Investigating the Neural Systems That Support the Beneficial Effects of Positive Emotion on Stress Regulation

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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For this study, community participants will visit the PI's psychophysiology lab for a single experimental session. In this study, participants will complete pre-task questionnaires (trait measures), and a brief mood measure, followed by a task training in which a research assistant describes and gives examples of cognitive reappraisal in response to negative images. Participants are then randomly assigned to positive or neutral emotion induction conditions, to be delivered by virtual reality. Then, participants complete an event-related, picture-based cognitive reappraisal task for 30-45 minutes, during which skin conductance level will be collected. Following the task, participants will once again respond to a mood measure, and answer a series of questions regarding the task they have completed, including difficulty of regulation, or any images that were personally relevant. The investigators predict that the positive emotion induction will result in powerful effects on self-reported emotion and skin conductance, which may or may not interact with the cognitive reappraisal condition.

Detailed Description
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For the studies, participants will be recruited via paper and electronic flyers on campus and in the surrounding communities. Interested participants will be screened via phone, email and/or web form to assess eligibility according to criteria listed elsewhere. Should participants qualify, they will be invited to complete a single laboratory session in the PI's psychophysiology lab. Once arriving at the laboratory, participants will complete the consent process, in which a research assistant trained in ethical principles regarding human subjects research will answer any questions about the consent form and verbally reinforce the key rights of the participants outlined there. Once both parties are satisfied, consent forms will be signed. Participants will sit with a trained research assistant/experimenter who will give an overview of the entire session, and then begin training for the cognitive reappraisal task. This training takes 10-15 minutes. During the training, the experimenter will offer several possible reappraisals of negative images and allow the participants to offer their own as well, providing encouragement and feedback. During this training, the experimenter will also go over the method of encouragement and feedback. During this training, the experimenter will also go over the method of responding (using the VR equipment). Participants will be reminded during training that they may stop the experiment at any point if the pictures are too upsetting. Immediately following task training, participants will make a general mood rating using the PANAS. Then, they will be randomly assigned to a positive or neutral mood induction, to be delivered by 10 minutes exploring a positive (beach scene) or neutral (office scene) VR environment using a headset with integrated audio. After the VR exploration, participants will complete the reappraisal task. The task will take just under 20 minutes.

Official Title
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Investigating the Neural Systems That Support the Beneficial Effects of Positive Emotion on Stress Regulation

Conditions
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Behavior

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Positive Emotion Induction
* Behavioral: Neutral Emotion Induction


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Community members ages 18-55 Fluent in English Without present psychotic symptoms Exclusion Criteria: None

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years
Maximum Age: 55 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Basic Science
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Positive VR Scene<br>Participants will explore a virtual reality (VR) environment of a beach scene. Participants will be randomly assigned (between subjects) to beach or office scene. VR will be presented on an Occulus Rift device. | Behavioral: Positive Emotion Induction<br>* Participants are expected to have a positive emotional response to the more positive beach scene.<br>|
| Experimental: Neutral VR Scene<br>Participants will explore a virtual reality (VR) environment of a neutral office scene. Participants will be randomly assigned (between subjects) to beach or office scene. VR will be presented on an Occulus Rift device. | Behavioral: Neutral Emotion Induction<br>* Participants are expected to have a neutral emotional response to the neutral office scene.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Self-reported emotion ratings | Participants will be rating their negative and positive emotions during the intervention. They will be asked How positive do you feel? and How negative do you feel? after each image and will answer on a scale of 1-9 with 1 being low (I don't feel positive at all or I don't feel negative at all) to 9 (I feel very positive or I feel very negative). | During the task intervention which will last 18 minutes | 
| Means of self-reported emotion ratings | The mean of each negative and positive emotion score will be calculated post-intervention. | Immediately after the intervention | 
| Skin conductance level | The researchers will place electrodes on the palm and will measure changes in conductance in response to negative/neutral images. | Immediately after the intervention | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mood ratings | Pre- and post-task mood as measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) will be taken before and after the intervention. The PANAS is a 20-question questionnaire rated on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being very slight or not at all and 5 being extremely). Questions 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 19 represent the positive affect scale with scores ranging between 10 and 50 (the higher the score, the higher the levels of positive affect). Questions 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15,18, and 20 represent the negative affect scale with scores falling between 10 and 50 (lower scores represent lower levels of negative affect). | Pre-intervention and immediately after the intervention | 
| Debriefing of instructions | Following the VR task, participants will be asked to report the task instructions in their own words. The first questions will ask participants to reiterate the instructions they were given for the cognitive reappraisal task (for example: What were you instructed to do during the 'LOOK' trials?) This is a fill in the blank question and there are no right or wrong answers. | Immediately after the intervention | 
| Task difficulty | The next batch of questions will ask the participant questions about the difficulty of the task. An example question is How difficult was it to follow the 'LOOK' instruction? Participants will be rating the level of difficulty on a scale of 1 to 7 with 1 being not difficult at all to 7 being very difficult. | Immediately after the intervention | 
| Task compliance | Participants will be asked about self-reported task compliance. For example, one question will ask What percentage of the time were you able to follow the LOOK instruction? The participants will be rating their self-compliance for each task from 0% (non-compliant) to 100% (fully compliant). | Immediately after the intervention | 
| Experience with task images | Participants will be asked whether they have any experience with reappraisal or the specific images presented in the task. The first question will ask Have you ever been trained to change your emotions by changing the way you think (in therapy, or in another experiment, or anywhere else)? Participants can choose Yes or No for this question. The participant will have to extrapolate if they have changed their emotions before using a fill in the blank. The next question will ask Have you ever seen any of these exact emotional images before? The participant then once again will be asked to extrapolate which images they have seen and what emotional response was generated by these images using a fill in the blank option. | Immediately after the intervention | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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cognition, reappraisal