Three studies examined the psychological processes underlying effects of voluntary emotion regulation on stimulus encoding, as well as relationships between emotion regulation and memory. In Study 1, startle responses were elicited as participants used cognitive strategies to enhance, maintain, and decrease responses to Pleasant, Unpleasant, and Neutral pictures. On both Pleasant and Unpleasant picture trials, startle responses decreased as a function of cue in the following order: enhance > maintain > decrease. Results indicate that arousal, not valence, is critical to startle modulation by voluntary emotion regulation. In Study 2, ERPs were recorded as participants used reappraisal to enhance and decrease responses to Unpleasant and Neutral pictures. Reappraisal did not affect ERP components associated with the earliest stages of perceptual processing. However, for pictures presented on enhance trials, a positive ERP amplitude shift was evident from approximately 350-1400 ms, implicating sustained modulation of processes related to arousal and/or attention. For Unpleasant pictures only, similarly distributed positive amplitude shifts were also observed on decrease trials during early (225-300 ms) and late (900-1150 ms) intervals, with a distinct reduction in between. The similar ERP shifts elicited by Unpleasant pictures presented on enhance and decrease trials suggest that these ERPs index control processes rather than modulation of arousal or valence. In Study 3, emotion regulation strategies were manipulated at encoding and explicit and implicit memory tests were administered. In Experiment 1, participants used reappraisal to enhance and decrease the personal relevance of Unpleasant and Neutral pictures. In Experiment 2, decrease cues were replaced with suppress cues that directed participants to inhibit emotion-expressive behavior. Across experiments, pictures presented on enhance trials were well-recalled. By contrast, suppressing emotional displays impaired recall, especially compared to the enhance condition. Paired with Unpleasant pictures, the decrease cue improved recall. Paired with Neutral stimuli, the decrease cue impaired recall. Emotion regulation did not affect perceptual priming. Collectively, results support three conclusions. First, physiological effects of emotion regulation primarily index arousal modulation. Second, emotion regulation affects conceptual-not perceptual-stages of processing. Third, effects of emotion regulation on conceptual explicit memory reflect strategic influences on stimulus elaboration.
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