Look Fear in the Eyes: The Influence of Emotion Regulation on Spider Size Estimation—A Pupillometry Study

The link between perceptual biases and fear has been extensively documented in recent years. For example, the size of spiders is overestimated among people with a high fear of them. While emotion regulation processes are known to reduce fear, it is yet unknown whether emotion regulation can also reduce fear-related perceptual biases. This study examined the behavioral and physiological influence of cognitive reappraisal, an adaptive emotion regulation strategy, on spider size estimation among women with a high fear of spiders. Forty women with a high fear of spiders completed a trial-by-trial task with three conditions: (1) reappraising a negative image (reappraise-negative), (2) passively viewing a negative image (watch-negative), and (3) passively viewing a neutral image (watch-neutral). Following each condition, participants estimated the size of either a spider or a butterfly depicted in a picture. Pupil size was tracked to assess arousal and regulation-related processes. Results showed that reappraisal was associated with greater pupil dilation, reflecting heightened cognitive effort. Following reappraisal, participants reported the animals as smaller. Pupil size during the reappraisal assignment did not mediate the effect of condition on size ratings, suggesting that cognitive effort during the regulation did not predict the perceptual bias. Together, the findings suggest that instructed reappraisal can reduce perceptual biases associated with fearful stimuli, and that pupil dilation can serve as a physiological marker of emotion regulation. We discuss the implications of the findings for the understanding of the links between emotion regulation and perceptual biases.