心理科学 ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (6): 1363-1372.DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240608

• 基础、实验与工效 • 上一篇    下一篇

工作记忆刷新对负性情绪调节的影响及其迁移效应*

许莎1,2, 锁倩倩1, 何晓丽**1, 姚昭**3   

  1. 1宁夏大学教师教育学院,银川,750021;
    2陕西服装工程学院,西安,712046;
    3西安交通大学外国语学院,西安,710049
  • 出版日期:2024-11-20 发布日期:2024-12-24
  • 通讯作者: **何晓丽,E-mail: hexl@nxu.edu.cn;姚昭,E-mail: yaozhao@xjtu.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    *本研究得到国家社会科学基金项目一般项目(23BSH076)和宁夏哲学社会科学规划项目(22NXBSH06)的资助

The Effect of Working Memory Updating on Negative Emotion Regulation and its Training Transfer Effect

Xu Sha1,2, Suo Qianqian1, He Xiaoli1, Yao Zhao3   

  1. 1College of Teacher Education, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, 750021;
    2Shaanxi Fashion Engineering University, Xi'an, 712046;
    3School of Foreign Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049
  • Online:2024-11-20 Published:2024-12-24

摘要: 从认知功能视角考察工作记忆刷新对负性情绪调节的影响,并探究工作记忆刷新训练的迁移效应。实验1采用n-back任务,探索工作记忆刷新对负性情绪的影响及其对不同状态认知重评调节效率的作用。结果发现,工作记忆刷新不能显著降低负性情绪主观体验,但可以有效降低皮肤电反应,并且对有意识和自动化认知重评情绪调节均具有促进作用。实验2进一步探讨工作记忆刷新训练对情绪调节的迁移效应。结果显示,训练增益可以迁移至有意识和自动化认知重评情绪调节任务。以上结果表明,工作记忆刷新不仅可以单独作为一种内隐情绪调节方式,而且能够通过认知重评发挥更好的情绪调节效果,工作记忆刷新训练对情绪调节存在迁移效应。

关键词: 工作记忆刷新, 情绪调节, 认知重评, 迁移效应

Abstract: Difficulties in emotion regulation are associated with various psychological disorders that seriously harm individuals’ health and interpersonal relationships, so it is important to explore effective methods of negative emotion regulation. In addition to cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression strategies, researchers have paid attention to the role of executive function, particularly working memory updating in emotion regulation. Some studies have shown that activating or training working memory updating can directly reduce negative emotion, while others have indicated that working memory updating decreases negative emotion by promoting cognitive reappraisal, because updating and reappraisal both involve the rapid switching of cognitive contents and the processes of replacing old information with new information. However, most studies have focused on conscious cognitive reappraisal and few studies have explored the effect of working memory updating on automatic cognitive reappraisal. Moreover, the transfer effect of working memory updating training on emotion regulation is controversial. To solve above problems, the present study used two experiments to investigate the effect of working memory updating on negative emotion regulation and its training transfer effect.
Study 1 explored the effects of working memory updating on negative emotion and the relationship between updating and conscious and automatic cognitive reappraisal. Experiment adopted a 2 (working memory updating: with, without) × 3 (cognitive reappraisal: conscious cognitive reappraisal, automatic cognitive reappraisal, none) between-subjects design. A total of 120 normal healthy undergraduate students were randomly assigned to 6 experimental conditions, 20 in each group. Five testing stages within a single experimental session: baseline, unpleasant emotions evoked task, working memory updating task, cognitive reappraisal task, and emotional regulation task. Participants’ subjective emotional experience and electrodermal activity (EDA) were collected. Study 2 examined the effect of working memory updating training on the emotion regulation ability. Another 60 normal healthy undergraduate students were recruited and assigned randomly to the working memory updating training group and the corresponding active control group. The training group received 20 days of adaptive visual n-back training programs, and the control group participated in the simple digital parity tasks for the same period. Before and after the training session, participants were asked to complete the visual n-back Task, and the conscious or automatic cognitive reappraisal emotion regulation tasks.
The results of Study 1 showed that working memory updating effectively reduced EDA but not unpleasant emotional experience. Additionally, both conscious and automatic cognitive reappraisal significantly decreased unpleasant emotional experience and EDA, with no difference. Furthermore, working memory updating improved the emotion regulation efficiency of both conscious and automatic cognitive reappraisal, and significantly reduced unpleasant emotional experience and EDA after reappraisal. The results of Study 2 showed that the training group significantly improved the correct rate of the visual n-back Task than the active control group. The decreases of unpleasant emotional experience and EDA in the conscious and automatic cognitive reappraisal working memory updating training groups during the post-test phase were significantly higher than that in the pre-test phase. The negative emotional experience decreased more in the conscious cognitive reappraisal training group, and the EDA decreased more in the automatic cognitive reappraisal training group.
In conclusion, the present study suggests that working memory updating as an implicit emotion regulation strategy could significantly reduce the physiological consequences of negative emotion. The facilitating effect of working memory updating on conscious and automatic cognitive reappraisal was demonstrated. In addition, adaptive working memory updating training produced a transfer effect and effectively improved emotion regulation ability, which has a broad application prospect. For future research, it is necessary to investigate the neurophysiological mechanism and influencing factors of working memory updating on emotion regulation, and focus on the lasting effect of training.

Key words: working memory updating, emotion regulation, cognitive reappraisal, transfer effect