IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-05-07 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001678

Ziwen Teuber, Sonsoles López-Pernas, Gesine Jordan, Anke Maria Weber, Samuel Greiff, Su Yeong Kim, Theresa Dicke

{"title":"Mapping emotional components in daily parent-child interactions: A multilevel psychological network approach.","authors":"Ziwen Teuber, Sonsoles López-Pernas, Gesine Jordan, Anke Maria Weber, Samuel Greiff, Su Yeong Kim, Theresa Dicke","doi":"10.1037/emo0001678","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001678","url":null,"abstract":"Daily parent-child interactions are emotionally rich and offer valuable insights into emotional processing and parenting functioning. To examine how key emotional components interact within and across individuals in everyday contexts, we combined an experience sampling method with a multilevel psychological network approach, grounded in several prominent emotion and parenting theories. The emotional components we examined were (a) parents' own emotions, (b) their perceptions of their children's emotions, and (c) their use of self- and child-focused reappraisal and rumination strategies. Data were collected from 121 U.S. parents (Mage = 43.18 years, SD = 8.54) over 28 days, preceded by a presurvey. Three psychological networks emerged, each offering distinct yet complementary insights. The within-person temporal network uncovered reciprocal spillover effects between self- and child-focused emotion regulation, with parents' own emotions driving fluctuations in both. The contemporaneous network revealed that parents regulated emotions using congruent self- and child-focused strategies within a single interaction. The between-person network revealed that emotional patterns differed between mothers and fathers and were related to dispositional emotional reactivity. For this work, we adopted an integrative approach to unpacking parental emotional processing by incorporating both self-focused and child-focused emotion systems. Our findings underscore the importance of helping parents navigate parallel emotional processes to support both their own well-being and their children's emotional development. However, because all measures relied on parents' self-reports, including reports of children's emotions, the findings may not fully capture children's emotional experiences. Future studies incorporating children's perspectives would provide a more comprehensive understanding of these processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1703-1719"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147844833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Integrating emotion beliefs and emotion regulation into the pathway from emotional awareness to affective distress. 将情绪信念和情绪调节整合到情绪意识到情感困扰的通路中。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-10-01 Epub Date: 2026-04-02 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001671

Joshua Shulkin, Andrew Lac, Kristen L Rudd, Michael A Kisley

{"title":"Integrating emotion beliefs and emotion regulation into the pathway from emotional awareness to affective distress.","authors":"Joshua Shulkin, Andrew Lac, Kristen L Rudd, Michael A Kisley","doi":"10.1037/emo0001671","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001671","url":null,"abstract":"People develop distinct relationships with their emotions based on the varied ways they experience, view, and regulate their emotions. In turn, this may affect individuals' mental health outcomes. Several constructs concerning these emotion processes, such as emotional awareness, emotion beliefs, and emotion regulation, can offer insights to understand these relations. However, despite their intuitive connections, these three types of constructs have been studied in relative isolation. The present study recruited a large online sample (N = 684) across two time points. Structural equation modeling investigated the predictive associations from emotional awareness (Time 1) to affective distress (Time 2) as serially mediated by emotion beliefs (Time 1) and emotion regulation (Time 2). Results showed that the connections from factors of emotional awareness at Time 1 to affective distress at Time 2 were partially mediated by factors of emotion beliefs and emotion regulation use. Specifically, voluntary attention and involuntary attention indirectly predicted affective distress through emotion beliefs about the controllability and usefulness of negative emotions, and the emotion regulation strategy of cognitive reappraisal and emotion acceptance. These results are the first to integrate these constructs in a single explanatory model and suggest that interventions targeting emotional awareness and emotion beliefs can have downstream effects that improve emotion regulation strategies and foster better psychological well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1599-1612"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147610295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Context-sensitive use of distraction and reappraisal in response to negative affect in daily life is not significantly associated with better well-being. 在日常生活中，情境敏感的分心使用和对负面影响的重新评估与更好的幸福感没有显著关联。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-09-24 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001742

Mario Wenzel, Zarah Rowland

{"title":"Context-sensitive use of distraction and reappraisal in response to negative affect in daily life is not significantly associated with better well-being.","authors":"Mario Wenzel, Zarah Rowland","doi":"10.1037/emo0001742","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001742","url":null,"abstract":"Research on emotion regulation has increasingly emphasized the flexible use of strategies in response to situational demands, highlighting the importance of strategy-situation fit. Despite its theoretical prominence, empirical evidence remains limited. In the present study, we examined whether individuals show context-sensitive preferences for distraction versus reappraisal as a function of negative affect intensity and whether such preferences are associated with greater well-being, reflecting strategy-situation fit. We reanalyzed 12 ambulatory assessment data sets (1,511 participants with 161,513 measurement occasions) collected from predominantly White samples including both student and community samples and used a coordinated data analysis approach and dynamic structural equation modeling. Results indicated a very small but statistically significant tendency for individuals to shift toward distraction relative to reappraisal as negative affect increased (β¯ = .02), consistent with context-sensitive strategy use. However, individual differences in this tendency were not predicted by baseline depressive symptoms nor were these differences associated with aggregated positive affect and negative affect in daily life (|β¯|s ≤ .03), providing no support for strategy-situation fit as operationalized here. These findings suggest that although individuals exhibit modest context-sensitive adjustments in strategy use, such adjustments may not reflect differences in mental health and may not translate into improved well-being in everyday life. We highlight methodological and conceptual challenges in capturing context sensitivity in naturalistic settings, discuss limitations of current operationalizations, and outline directions for future research to better assess emotion regulation flexibility in daily life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149041528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Sentiment analysis of parent-child emotion synchrony: The role of child temperament. 亲子情感同步性的情感分析：儿童气质的作用。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-09-24 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001739

Yihui Gong, Jingyi Wang, Meingold Hiu-Ming Chan, Xi Xu, Xin Feng

{"title":"Sentiment analysis of parent-child emotion synchrony: The role of child temperament.","authors":"Yihui Gong, Jingyi Wang, Meingold Hiu-Ming Chan, Xi Xu, Xin Feng","doi":"10.1037/emo0001739","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001739","url":null,"abstract":"Parent-child emotion synchrony plays a critical role in children's emotional development, yet most existing research has been conducted in laboratory settings with limited ecological validity. This study drew on data collected between 2014 and 2018 and used daylong, naturalistic audio recordings and sentiment analysis to examine real-time verbalized emotion synchrony between preschool-aged children and both mothers and fathers during everyday interactions at home. Eighty-four families participated, with 1-min audio recordings captured every 10 min using wearable recording devices. Sentiment scores were derived from transcribed speech using Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner, a lexicon-based sentiment analysis tool, and used to compute momentary emotional valence for each family member. Multilevel models tested whether parent momentary emotional valence predicted child momentary emotional valence at the same moment and whether child temperament (negative emotionality, effortful control, and extraversion) moderated these associations. Results revealed that both mother-child and father-child dyads exhibited emotion synchrony when children expressed positive emotion but only for children with average or high levels of negative emotionality (mother-child) or extraversion (father-child). In negative emotion contexts, exploratory analyses indicated that emotion synchrony was observed only between fathers and children and only for children with low or average effortful control. Findings highlight how child temperament shapes emotion coregulation processes in naturalistic environments and underscore the need to consider parent gender, emotional context, and individual child characteristics in understanding emotional dynamics in families. The study also demonstrates the utility of naturalistic, audio-based approaches for capturing subtle affective processes as they unfold in daily life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149041480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Trust in context: Examining cognitive control in trust decisions. 情境中的信任：信任决策中的认知控制。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-09-21 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001741

Rebecca Kazinka, Angus W MacDonald

{"title":"Trust in context: Examining cognitive control in trust decisions.","authors":"Rebecca Kazinka, Angus W MacDonald","doi":"10.1037/emo0001741","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001741","url":null,"abstract":"Social trust is a key component to relationships between individuals and within communities. Failure to correctly choose to trust or not can have significant consequences in interpersonal relationships, employment, and more. While work has identified cognitive and affective processes relevant to trust, relatively less has examined the role of cognitive control during trust decisions and its interaction with affective processing. This study modifies an expectancy AX task to incorporate trusting behavior in two ways: first by establishing the trust component in a similar framework as AX variants and then by adding an emotional distractor during the paradigm. We conducted a between-subjects analysis of task performance on undergraduates (n = 262) in 2017-2018 to examine the efficacy of the new variant, the effect of an emotional distractor on task performance, and individual difference effects related to social trust. We found that the Trust-AX paradigm provided performance patterns consistent with proactive control of trust decisions. Adding a distractor decreased proactive control as the distractor increased in emotional salience. Last, individuals who had greater social distrust also performed worse on proactive control, suggesting a potential shared mechanism with cognitive control in trust decisions. The Trust-AX paradigm may be a useful measure to examine cognitive control during trust and provide insights into how \"cold\" cognitive processes interact with affective processes to influence trust. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149013100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Putting assumptions to the test: A meta-analytic review of gender differences in emotional intelligence and specific emotion abilities. 假设检验：情绪智力和特定情绪能力性别差异的元分析回顾。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-09-17 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001733

Mary M Hausfeld, Vera Hampel, Leon J Bach, Jochen I Menges

{"title":"Putting assumptions to the test: A meta-analytic review of gender differences in emotional intelligence and specific emotion abilities.","authors":"Mary M Hausfeld, Vera Hampel, Leon J Bach, Jochen I Menges","doi":"10.1037/emo0001733","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001733","url":null,"abstract":"Are women more emotionally intelligent than men? Emotional intelligence (EI) is often colloquially ascribed to women, yet the extant empirical literature yields inconclusive results and EI theories are largely oblivious to gender as an explanatory dimension. To re-evaluate the literature, test key moderators, and develop stronger theory on EI, we examine whether and to what extent gender differences manifest in EI through a meta-analytic review of 1,279 articles comprised of 1,428 samples containing 609,278 participants drawn from published and unpublished work until December 31, 2023. The results suggest gender differences in general EI such that women appear to have higher EI on average, as well as more nuanced gender differences across specific emotional abilities, including some where there may be no difference. Women's advantage is stronger for other- than self-focused emotional abilities and varies by measurement type, with smaller differences in subjective than in performance-based assessments. Additionally, we find that contextual moderators, including leadership position, male-dominated industry, data collection year, participant age, and geographical region, are associated with the presence, magnitude, and direction of gender differences, suggesting that gender differences in EI vary across contexts. Overall, these findings show that women hold advantages in many emotional abilities, but that gender differences in EI are contingent on the target of emotional abilities, measurement type, and context, informing future research and theory building. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148992024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Integrating context and emotions: Top-down effects of intent on mimicry and contagion. 整合情境和情绪：意图对模仿和传染的自上而下影响。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-09-14 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001731

Heidi Mauersberger, Geraldine Klewes, Piotr Winkielman, Ursula Hess

{"title":"Integrating context and emotions: Top-down effects of intent on mimicry and contagion.","authors":"Heidi Mauersberger, Geraldine Klewes, Piotr Winkielman, Ursula Hess","doi":"10.1037/emo0001731","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001731","url":null,"abstract":"Emotions are always expressed and perceived in context. Context can provide key information about the meaning of the emotional expression, such as cues regarding the expresser's intentions. We examined how contextually inferred intent (Study 1, N = 212) as well as explicitly stated intent (Study 2, N = 229) shape emotion perception (accuracy/bias), interpersonal closeness, emotional contagion, and emotional mimicry. A further goal was to assess whether mimicry and contagion are tightly coupled or can dissociate depending on how the expression is interpreted in context. In Study 1, adolescent avatars expressed happiness or sadness in scenarios wherein the context suggested that the expression was either normative (norm consistent) or nonnormative (norm challenging). In Study 2, videos of adult avatars in wedding/funeral scenes were paired with benevolent versus malicious intent captions that were explicitly normative or nonnormative. Across studies, nonnormative, ill-intentioned expressions were evaluated more negatively, reduced closeness, altered emotion attributions, elicited negative emotional reactions, and reduced contagion (especially for nonnormative/malicious smiles). Mimicry was highly selective such that it robustly occurred only for well-intentioned, normative smiles. Overall, the pattern supports a dual-path account in which mimicry and contagion are partly separable rather than tightly coupled. Specifically, both mimicry and contagion varied with how observers interpret the expresser's intent. However, mimicry, which is a visible response, was additionally constrained by the social cost of public alignment. Our samples (collected in 2023 and 2024) consisted primarily of female, university-educated participants from a Western cultural context; findings should be interpreted with this limitation in mind. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148971565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Exploring the unspoken: Maternal implicit attitudes and mother-child emotional availability. 探索未言说：母性内隐态度和母子情感可用性。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-09-14 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001726

Jennifer A Bartz, Molly Feffer, Cecile S Sunahara, Kristina Tchalova, Melanie A Dirks, Phyllis Zelkowitz

{"title":"Exploring the unspoken: Maternal implicit attitudes and mother-child emotional availability.","authors":"Jennifer A Bartz, Molly Feffer, Cecile S Sunahara, Kristina Tchalova, Melanie A Dirks, Phyllis Zelkowitz","doi":"10.1037/emo0001726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001726","url":null,"abstract":"The quality of the mother-child bond is vital to children's socioemotional development. A mother's attitude toward her child might be especially important in this regard; however, assessing such attitudes is difficult given strong reporting biases in close relationships and especially mother-child relationships. Implicit attitudes-thought to reflect the summary of evaluative associations developed through personal experiences with a (close) other-may be one way to circumvent such biases. We investigated the link between mothers' implicit attitudes about her child and the quality of the mother-child bond, indexed by mothers' and their child's behavior during a dyadic interaction. Child sex (male/female) was also evaluated as the dynamics of mother-son and mother-daughter dyads can differ. Between 2012 and 2015, mother-child dyads (N = 217) were recruited from a longitudinal study; dyads were videotaped during a free-play interaction, and their behavior was coded for emotional availability (EA). Mothers completed the MyChild Implicit Association Test indexing their implicit attitudes toward their child. Maternal implicit attitudes were positively associated with mothers' EA, an effect driven by mother-son dyads; these effects held when controlling for child behavior, supporting the unique role of implicit attitudes in guiding mothers' EA. Regarding the child's EA (responsivity, inclusion), mother-son and mother-daughter dyads showed the opposite pattern: Maternal implicit attitudes were positively associated with sons' EA but negatively associated with daughters' EA. These findings highlight the importance of implicit attitudes in the mother-child relationship and are among the few to link implicit attitudes to the attitude target's behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148971584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

From presents to presence: High-quality targets amplify the benefits of gratitude expression. 从礼物到存在：高质量的目标放大了表达感激的好处。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-09-10 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001743

S Katherine Nelson-Coffey, Karissa Beesley, John K Coffey, Tina L Vuong, Madelynn Rumsey

{"title":"From presents to presence: High-quality targets amplify the benefits of gratitude expression.","authors":"S Katherine Nelson-Coffey, Karissa Beesley, John K Coffey, Tina L Vuong, Madelynn Rumsey","doi":"10.1037/emo0001743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001743","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on the robust literature on the benefits of gratitude, we present two preregistered studies demonstrating the advantages of expressing gratitude in the context of high-quality relationships-namely, gratitude for people who foster feelings of being cherished, protected, or accepted (i.e., safe haven gratitude). In a longitudinal experiment conducted in 2023 (N = 485), expressing gratitude for safe haven relationships and gratitude for gifts predicted immediate improvements in positive emotions and perceived partner responsiveness, along with reductions in negative emotions, relative to control, which predicted greater well-being and relationship quality 1 week later. Safe haven gratitude also predicted greater perceived partner responsiveness than gift gratitude, suggesting a unique mechanism differentiating this form of gratitude expression. Second, in a 2 (gratitude target: safe haven, gift) × 3 (gratitude expression: safe haven gratitude, gift gratitude, control) longitudinal experiment (N = 755) conducted in 2023-2024, we found that prompting people to consider a safe haven target led them to choose someone they perceived as more responsive than someone who gave them a gift. Further, when expressed to a safe haven target, both forms of gratitude expression were similarly beneficial; however, when expressed to a general target, focusing on the ways the person made participants feel cherished, protected, or accepted led to even greater feelings of gratitude than gift gratitude expression or control, which in turn predicted well-being and relationship quality 1 week later. Taken together, these findings highlight the well-being benefits of expressing gratitude for high-quality relationships and responsive behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148931595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Emotional responses to naturalistic and artificial intelligence (AI)-generated affective pictures: A systematic comparison. 对自然主义和人工智能（AI）生成的情感图片的情绪反应：系统比较。

IF 3.8 2区心理学

Emotion Pub Date : 2026-09-10 DOI: 10.1037/emo0001735

Faith Gilbert, Fan Yang, Ethan Smith, Sarah M Gardy, Andrew H Farkas, Yujun Chen, Mingzhou Ding, Ruogu Fang, Andreas Keil

{"title":"Emotional responses to naturalistic and artificial intelligence (AI)-generated affective pictures: A systematic comparison.","authors":"Faith Gilbert, Fan Yang, Ethan Smith, Sarah M Gardy, Andrew H Farkas, Yujun Chen, Mingzhou Ding, Ruogu Fang, Andreas Keil","doi":"10.1037/emo0001735","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001735","url":null,"abstract":"Pictures depicting naturalistic scenes are widely used in studies of human emotion. However, the practical use of affective pictures is limited by several factors, including the difficulty of obtaining content-diverse, high-quality, openly accessible, and standardized stimuli that are necessary for specific research questions. The use of artificially generated (AI) pictures could address this limitation, but it is unclear if AI-generated pictures evoke reliable emotional responses. The present study sought to address these challenges by comparing emotional responses to AI-generated pictures with responses to original, standardized pictures. In two iterations of the study, standardized pictures containing pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant content were selected from the International Affective Picture System and other sources. Then, a matched AI counterpart was created for each original picture using generative deep neural networks. A total of 109 participants viewed the picture sets, while pupil diameter and electroencephalography data were recorded. Evaluative ratings of hedonic valence and emotional arousal were also collected. For both AI and original exemplars, pictures depicting emotional content elicited stronger responses than neutral content for ratings and electroencephalography-derived variables, with weaker effect sizes for the AI-generated pictures. Furthermore, picture-level analyses found that ratings and electroencephalography measures were strongly correlated between matched AI and original pictures. Pupil data showed the expected content effects in the second iteration of the study but not in the first iteration. Together, this initial study suggests that AI-generated picture sets can effectively elicit well-established self-reported affect and physiological responses, presenting a promising avenue for future studies of human emotion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13564379/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148931504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

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