Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-12DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2427329
Martin Kolnes, Andero Uusberg
{"title":"Not feeling it: lack of robust emotion effects on breadth of attention.","authors":"Martin Kolnes, Andero Uusberg","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427329","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427329","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emotional states are believed to broaden or to narrow the focus of attention. However, numerous inconsistent findings call for renewed efforts to understand the conditions under which such effects occur. We conducted a pair of high-powered web experiments. Emotional states were manipulated across valence categories and appraisal dimensions using autobiographical recall (Experiment 1) and emotional images (Experiment 2). Breadth of attention was assessed using the Navon task coupled with induction sensitivity and mouse tracking analyses. We did not find robust evidence for emotional effects on breadth of attention. Negative images led surprisingly to slightly broader attention in Experiment 2, but this may reflect the slow release of cognitive resources from preceding negative stimuli amplifying the global precedence effect. Breadth of attention also had very small positive relationships with goal-congruence appraisal in the first and control appraisal in the second experiment. We also found no evidence for moderation by mood or personality. Taken together, our findings add to the growing list of failures to observe emotional modulation of breadth of attention and call for continued efforts to chart the boundary conditions of these effects.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"993-1015"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-15DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2427419
Lucy A Matson, Ella K Moeck, Melanie K T Takarangi
{"title":"Does enhanced memory of disgust vs. fear images extend to involuntary memory?","authors":"Lucy A Matson, Ella K Moeck, Melanie K T Takarangi","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427419","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427419","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>People remember disgusting stimuli better than fearful stimuli, but do disgust's memory-enhancing effects extend to <i>involuntary</i> memory? This question is important because disgust reactions occur following trauma, and trauma-related involuntary memories are a hallmark of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms. In two experiments, we presented participants (<i>n </i>= 88 Experiment 1; <i>n </i>= 106 Experiment 2) with disgust, fear, and neutral images during an attention-monitoring task. Participants then completed an undemanding vigilance task, responding any time an image involuntarily came to mind. We measured the frequency and characteristics of these involuntary memories (e.g. emotional intensity) immediately after encoding and over a 24-hour delay (Experiment 2 only). Our main findings were mixed: participants experienced similarly frequent (Experiment 2) - or more (Experiment 1) - disgust as fear involuntary memories. Therefore, when controlling for memory-enhancing confounds (e.g. distinctiveness), in-laboratory disgust memory enhancement does not extend to involuntary memory. Disgust memories were more emotionally intense than fear memories over the 24-hour delay- but not immediately after encoding - suggesting disgust elicits additional consolidation processes to fear. Participants paid more attention towards the disgust images, but the attention did not account for the memory of disgust. In sum, disgust and fear have both similar <i>and</i> distinct cognitive effects.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1032-1050"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142639887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-14DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2427331
Sapir Miron, Eyal Kalanthroff
{"title":"Remembering the blues: negative emotion during encoding improve memory recall in major depressive Disorder.","authors":"Sapir Miron, Eyal Kalanthroff","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427331","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427331","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Substantial research indicates that individuals with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) remember more negative information compared to neutral and positive information. This phenomenon is commonly attributed to attentional biases toward negative over neutral and positive information. A recent attentional resources model suggests that in MDD, negative cues not only capture attention, but also lead to deeper processing of subsequent information, irrespective of its content. This study aimed to replicate findings supporting this attentional resources model and go beyond it by investigating the effect of negative cues on encoding and retrieval processes. Forty-one participants with MDD and no comorbid diagnoses, and 42 healthy-controls completed the emotional recall task with negative or positive videos presented during encoding and retrieval stages of a neutral word-list memory test. During encoding, only the MDD group exhibited a difference between negative and positive videos, such that for negative videos memory recall was improved and for positive words it was reduced. Emotional videos had no effect when presented during retrieval. These results suggest that in MDD, encountering emotional cues not only biases retrieval processes toward recalling more negative content, but rather fundamentally alters the depth of information processing, while not leading to a broad-spectrum recruitment of cognitive resources.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1158-1165"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-12-04DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2434146
Plousia Misailidi, Evangelos Chaliassos
{"title":"Relationship between shame and theory of mind in early adolescence: the mediating role of private and public self-consciousness.","authors":"Plousia Misailidi, Evangelos Chaliassos","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2434146","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2434146","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Shame, theory of mind (ToM) and self-consciousness were examined in a group of early adolescents aged 10-12 years. The aim was to assess whether the relationship between early adolescents' dispositional shame and ToM is mediated by their private and public self-consciousness. One hundred adolescents (<i>M</i> = 11;1 years; months, 51 girls) were administered measures assessing dispositional shame and self-consciousness and a ToM test. Results support an essential distinction between the private and public aspects of self-consciousness and show that ToM's relationship to dispositional shame is mediated by public but not private self-consciousness. The significance of these findings and their potential implications for theoretical models of shame development is discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1149-1157"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142773800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-25DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2430400
Zaiyao Zhang, Felicia K Zerwas, Dacher Keltner
{"title":"Emotion specificity, coherence, and cultural variation in conceptualizations of positive emotions: a study of body sensations and emotion recognition.","authors":"Zaiyao Zhang, Felicia K Zerwas, Dacher Keltner","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2430400","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2430400","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The present study examines the association between people's interoceptive representation of physical sensations and the recognition of vocal and facial expressions of emotion. We used body maps to study the granularity of the interoceptive conceptualisation of 11 positive emotions (amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, desire, love, joy, interest, pride, relief, and triumph) and a new emotion recognition test (Emotion Expression Understanding Test) to assess the ability to recognise emotions from vocal and facial behaviour. Overall, we found evidence for distinct interoceptive conceptualizations of 11 positive emotions across Asian American, European American, and Latino/a American cultures, as well as the reliable identification of emotion in facial and vocal expressions. Central to new theorising about emotion-related representation, the granularity of physical sensations did not covary with emotion recognition accuracy, suggesting that two kinds of emotion conceptualisation processes might be distinct.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1127-1140"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142717462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-25DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2430403
Susann Geller, Werner Sommer, Andrea Hildebrandt
{"title":"Parenthood status and plasma oxytocin levels predict specific emotion perception abilities.","authors":"Susann Geller, Werner Sommer, Andrea Hildebrandt","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2430403","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2430403","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Superior recognition of positive emotional facial expressions compared to negative expressions is well established. However, it is unclear whether this superiority effect differs between non-parents and parents, for whom emotion perception (EP) is an indispensable skill. Although EP has been shown to be modulated by the neuropeptide oxytocin, a central factor in the development of parental care, very little research has addressed the relationship between EP skills, the transition to parenthood, and plasma oxytocin levels. In the present study, we assessed EP abilities with a test battery and measured plasma oxytocin in 77 non-parent and 79 parent couples and applied structural equation modelling to the data. The results showed increased happiness perception abilities in both parents and individuals with elevated oxytocin levels. Furthermore, non-parents showed superior abilities to recognise anger expressions. No significant associations were found regarding the perception of other basic emotion categories or with a general EP factor. The findings are consistent with previous research indicating that elevated oxytocin levels are associated with enhanced EP abilities. They also extend the existing literature by demonstrating that mothers and fathers, regardless of their oxytocin levels, exhibit increased EP superiority.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"943-962"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142711231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-14DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2427340
Juan Olvido Perea-García, Daisy Berris, Jingzhi Tan, Mariska E Kret
{"title":"Pupil size and iris brightness interact to affect prosocial behaviour and affective responses.","authors":"Juan Olvido Perea-García, Daisy Berris, Jingzhi Tan, Mariska E Kret","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427340","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427340","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite the tight link between the visibility of the iris and pupil, the perceived effects of these two have been studied largely in isolation. We demonstrate, across two experimental studies, that the effects of perceived pupil size are dependent on the visibility of the iris. In a first study, our participants donated more and had more positive impressions of portraits of non-human primates when these were manipulated to appear having larger pupils. Post-hoc inspection of our data suggested that the difference was greater for species with more conspicuous irises. In a second study, we concomitantly manipulated iris brightness and pupil size. Brighter irises and larger pupils elicited greater donations. Participants rated photographs with brighter irises as cuter, more attractive and friendlier, but only when they had dilated pupils. Our results have methodological implications for studies manipulating eye appearance, and help interpret results from previous studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1016-1031"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-12DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2426674
Robin Carron, Nathalie Blanc, Emmanuelle Brigaud
{"title":"Humour in trolley problems and other sacrificial dilemmas: killing is not funny at all.","authors":"Robin Carron, Nathalie Blanc, Emmanuelle Brigaud","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2426674","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2426674","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Three studies were designed to explore a major criticism of sacrificial dilemmas, namely that their potential humorous aspects may distort moral decision-making. We collected moral responses (i.e. moral judgment and choice of action) but also asked participants to rate the funniness of moral dilemmas, in order to combine humour assessment and moral responses. In addition, the emotional responses to moral dilemmas were recorded for both men and women (including emotions related to humour), and the potential effect of individuals' need for humour was also considered. Overall, three main results were reported. Firstly, the dilemmas used in our studies were not rated as funny at all. Secondly, reading moral dilemmas increased negative emotions (i.e. sadness, disgust, guilt) and decreased positive emotions associated with humour (i.e. joy, amusement, and mirth), with gender effects since women experienced stronger negative emotions than men. Thirdly, funniness ratings of sacrificial dilemmas did not vary according to gender and need for humour. This series of studies does not report empirical evidence to support the humorous aspects of trolley-type dilemmas, but invites a more systematic examination of how sacrificial dilemmas are perceived by participants who have to produce moral responses.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"978-992"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-18DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2429737
Laura Pasqualette, Louisa Kulke
{"title":"Emotional expressions, but not social context, modulate attention during a discrimination task.","authors":"Laura Pasqualette, Louisa Kulke","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2429737","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2429737","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Investigating social context effects and emotional modulation of attention in a laboratory setting is challenging. Electroencephalography (EEG) requires a controlled setting to avoid confounds, which goes against the nature of social interaction and emotional processing in real life. To bridge this gap, we developed a new paradigm to investigate the effects of social context and emotional expressions on attention in a laboratory setting. We co-registered eye-tracking and EEG to assess gaze behavior and brain activity while participants performed a discrimination task followed by feedback. Video clips of one second in which a confederate displayed either positive, neutral or negative expressions were presented as feedback to the discrimination task. Participants' belief was manipulated by telling them that the videos were selected either by the computer (non-social condition) or by the experimenter in the adjacent room that observed them via videochat (social condition). We found that emotional expressions modulated late attention processing in the brain (EPN and LPC), but neither early processing (P1) nor saccade latency. Social context did not influence any of the variables studied. We conclude this new paradigm serves as a stepping stone to the development of new paradigms to study social interaction within EEG experiments.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1108-1126"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142669496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2024-11-13DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2427889
Sarah A Grainger, Alana J Topsfield, Julie D Henry, Sarah P Coundouris
{"title":"The empathic measure of true emotion (EMOTE): a novel set of stimuli for measuring emotional responding.","authors":"Sarah A Grainger, Alana J Topsfield, Julie D Henry, Sarah P Coundouris","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427889","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2427889","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Empathy plays a fundamental role in successful social interactions. However, most tasks currently available for measuring empathy have limited ecological validity and therefore may not elicit true emotional responses in observers. To address this gap, we developed the Empathic Measure of True Emotion (EMOTE), the first emotion stimuli set to include footage of genuine positive and negative emotions unfolding in naturalistic contexts. We validated the EMOTE in a sample of 216 participants. The EMOTE demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, construct validity, and alternate forms reliability for both cognitive and affective empathy. We also found that, relative to conventional empathy measures, the EMOTE elicited stronger affective empathy ratings in observers, and the stimuli were rated higher in both genuineness and emotional intensity. Together, these findings demonstrate that the EMOTE is a reliable and valid measure of cognitive and affective empathy with enhanced ecological validity, providing a valuable new tool for measuring empathy in both clinical and research settings.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1064-1073"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}