Neurological Foundations of the Brain in the Automatic Emotion Regulation of Anger and Fear

Due to the difficulty of trigger automatic emotion processing, the automatic emotion regulation of anger and fear is unclear and to explore. Using a priming procedure and ERP analysis, the current study investigated the time course of automatic emotion regulation and difference between anger and fear. 46 participants were required to finish a word matching task to activate the processing of emotion regulation unconsciously, then to complete angry and fearful facial expression identify task. Subjective self-reports and ERP results verified that: (1) priming procedure could effectively evoke automatic emotion regulation; (2) N170, EPN and LPP components analysis supported that the automatic emotion regulation started at the early stage, continued to the middle stage, and dissolved at the late stage of emotion processing; (3) anger and fear are two difference emotions with same automatic emotion regulation mechanism but distinct emotion processing.