulness and AM are related. However, few studies exist to explore this relationship that could promote a more adaptive ER. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between the mindfulness trait and the use of positive specific memories (as an ER strategy) after sadness induction. The sample was composed of 60 university students with no mindfulness meditation experience. Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory Questionnaire (BDI-II), the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS). A sad Mood Induction Task (MIT) was applied to the participants using Virtual Reality (VR) before the AM task. Results showed that the Non-reactivity mindfulness facet was significantly correlated with time needed to access personal positive specific memories in response to positive words (r=–.41; p<.05) and predicted this relationship (β=–.41; p<.05). This study provides data on the relationship between the mindfulness trait and ER, showing that mindfulness (specifically the Non-reactivity facet) is related to more adaptive ER.

Reinvestigating affect-congruency in music choice: Does misery really love company?

How does sadness shape our preferences for listening to expressively sad versus joyful music? According to classic moodmanagement theory (Zillmann, 1988a, 1988b), individuals will gravitate toward music that maintains or promotes positive affective experience. As such, those in sad, relative to happy or neutral, moods should be especially inclined to choose affect-incongruent music that will distract them from upsetting thoughts and help restore their good cheer. However, it has been countered that states of sadness may have the very opposite effect on music preference, prompting selective exposure to songs that are congruent with the emotion-eliciting event in terms of their thematic and/or expressive content (e.g., Knobloch, 2003; Oliver, 1993; Zillmann, 2000). For example, after a romantic breakup, individuals may listen to love-lamenting songs, which might help them understand what they are feeling and provide insight into how to cope with their heartbreak (Gibson, Aust, & Zillmann, 2000; Oliver & Raney, 2011). Sad music may also permit listeners to compare their plight with the imagined plight of the composer or performer, making their own troubles seem less unique and thereby less worrisome (Zillmann, 2000). Additionally, individuals may use sad music to help them maintain sad affective states when these are construed as normatively appropriate in a particular social context, such as a funeral or a visit to an ailing friend in the hospital (Martin, 2001; Oliver, 2008). In this way, the choice of affect-congruent, expressively sad music may ultimately promote positive feelings by facilitating emotion regulation.Experimental Research on Affect-Congruency in Music ChoiceIn recent years, there have been a number of studies aimed at empirically assessing whether sadness in response to specific life events reliably influences music choice in the immediate aftermath of these events and, if so, whether the pattern of choice may be best characterized as affect-congruent or affect-incongruent. For instance, Lee, Andrade, and Palmer (2013)-and more recently, DeMarco, Taylor, and Friedman (2015)-asked their participants to consider a variety of hypothetical sad life experiences and to indicate what type of music they would prefer to listen to following each of these adverse events. Participants' intuitions regarding their prospective music preferences were clear: They overwhelmingly believed that they would choose expressively sad music in response to sad life events, especially if these involved the loss of a vital interpersonal relationship. However, as countless studies of human judgment have confirmed (e.g., Gilbert, 2006; Loewenstein, 1996), people's intuitions regarding their future preferences often miss the mark, raising the issue as to whether individuals indeed gravitate toward affect-congruent musical fare when induced into states of sadness.To circumvent such concerns, a number of lab-based studies have experimentally manipulated sadness before assessing music preference. For instance, Knobloch and Zillmann (2002) led participants to experience either positive, neutral, or negative affective states by means of false feedback on an ostensible test of social sensitivity. Afterward, during a short music-listening session, participants were asked to freely choose from a set of popular songs that had been pretested to be either expressively joyful or sad. Results revealed that individuals in negative affective states spent more time listening to expressively happy music than those in positively valent states, offering evidence for affect-inconsistent preference. However, the authors concede that their affect induction may not only have manipulated sadness, but frustration as well, and in a proportion that was unclear (due to the failure to include appropriate manipulation checks). Chen, Zhou, and Bryant (2007) addressed this issue by conceptually replicating Knobloch and Zillmann's (2002) study using a more targeted induction of sadness in which they showed participants a clip from a documentary about the personal lives of soldiers who ultimately perished in the Iraq War. …

Distinctive effects of fear and sadness induction on anger and aggressive behavior.

A recent study has reported that the successful implementation of cognitive regulation of emotion depends on higher-level cognitive functions, such as top-down control, which may be impaired in stressful situations. This calls for “cognition free” self-regulatory strategies that do not require top-down control. In contrast to the cognitive regulation of emotion that emphasizes the role of cognition, traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine views the relationship among different types of emotions as promoting or counteracting each other without the involvement of cognition, which provides an insightful perspective for developing “cognition free” regulatory strategies. In this study, we examined two hypotheses regarding the modulation of anger and aggressive behavior: sadness counteracts anger and aggressive behavior, whereas fear promotes anger and aggressive behavior. Participants were first provoked by reading extremely negative feedback on their viewpoints (Study 1) and by watching anger-inducing movie clips (Study 2). Then, these angry participants were assigned to three equivalent groups and viewed sad, fear-inducing, or neutral materials to evoke the corresponding emotions. The results showed that participants displayed a lower level of aggressive behavior when sadness was later induced and a higher level of anger when fear was later induced. These results provide evidence that supports the hypothesis of mutual promotion and counteraction relationships among these types of emotions and imply a “cognition free” approach to regulating anger and aggressive behavior.

Rumination but not distraction increases eating-related symptoms in anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

Recent models of eating disorders emphasize the importance of ruminative thinking in the occurrence of unhealthy eating behavior. Hence, the aim of the current study was to examine the influence of induced rumination and distraction on the desire to engage in eating-related symptoms in anorexia (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). After a sadness induction, either a ruminative or distractive emotion regulation style was encouraged in women with AN (n = 38), BN (n = 37), and non-eating disordered controls (CG; n = 36). At baseline and after the emotion regulation induction feelings of sadness, desire to abstain from eating (DTA) and desire to binge (DTB) were assessed. Main results reveal that rumination led to a significant increase of DTA in the AN group and of DTB in patients with BN. In the CG, DTA significantly decreased after distraction. Although there were significant increases in subjective sadness in the rumination condition, no changes were found in the distraction condition. The results suggest that rumination in response to sadness has a detrimental effect on eating-related symptoms in eating disorders.

A comprehensive examination of delayed emotional recovery in borderline personality disorder

Background and objectivesDespite growing attention to emotion processes in borderline personality disorder (BPD), little research has examined delayed emotional recovery (i.e., long-lasting emotions after the termination of an emotionally evocative stimulus) in this population. The extant data on delayed emotional recovery in BPD are limited by a lack of assessment across a range of indices and emotions. The present study addresses these gaps by comparing emotional recovery between individuals with BPD, social anxiety disorder (SAD), and healthy controls (HCs) using a multi-modal assessment approach. MethodsParticipants underwent fear, anger, and sadness inductions followed by a 5-min “washout” phase wherein emotional recovery was assessed via self-report, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and skin conductance responses (SCR). ResultsAfter controlling for state dissociation, the BPD and SAD group exhibited decreases in RSA, while the HC group showed no changes in RSA after the anger induction only. Groups did not differ in rate of emotional recovery across self-report, RSA, or SCR after fear and sadness inductions. LimitationsThe present study is limited by a solely female and small sample, and the short time frame in which emotional recovery was assessed. ConclusionsFindings indicate that individuals with BPD generally do not exhibit delayed emotional recovery, but may show decreases in parasympathetic activity during the recovery period after experiencing anger. However, this pattern may not be specific to this disorder.

The neural basis of attaining conscious awareness of sad mood.

The neural processes associated with becoming aware of sad mood are not fully understood. We examined the dynamic process of becoming aware of sad mood and recovery from sad mood. Sixteen healthy subjects underwent fMRI while participating in a sadness induction task designed to allow for variable mood induction times. Individualized regressors linearly modeled the time periods during the attainment of self-reported sad and baseline "neutral" mood states, and the validity of the linearity assumption was further tested using independent component analysis. During sadness induction the dorsomedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, and anterior insula exhibited a linear increase in the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal until subjects became aware of a sad mood and then a subsequent linear decrease as subjects transitioned from sadness back to the non-sadness baseline condition. These findings extend understanding of the neural basis of conscious emotional experience.

How Emotions Influence Trust in Online Transactions Using New Technology

Online trust has recently become a critical issue, due to widely publicized information leaks, account hacking, and privacy breaches. This study investigates whether or not emotions have effects on trust in online transactions, particularly when a new technology is involved. We explored the effects of happiness and sadness on participants’ choice of a payment method for online transactions. Forty-four undergraduates participated in online transactions with a prototype webpage after either happiness or sadness induction, compared to a neutral group. Different emotion mechanisms would predict different effects of each emotion. Results showed that when the item cost was relatively low ($10), a higher percentage of participants in both emotion conditions selected a novel payment method than those in a neutral condition. With more expensive items ($50 and $100) the number of participants who chose the new option equally increased across all conditions because participants could benefit relatively a large amount of discount (10%) from the novel payment method. Various emotion mechanisms are discussed with our results.

Regulation of sadness via acceptance or suppression in adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Emotion dysregulation is a recognized symptom of adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The aim of this study is to induce sadness in adults suffering from ADHD and to investigate the impact of emotion regulation strategies on sadness intensity, and psychophysiological measures. Thirty-six adults diagnosed with ADHD were randomly assigned to either expressive suppression (SUPP) or acceptance (ACC) of emotion. Sadness was induced using a film clip. Participants estimated the intensity of sadness and the perception of being overwhelmed with emotion before (T1), immediately after (T2) and 2min after the film (T3). Physiological measures were obtained. Sadness induction was effective in both conditions. The perception of being overwhelmed with emotion increased between T1 and T2 in both conditions, but persisted until T3 only in the expressive suppression condition whereas a decrease was observed in the acceptance condition. In ADHD expressive suppression of sadness seems to be associated to a prolonged recovery from the perception of being overwhelmed with emotion. Emotion-regulation via acceptance in contrast appears to allow faster recovery from the perception of being overwhelmed with emotion. To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify suppression as a critical mediator between an induced emotion and delayed recovery from emotional reactions in adult ADHD.

Sad but true? - How induced emotional states differentially bias self-rated Big Five personality traits

BackgroundThe Big Five are seen as stable personality traits. This study hypothesized that their measurement via self-ratings is differentially biased by participants’ emotions. The relationship between habitual emotions and personality should be mirrored in a patterned influence of emotional states upon personality scores.MethodsWe experimentally induced emotional states and compared baseline Big Five scores of ninety-eight German participants (67 female; mean age 22.2) to their scores after the induction of happiness or sadness. Manipulation checks included the induced emotion’s intensity and durability.ResultsThe expected differential effect could be detected for neuroticism and extraversion and as a trend for agreeableness. Post-hoc analyses showed that only sadness led to increased neuroticism and decreased extraversion scores. Oppositely, happiness did not decrease neuroticism, but there was a trend for an elevation on extraversion scores.ConclusionResults suggest a specific effect of sadness on self-reported personality traits, particularly on neuroticism. Sadness may trigger different self-concepts in susceptible people, biasing perceived personality. This bias could be minimised by tracking participants’ emotional states prior to personality measurement.

Sadness increases distraction by auditory deviant stimuli.

Research shows that attention is ineluctably captured away from a focal visual task by rare and unexpected changes (deviants) in an otherwise repeated stream of task-irrelevant auditory distractors (standards). The fundamental cognitive mechanisms underlying this effect have been the object of an increasing number of studies but their sensitivity to mood and emotions remains relatively unexplored despite suggestion of greater distractibility in negative emotional contexts. In this study, we examined the effect of sadness, a widespread form of emotional distress and a symptom of many disorders, on distraction by deviant sounds. Participants received either a sadness induction or a neutral mood induction by means of a mixed procedure based on music and autobiographical recall prior to taking part in an auditory-visual oddball task in which they categorized visual digits while ignoring task-irrelevant sounds. The results showed that although all participants exhibited significantly longer response times in the visual categorization task following the presentation of rare and unexpected deviant sounds relative to that of the standard sound, this distraction effect was significantly greater in participants who had received the sadness induction (a twofold increase). The residual distraction on the subsequent trial (postdeviance distraction) was equivalent in both groups, suggesting that sadness interfered with the disengagement of attention from the deviant sound and back toward the target stimulus. We propose that this disengagement impairment reflected the monopolization of cognitive resources by sadness and/or associated ruminations. Our findings suggest that sadness can increase distraction even when distractors are emotionally neutral.

Fábrica de emoções: A eficácia da exposição a excertos de filmes na indução de emoções

The present study aimed to test the efficacy of using film excerpts for the induction of sadness, happiness, anger, fear and disgust emotions. Eighty participants were exposed to 18 film excerpts and reported the way they were feeling after each brief exposure. Besides the specific emotions under analysis, affective valence and arousal, as well as the sense of presence, were evaluated. Overall, it was possible to induce the majority of emotions with relative efficacy in participants of both genders. The film excerpt’s positioning within the affective dimensional model is consistent with the findings of studies that used other emotional stimuli. The sense of presence in the visualized environment was high for the majority of the selected excerpts.