Psychophysiology, 50 (2013), 10941103. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Printed in the USA.

Copyright 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research

DOI: 10.1111/psyp.12091

How does cognitive reappraisal affect the response to gains

and losses?

QIWEI YANG,a,b RUOLEI GU,c PING TANG,b and YUE-JIA LUOd

a

State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Sichuan Research Center of Applied Psychology, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China
c
Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
d
Institute of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
b

Abstract
To investigate the influence of cognitive reappraisal, one important kind of emotion regulation strategy, on psychological
and electrophysiological responses to gains and losses, a monetary gambling task was performed in two conditions, that
is, spontaneity and regulation. Event-related potentials (ERP) and self-rating emotional experiences to outcome feedback
were recorded during the task. Cognitive reappraisal reduced self-rating emotional experience to both gains and losses
and the amplitudes of the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the P3 of ERPs. According to these results, we suggest
that the application of cognitive reappraisal strategy significantly modulated the motivational salience of current
outcomes, thus weakening the subjective emotional experience elicited. In addition, cognitive reappraisal might have
changed the allocation of cognitive resources during outcome evaluation. This study extends emotion regulation studies
by applying monetary outcomes as emotional stimuli, and also implicates the significance of emotion regulation in
decision-making processes.
Descriptors: Emotion regulation, Cognitive reappraisal, Gains and losses, Emotional experience, Event-related potential, Feedback-related negativity, P3

involves the reconsideration or reframing of an emotional event

with a less emotional meaning, reason, outcome, reality, or personal concern. Numerous studies have shown that cognitive
reappraisal is effective at reducing negative emotional responses
(Gross, 1998b; Hajcak & Nieuwenhuis, 2006; McRae et al., 2010;
Moser, Hajcak, Bukay, & Simons, 2006; Ochsner & Gross, 2008).
The frequent use of cognitive reappraisal leads to an enhanced
control of emotion, better interpersonal functioning, and psychological and physical well-being (Gross, 2002; Gross & John, 2003;
McRae, Jacobs, Ray, John, & Gross, 2012).
One essential function of emotions is to seek rewards and avoid
punishments for the survival and reproduction of humans and
animals. Rewards induce hedonic (positive) emotions, approach
behavior, and reinforcement learning, whereas punishments induce
negative emotions, withdrawal behavior, and avoidance learning
(Schultz, 2004). Reward processing involves the mesocorticolimbic reward circuit, which mainly includes the orbitofrontal
cortex (OFC) and ventral striatum (Haber & Knutson, 2009). In this
process, the ventral striatum activity codes a prediction error signal,
that is, the difference between the predicted value and obtained value
of rewards (Holroyd & Coles, 2002). The value of rewards is then
assessed in the OFC, to be used by the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and
anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) for the purpose of action selection
(Holroyd & Coles, 2002; McClure, York, & Montague, 2004).
Monetary gains, which are typical secondary rewards to individuals
in modern society, elicit robust neural activity throughout the reward
circuit in a way that is similar to primary rewards (Blair et al., 2006;

It has been an age-old discussion of how we should manage our

emotions to be more adaptive (Gross, 1998a). Emotions evolve
from simple and rigid adaptive systems, such as reflexes and
physiological drives, and draw on both motives and thought, which
promotes response flexibility and enables individuals to distinguish
and adapt to often complex and subtle environments (Lazarus,
1991). However, emotional response tendencies are sometimes
inappropriate for the situations we encounter. In this case, the
behavioral responses that are primed by emotions might not be
suitable for achieving long-term goals. These concerns emphasize
the necessity of emotion regulation, which refers to any process an
individual uses to influence the onset, offset, magnitude, duration,
intensity, or quality of one or more aspects of an emotional
response (Gross & Thompson, 2007). One particularly important
strategy of emotion regulation is cognitive reappraisal, which

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This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30930031, 91132704), the Ministry of Science and
Technology (973 Program, 2011CB711000), the Global Research Initiative Program, United States National Institutes of Health grant
(1R01TW007897), and the Scientific Foundation of Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y2CQ013005). The authors sincerely
thank the editor Dr. Greg Hajcak and two anonymous reviewers for their
contribution in improving the manuscript.
Address correspondence to: Ruolei Gu, Key Laboratory of Behavioral
Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,
China, 100101. E-mail: gurl@psych.ac.cn or Yue-jia Luo, e-mail: luoyj@
bnu.edu.cn
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Cognitive reappraisal affects outcome evaluation

Haber & Knutson, 2009; Kim, Shimojo, & ODoherty, 2006;
Knutson, Taylor, Kaufman, Peterson, & Glover, 2005). In the reward
circuit, gains and losses and their concomitant emotions lead to
learning and adaptive decision making. However, excessive emotion
responses induced by gains or losses may be detrimental to optimal
decision making and individuals health. There are sufficient evidences that emotions can induce unwanted biases in decision
making (such as Bower, 1991; Lerner, Small, & Loewenstein, 2004;
Shiv, Loewenstein, Bechara, Damasio, & Damasio, 2005). In a stock
investment simulation context, Seo and Barrett (2007) observed that
the ability to identify, distinguish, and regulate the emotions relevant
to biases promoted optimal decision making. In the study of
Fenton-OCreevy, Soane, Nicholson, and Willman (2011), emotion
regulation strategies that were used to regulate the spillover of
emotion from previous outcomes were observed to play a central
role in traders decision making; traders deploying cognitive
reappraisal achieved a performance advantage over those employing
primarily avoidance or response control. In a laboratory study,
Sokol-Hessner and colleagues (2009) observed that cognitive
reappraisal reduced both the behavioral tendency of loss aversion
(which means that losses loom larger than equivalent gains; see
Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) and physiological arousal to losses
relative to gains. However, to the best of our knowledge, the underlying mechanism of the influence of cognitive reappraisal on reward
processing remains largely unexplored.
Event-related potentials (ERPs) are an important neuroscientific
technique to study emotion and emotion regulation (Hajcak,
MacNamara, & Olvet, 2010). To investigate the psychophysiological mechanism of the impact of cognitive reappraisal on the
processing of rewards and losses, a monetary gambling task and
cognitive reappraisal strategies that have been proved efficient in
economic decisions (Read, Loewenstein, & Rabin, 1999) were
used in the present study. In the gambling task, participants select
one of the alternatives (5 or 25) as a bet amount, and then receive
an outcome feedback (either gain or loss). The ERP technique was
used to simultaneously detect the neural responses to outcome
presentations. Among the ERP signals that could potentially be
biomarkers of outcome evaluation, the feedback-related negativity
(FRN) and P3 are the most often studied components. The FRN is
a negative deflection in the frontocentral region that is more pronounced for negative feedback than for positive feedback (Foti,
Weinberg, Dien, & Hajcak, 2011; Gehring & Willoughby, 2002;
Wu & Zhou, 2009). According to the classic reinforcement
learningerror related negativity (RL-ERN) theory, the FRN represents the transmission of a neural reward prediction error signal
from midbrain dopamine neurons to the ACC (Holroyd & Coles,
2002). Larger FRN amplitudes indicate stronger motivational
impact of the current event (Gehring & Willoughby, 2002; Yeung,
Holroyd, & Cohen, 2005; Yeung & Sanfey, 2004). The P3 is a
centroparietal positivity, which encodes the salience of current
stimuli (Nieuwenhuis, Aston-Jones, & Cohen, 2005; Polezzi,
Sartori, Rumiati, Vidotto, & Daum, 2010). In addition, the P3
amplitude is often associated with the allocation of cognitive
resources, whereas the P3 latency represents the stimulusevaluation time, being sensitive to task-processing demands
(Molnr, 1999; Polich, 1987, 2007). The FRN and P3 represent the
early and the late stage of outcome evaluation, respectively, such
that the FRN reflects a quick and coarse detection of outcome
valence, while the P3 encodes all the major properties of an
outcome (i.e., valence and magnitude; Gu et al., 2011; Hajcak,
Moser, Holroyd, & Simons, 2007; Philiastides, Biele, Vavatzanidis,
Kazzer, & Heekeren, 2010; Wu & Zhou, 2009).

1095
In the present study, we asked participants to either respond
spontaneously or employ the strategy of cognitive reappraisal to
calm down when facing the outcome feedback that indicated a gain
or loss. During the task, we asked all participants to evaluate the
level of their emotional experience to different types of outcomes.
We hypothesize that the effect of cognitive reappraisal on the
responses to outcomes would be shown on self-rating scores of
emotional experiences, such that emotional experiences would be
downregulated for both gains and losses. Since the cognitive
reappraisal strategy (see Method section) in the present study was
supposed to reduce the motivational significance and the subjective
weight of individual trial outcomes, the FRN and P3 amplitudes
were hypothesized to be reduced by cognitive reappraisal. Furthermore, we explored the relation between self-rating emotional
experiences and the ERP components.
Method
Participants
Thirty-six right-handed students (24 females; mean = 22.0 years,
SD = 2.2) from Beijing Normal University participated in the
experiment. All participants were free of regular medication use or
other nonmedical substances that might influence the central
nervous system. All participants had normal vision (with or without
correction); none had a history of neurological disease. All participants provided their informed consent prior to the experiment. The
experimental protocol was approved by the local ethics committee
(Beijing Normal University).
Experimental Tasks and Procedure
During the task, the participant sat comfortably in an electrically
shielded room, approximately 100 cm in front of a computer
screen. A single trial entailed the following sequence: initially, a
fixation cross appeared on the screen center, adjoined on either side
by two rectangles for 500 ms. The numbers 5 and 25 (5 jiao and 25
jiao RMB, indicating the amount of bet, approximately 8 and
40 U.S. cents, respectively) were then simultaneously and respectively presented in one of the two rectangles until the participant
had conducted his/her choice by pressing the F or J keys on the
keyboard with their left or right index finger (F for the alternative
on the left and J for the right). The selected alternative was then
emphasized by a thickened red outline of the chosen rectangle for
500 ms. All stimuli then disappeared for a short interval of a
random duration between 1,000 and 1,500 ms; the result of the
participants choice then appeared with the + or symbols,
thus indicating the valence of the outcome (see Figure 1).
There were four possible outcomes: +5, 5, +25, and 25,
indicating that the participant won or lost 5 or 25 jiao RMB,
respectively. The feedback display remained visible for 1,500 ms,
and a black screen was then presented for a short interval that
varied randomly between 800 and 1,200 ms. The formal task consisted of eight blocks of 50 trials. The eight blocks were half-split
and assigned to experimental conditions (i.e., spontaneity and regulation). Each condition consisted of four successive blocks, which
was indicated by an instruction prior to each block. Regarding
economic decisions, an efficient cognitive reappraisal strategy is to
evaluate an outcome in a greater context (Read et al., 1999;
Sokol-Hessner et al., 2009). Therefore, in the cognitive reappraisal
condition, the participants were asked to evaluate the outcome of a
single trial from the perspective of a bigger picture. In addition, the

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Figure 1. The sequence of events within a single trial of the monetary decision-making task. The participant was asked to select a choice of two alternatives.
Their choice was emphasized for 500 ms. After a subsequent interval of 1,0001,500 ms, the outcome feedback was presented for 1,500 ms. After an
additional 8001,200 ms, the participant was presented with the next trial. After every 12 trials, the participant was asked to evaluate his/her emotional
experience to the previous outcome of the proximate trial using a 9-point scale. RT = response time.

participants were also required to consider gains or losses as inevitable in each round of gambling. This type of reinterpretation of the
outcome will increase the level of outcome acceptance, which is
effective to reduce emotional experiences and physiological
responses to emotion stimuli as an emotion regulation strategy
(Levitt, Brown, Orsillo, & Barlow, 2004; Wolgast, Lundh, &
Viborg, 2011). In the spontaneity condition, the translated Chinese
instructions read as follows:
Please pay attention to each outcome, and treat the present outcome as the
final result of this game. You can attempt any strategies to get more rewards.
Gains or losses will induce two different types of corresponding emotions.
When the emotion arises, do not attempt to regulate or control it.

Before the experiment, the participants were instructed on the

rules and requirements in the spontaneity and regulation conditions, respectively. In addition, they were informed that they were
initially rewarded with 60 yuan RMB (approximately $10) and that
the total bonus money was 60 yuan plus the cumulative outcomes
for the experiment. The participants were encouraged to respond in
a manner that would maximize the reward. Unbeknownst to the
participants, the probability of receiving a positive or negative
outcome on any given trial was equal. Furthermore, in both the
spontaneity and regulation conditions, the 9-point scale for the
evaluation of emotional experience appeared 16 times (i.e., evaluation trials), and the probability of the evaluated outcomes were
equal for gains and losses.

In the regulation condition, the instructions read as follows:

Please remain calm when the outcome appears. One single outcome only
contributes an extremely small portion to the final result, so it has hardly
any effect on the final result. Just as we must experience ups and downs in
our life, gambling is inevitably accompanied with gains and losses. So,
calm down whether you win or lose to make your next sound choice.

The sequence of the two conditions was randomized across the

participants. After every 12 trials, the participant was asked to
evaluate his/her emotional experience to the outcome in the previous trial using a 9-point scale, which combined arousal and valence
dimensions of affective experience (Russell, 1980). The translated
Chinese instructions of the 9-point scale read as follows:
Please evaluate your emotional experience to the previous outcome on a
scale of 1 to 9, among which 5 indicates that you feel calm and bland. From
5 to 9, the positive affects of pleasure, satisfaction, or excitement strengthen
more and more. From 5 to 1, the negative affects of disappointment, depression, or anger strengthen more and more.

The stimuli were presented and behavioral responses collected

using E-Prime (Version 1.1, PST, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA).

The EEG Recordings and Data Analysis

Brain electrical activity was recorded from 64 scalp sites using tin
electrodes mounted on an elastic cap (Brain Products Gmbh,
Munich, Germany) with an online reference to the left mastoid and
offline algebraic rereference to the average of the left and right
mastoids. The electrooculogram (EOG) was recorded from four
facial electrodes: two were 1 cm above and below the left eye, one
was 1 cm to the left of the left eye, and one was 1 cm to the right
of the right eye. All interelectrode impedance was maintained
below 5 k. The electroencephalogram (EEG) and EOG were
amplified using a 0.01100 Hz band-pass and continuously
sampled at 500 Hz/channel. The offline analysis was performed
using the Brain Vision Analyzer software (Brain Products). The
EEG for each trial was corrected for blinks and eye movements
using the method developed by Gratton, Coles, & Donchin (1983).
Frequencies below 0.5 Hz and above 30 Hz were digitally filtered.
The EEG was segmented for each trial, beginning 200 ms before
the feedback onset and continuing for 1,000 ms. The data were
baseline corrected by subtracting the average activity of that
channel during the baseline period from each sample. Any trials in

Cognitive reappraisal affects outcome evaluation

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which the EEG voltages exceeded a threshold of 100 V during

the recording period were excluded from the analysis.
The FRN has been reported to be maximal in the frontocentral
area of the scalp (Holroyd & Krigolson, 2007; Oliveira, McDonald,
& Goodman, 2007), whereas the P3 has been reported to be
maximal in the centroparietal area (Lust & Bartholow, 2009;
Nieuwenhuis et al., 2005). Based on the topographical distribution
of the grand-averaged ERP activity and previous studies, the following 15 electrode sites (frontal: Fz, F3, F4; frontocentral: FCz,
FC3, FC4; central: Cz, C3, C4; centroparietal: CPz, CP3, CP4; and
parietal: Pz, P3, and P4) were initially selected for the statistical
analyses of the scalp distribution of the two components. To minimize the overlap between the FRN and other ERP components,
FRN was measured as the peak amplitude of the difference wave
between positive and negative trials in a window of 200400 ms
following the feedback presentation (Holroyd, Larsen, & Cohen,
2004). The P3 was measured as the positive peak amplitude within
the 300500-ms time window following the feedback presentation.
Results
For all the analyses listed below, the significance level was set at
0.05. GreenhouseGeisser correction for analyses of variance
(ANOVA) tests was used whenever appropriate to correct for sphericity. Post hoc testing of significant main effects was conducted
with the least significant difference (LSD) method. Significant
interactions were further examined using simple effect analysis.
Partial eta-squared ( 2p ) was reported to indicate the effect size in
ANOVA tests. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS
(17.0; SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL).
Behavioral Results
We defined the choice of 25 to be the risky choice (high risk or
return), and the choice of 5 to be the risk-avoidant choice in this
task. A paired samples t test was used to compare the ratio of risky
choices conducted by each participant between the spontaneity and
regulation conditions. The average rate of risky choices in the
spontaneity condition (0.532, SD = 0.140) was slightly higher than
in the regulation condition (0.520, SD = 0.124), but the difference
was not significant, t(35) = 0.642, p = .525.
Emotional Experience
For each participant, each of the four outcomes (i.e., +5, +25, 5,
25) was evaluated more than once in both the spontaneity and
regulation conditions, except that 25 was not evaluated by one
participant in the spontaneity condition and another participant in
the regulation condition because the outcome 25 did not appear in
any of the evaluation trials. The emotional experience score of each
outcome was averaged for every participant in each condition, and
two missing data were replaced with the corresponding average
score of the remaining 35 participants.
These self-rating scores (see Figure 2) were entered into a 2
(Emotional Condition: spontaneity and regulation) 2 (Valence:
positive and negative) 2 (Magnitude: large and small) ANOVA.
The analysis showed a significant main effect of emotional condition, F(1,35) = 23.321, p < .001, 2p = .400; magnitude, F(1,35) =
11.025, p < .005, 2p = .240; and valence, F(1,35) = 356.903,
p < .001, 2p = .911. The two-way interaction between emotional
condition and valence was significant, F(1,35) = 58.681, p < .001,
2p = .626; the two-way interaction between valence and magnitude

Figure 2. The emotional experience scores of four types of outcomes

(large loss, 25; small loss, 5; large gain, +25; small gain, +5). The
emotional experience score of 5 meant calm and bland. From 5 to 9, the
positive affects of pleasure, satisfaction, or excitement strengthened more
and more, whereas from 5 to 1, the negative affects of disappointment,
depression, or anger strengthened more and more.

was also significant, F(1,35) = 15.047, p < .001, 2p = .301. The

interaction of Emotional Condition Valence Magnitude was
not significant (p = .095). The simple effect analyses of the interaction of Emotional Condition Valence demonstrated that emotional experience score was lower in the regulation state than in the
spontaneity state (6.041 vs. 6.815; F(1,35) = 21.561, p < .001,
2p = .459) when outcomes were gains, and higher in regulation
state than in spontaneity state (3.909 vs. 2.686; F(1,35) = 82.591,
p < .001, 2p = .702) when outcomes were losses. Seeing that the 5
indicated the lowest emotional level on the self-rating scale (see the
Method section), these results indicated that the strategy of cognitive reappraisal had a downregulation effect for emotional experiences to both gains and losses. The simple effect analyses of the
interaction of Valence Magnitude demonstrated that the difference score between 5 and 25 was significant (3.512 vs. 3.083,
F(1,35) = 26.946, p < .001, 2p = .435), whereas difference score
between +5 and +25 was not significant (6.415 vs. 6.442, p = .753).
The correlation between emotional experience to gains (the
scores averaged between +25 and +5) and losses (the scores
averaged between 25 and 5) was significant in the spontaneity
(r = .644, p < .001) and regulation conditions (r = .707,
p < .001) across the participants. The difference of emotional
experience (reduced by cognitive reappraisal) to gains correlated
with the difference of emotional experience to losses (r = .762,
p < .001) (see Figure 3).
ERP Results
FRN amplitude. A 5 (Coronal: anterior to posterior) 3 (Lateral:
left, midline, and right) ANOVA on the peak amplitude of the
difference wave between the gains and losses showed that the main
effect of coronal, F(1.642,57.469) = 11.256, p < .001, 2p = .243;
lateral location, F(2,70) = 22.154, p < .001, 2p = .388; and the
interaction of coronal and lateral location, F(4.435,155.231) =
7.250, p < .001, 2p = .172, were significant. A post hoc LSD test
showed that the FRN amplitude was gradually reduced from

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Q. Yang et al.

Figure 3. The relationship between emotional experience to gains (the scores averaged between +25 and +5) and losses (the scores averaged between 25
and 5) in the spontaneity condition (a) and in the regulation condition (b). The relationship between the difference of emotional experience (reduced by
cognitive reappraisal) to gains and losses (c).

anterior to posterior locations (the anterior three locations had

greater FRN amplitude than the posterior two locations (frontal
(6.244 V) vs. central-parietal (5.653 V), t(35) = 2.477,
p < .05, parietal (5.091 V), t(35) = 4.027, p < .001; frontalcentral (6.043 V) vs. central-parietal, t(35) = 2.163, p < .05,
parietal, t(35) = 3.886, p < .001; central (5.913 V) vs. centralparietal, t(35) = 2.318, p < .05, parietal, t(35) = 4.380, p < .001,
while the former three (frontal vs. frontal-central vs. central), as
well as the latter two locations (central-parietal vs. parietal), did not
show inner significant difference with one another (all ps > .05). In
addition, the FRN amplitude was larger on midline (6.247 V)
than on right (5.706 V, t(35) = 6.753, p < .001) and left
(5.414 V, t(35) = 4.061, p < .001) location, while the right and
left locations did not show significant difference (p = .074). The
pairwise comparisons of the five midline electrodes showed that
the FRN amplitude was larger at Fz (6.868 V) and FCz
(6.845 V) than at Cz (6.372 V), CPz (5.928 V), and Pz
(5.222 V), while Fz and FCz were not significantly different
between each other (Fz vs. Fcz, p = .832; Fz vs. Cz, t(35) = 2.894,
p < .01, CPz, t(35) = 3.568, p < .01, Pz, t(35) = 4.752, p < .001;
Fcz vs. Cz, t(35) = 3.503, p < .01, CPz, t(35) = 3.998, p < .001,
Pz, t(35) = 4.973, p < .001). Thus, the pooled Fz/FCz value was
selected for further analyses of FRN amplitude.
A 2 (Emotional Condition: spontaneity and regulation) 2
(Magnitude: large and small) ANOVA for the peak amplitude of the
difference wave between the gains and losses at the pooled Fz/FCz
revealed a significant main effect of emotional condition,
F(1,35) = 4.833, p < .05, 2p = .121; regulation (7.146 V) elicited smaller FRN amplitudes than spontaneity (8.097 V) (see
Figure 4). Neither the main effect of magnitude, F(1,35) = 1.952,
p = .171, 2p = .053, nor the interaction, F(1,35) = 0.976, p = .330,
2p = .027, was significant.
The P3 amplitude. A 5 (Coronal: anterior to posterior) 3
(Lateral: left, midline, and right) ANOVA on the peak amplitude

of P3 showed significant main effect of the coronal,

F(1.306,45.725) = 30.226, p < .001, 2p = .463; lateral location,
F(2,70) = 20.894, p < .001, 2p = .374; and their interaction, F(4.788,167.570) = 3.416, p < .01, 2p = .089. A post hoc LSD
test showed that the P3 amplitude was the largest at central-parietal
locations (17.232 V) (central-parietal vs. central (16.557 V),
t(35) = 2.387, p < .05, parietal (16.296 V), t(35) = 2.864, p < .01,
frontal-central (14.576 V), t(35) = 6.254, p < .001, and frontal
(12.269 V), t(35) = 8.061, p < .001). In addition, the P3 amplitude
was larger on midline (16.344 V) than on right (15.298 V),
t(35) = 3.610, p < .005, and left (14.515 V), t(35) = 6.450,
p < .001, locations, while right was larger than left locations,
t(35) = 2.813, p < .01. The pairwise comparisons of the five
midline electrodes showed that the P3 amplitude was the largest
at CPz (18.235 V) (CPz vs. Cz (17.347 V), t(35) = 2.789,
p < .01, Pz (16.994 V), t(35) = 3.127, p < .005, FCz (15.292 V),
t(35) = 5.839, p < .001, and Fz (13.753 V), t(35) = 7.200, p <
.001). Thus, the CPz electrode was selected for further analyses
of P3.
The amplitude of P3 at CPz was entered into a 2 (Emotional
Condition: spontaneity and regulation) 2 (Valence: gain and
loss) 2 (Magnitude: large and small) ANOVA. The main effect
of emotional condition was significant, F(1,35) = 31.276,
p < .001, 2p = .472; regulation (17.793 V) elicited smaller
P3 amplitudes than spontaneity (21.527 V) (see Figure 5). The
main effect of valence was significant, F(1,35) = 34.273, p < .001,
2p = .495 ; the P3 was larger when the outcome valence was positive (21.131 V) and smaller when the outcome valence was
negative (18.188 V). The main effect of magnitude was significant, F(1,35) = 30.011, p < .001, 2p = .462; the P3 was larger
when the outcome magnitude was large (21.561 V) than when
it was small (17.758 V). The interactions of Emotional Condition Valence, Emotional Condition Magnitude, Valence
Magnitude, and Emotional Condition Valence Magnitude
were not significant (ps > .05).

Cognitive reappraisal affects outcome evaluation

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Figure 4. The grand-average ERPs at the pooled Fz/FCz site and the scalp distribution of difference waves between losses and gains 320 ms after onset of
the outcome feedback, when the FRN reached its maximum. Gain: collapsing +25 with +5; loss: collapsing 25 with 5.

The relationship between ERP amplitude and emotional

experience. The electrode position CPz, at which the P3 was the
largest, was selected to analyze the correlation between P3 amplitude and emotional experience. The P3 amplitude of gains was
significantly correlated with emotional experience to gains
(r = .363, p < .05) in the spontaneity condition. When the P3
latency was controlled, this correlation was no longer significant
(r = .164, p = .346).
The FRN amplitude did not have any significant correlation
with corresponding emotional experience at the pooled Fz/Fcz site.
The relationship between ERP latency and emotional experience. An analysis of the bivariate correlations between the
outcome-elicited P3 latency and emotional experience was conducted. The P3 latency of gains significantly correlated with emotional experiences to gains in both the spontaneity condition
(r = .489, p < .005) and the regulation condition (r = .329,
p = .050). These correlations remained significant or marginally
significant (r = .390, p < .05 in the spontaneity condition;
r = .329, p = .054 in the regulation condition) when controlling
for P3 amplitude. Furthermore, the emotional experience difference scores of gains changed by cognitive reappraisal (i.e., the
difference between two conditions) significantly correlated with
their corresponding P3 latency difference delayed by cognitive
reappraisal (r = .624, p < .001) (see Figure 6). There was no significant correlation between the P3 latency of losses and emotional
experiences to losses in the spontaneity or regulation condition
(p > .05).
No significant correlation was detected between the FRN
latency and the corresponding emotional experiences (p > .05).
Discussion
To investigate how emotion regulation influences the responses to
rewards and punishments, the present study focused on the influ-

ence of cognitive reappraisal on emotional experiences and ERP

responses to outcome presentations in a monetary gambling task.
Consistent with our hypotheses, the cognitive reappraisal strategy
effectively reduced self-rating emotional experiences, as well as
the amplitudes of the FRN and P3 elicited by outcome feedback.
Emotional Experience
The subjective ratings revealed that gains and losses led to positive
and negative emotional experiences, respectively, which was consistent with the classic viewpoint that positive emotions can be
induced by rewards and negative emotions by punishments
(Schultz, 2004). Also consistent with our hypotheses, cognitive
reappraisal led participants emotional experiences to calm down,
that is, downregulated both negative and positive emotions elicited
by outcomes. These results were consistent with previous studies
that successfully used cognitive reappraisal to reduce negative
emotions elicited by emotional pictures or films (Goldin, McRae,
Ramel, & Gross, 2008; Hajcak et al., 2010; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross,
& Gabrieli, 2002; Wager, Davidson, Hughes, Lindquist, &
Ochsner, 2008). One might argue that participants subjective emotional experiences were unaffected. Instead, the reduction of selfrating emotional experiences in the cognitive reappraisal condition
actually reflected the experimenter-demand effects, which refers to
changes in behavior due to cues about the appropriate performance
in the current context (Zizzo, 2010). We disagree with this interpretation, since the self-rating scores were highly correlated with
the P3 latency in corresponding conditions across the participants
(see below). Taking into consideration that the P3 is a reliable
marker of spontaneous evaluative categorization, which is independent of response-related processes (Lust & Bartholow, 2009),
this result indicated that the self-rating emotional experiences were
indeed modulated by emotion regulation. In addition, the subjective ratings revealed that the difference of emotional experiences
between large and small losses was larger than the difference

1100

Q. Yang et al.

Figure 5. The grand-average ERPs evoked by the presentation of outcomes at the CPz recording site and scalp distribution 368 ms after onset of gain
feedback, 400 ms after onset of loss feedback, i.e., the time when the corresponding P3 reached the maximum.

between large and small gains, regardless of the fact that the differences of outcome magnitude were identical in both gain and loss
conditions. This result was consistent with the classic loss aversion phenomenon; that is, losses loom larger than gains (Tversky
& Kahneman, 1981). More importantly, the effect of cognitive
reappraisal on the difference scores was stronger in the loss condition than in the gain condition, indicating that cognitive
reappraisal reduced loss aversion (see also Sokol-Hessner et al.,
2009).
Emotional experiences to gains were strongly correlated with
emotional experiences to losses in both the spontaneity and regulation conditions. We speculate that this correlation was caused by
the between-subject difference in the level of motivation when
outcome magnitude was controlled. If a participant had a stronger
motivation to win and avoid losses than others, he/she would
experience stronger positive emotions for gains and negative emotions for losses. In other words, the stronger the motivation an
individual had for the bet, the stronger the emotional experiences
would be elicited by gains and losses. In addition, emotional
experiences reduced by cognitive reappraisal (measured as the
difference of self-rating scores between the spontaneity and regulation conditions) were strongly correlated between gains and

losses. This correlation indicates that the calm-down effect of

cognitive reappraisal is proportional for positive and negative emotional experiences.
FRN
A reduced FRN amplitude was observed in the cognitive
reappraisal condition. In this condition, the participants were
encouraged to evaluate one single outcome as an extremely small
portion of the final result. Also, they were asked to regard gains or
losses as inevitable in gambling and to try and accept any outcome
in each trial with calm. In our opinion, this manipulation significantly reduced participants levels of motivation to earn satisfactory results in the gambling task, and thus reduced the motivational
salience of an outcome of any given trial. Seeing that the FRN is
widely regarded as a label of the motivational significance of an
ongoing event (Gehring & Willoughby, 2002; Holroyd, Baker,
Kerns, & Mller, 2008; Yeung et al., 2005; Yeung & Sanfey, 2004),
the decreased FRN amplitude indicated that individual trial outcomes became less salient to participants after cognitive
reappraisal, which harmonized with our hypothesis. Neither the
amplitudes nor the latencies of the FRN were correlated with

Cognitive reappraisal affects outcome evaluation

1101

Figure 6. The relationship between emotional experience to gains and P3 latency in the spontaneity condition (a) and in the regulation condition (b). The
relationship between the emotional experience difference (changed by cognitive reappraisal) to gains and the corresponding P3 latency (delayed by cognitive
reappraisal) (c).

self-rating emotional experiences. This was perhaps due to the fact

that the self-report ratings represented conscious and global
sources of information and were more strongly associated with the
late and deliberate stage (indexed by the P3) than the early and
coarse stage (indexed by the FRN) of outcome evaluation (Hajcak,
Moser, Holroyd, & Simons, 2006; Philiastides et al., 2010). Thus,
the emotional rating scores were correlated with the features of the
P3, but not the FRN (see below).
P3
The result that the P3 amplitude increased proportionally to both
the amount of gains received and losses incurred replicated previous findings (e.g., Polezzi et al., 2010; Yeung & Sanfey, 2004).
More importantly, the cognitive reappraisal strategy significantly
reduced the P3 responses to both gains and losses. These results
suggest that, by asking participants to evaluate each outcome as
an extremely small portion of the final result, the subjective
weight of each outcome decreased accordingly, which was
reflected in the P3 amplitude. As an alternative interpretation,
since the reappraisal condition was likely more cognitively
demanding than the spontaneity condition (see next paragraph),
the reduction of the P3 amplitude might be caused by the cognitive load of the reappraisal task. Since we do not have enough
evidence to deny either of these theories in the current study, a
conclusion could not be drawn here, and further investigation into
this issue is necessary.
The other important result was that the P3 latency correlated
strongly with emotional experience (measured as self-rating
scores). This pattern was observed in both the spontaneity and the
regulation (i.e., cognitive reappraisal) conditions. Furthermore,
the decreases of emotional experiences reduced by cognitive

reappraisal were correlated with the corresponding P3 latency

delayed by cognitive reappraisal when participants received gain
feedback. The P3 latency represents the stimulus evaluation time,
being longer when the task is more difficult (Molnr, 1999;
Polich, 1987). Seeing that the complexity of feedback stimuli in
the spontaneity and the regulation conditions were identical, the
shift in P3 latency likely reflected the fact that the reappraisal
condition was more cognitively demanding than the spontaneity
condition. Thus, the correlation between P3 latency and emotional experience might reflect the individual difference in
the efforts applied to regulate their emotion in the cognitive
reappraisal condition. That is, for each participant, more cognitive
resources that were applied to cognitive reappraisal resulted in
attenuated emotional experiences and longer P3 latencies simultaneously. However, the P3 latency was not significantly correlated with emotional rating scores when the outcomes were
losses, which limited the reliability of our interpretation. Further
investigation into this issue is awaited.
To sum up, this study revealed that cognitive reappraisal effectively influenced emotional experiences and ERP signals (the FRN
and P3) elicited by outcome feedback. These results indicated that,
during the process of outcome evaluation, the application of cognitive reappraisal strategy significantly modulated the motivational
significance of an outcome of any given trial, thus reducing the
subjective emotional experience elicited by gains and losses.
Because FRN represents an early stage of outcome evaluation that
coarsely categorizes outcomes (Hajcak et al., 2006), the reduction
of the FRN amplitude indicated that cognitive reappraisal might
influence the process of outcome evaluation at a very early time
point. In addition, the reduction of the P3 amplitude indicated
that cognitive reappraisal influenced the allocation of cognitive
resources during outcome evaluation. These findings enrich the

1102

Q. Yang et al.

knowledge of the underlying mechanism of the impact of emotion

regulation on outcome evaluation.
Finally, a few limitations need to be addressed. During economic
tasks, the strategy to regulate the emotions elicited by previous
outcomes determines the performance of traders (Fenton-OCreevy
et al., 2011). In our opinion, by reducing the emotional experience to
outcome feedback, the cognitive reappraisal strategy would significantly reduce the degree of decision bias. Regarding the randomized
design nature of this study, the effect of bias reduction on the

subsequent decision-making processes was not tested here, and

future studies are necessary for verification. In addition, although it
is observed that cognitive reappraisal reduced the P3 amplitude, it
was still not discerned whether the reduction was mainly caused by
the decreased subjective weight of outcomes or by the cognitive load
of the reappraisal task in the reappraisal condition. Future research
using other kinds of emotion regulation strategies (e.g., implicit
regulation) may clarify this issue and improve the generalizability of
the current findings.

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(Received December 22, 2012; Accepted May 15, 2013)