Differences in cognitive control under negative emotion priming among college students with varying emotional regulation abilities

Using the AX-CPT paradigm, this study investigates the differences in cognitive control under negative emotion priming among college students with different emotional regulation abilities in reactive control mode and proactive control mode. The paradigm comprises four experimental conditions AY, BY, BX, and AX trials designed to distinguish between proactive control and reactive control modes.The experiment employed a 2 (high emotional regulation ability group vs. low emotional regulation ability group) × 4 (AY, BY, BX vs. AX) mixed experimental design, with reaction times and error rates recorded using E-prime software. The results revealed that: (1) the error rate was significantly lower in the high emotional regulation ability group compared to the low emotional regulation ability group (2) subjects displayed significantly longer reaction times on AY sequences than on BX sequences, with a significantly higher error rate on AY sequences; (3) in reactive control mode, the average reaction time for the high emotional regulation ability group was significantly shorter than that for the low emotional regulation ability group, with a higher d'-target value; in proactive control mode, the high emotional regulation ability group had a significantly higher d'-context value than the low emotional regulation ability group. These findings indicate that under negative emotion priming, college students with varying emotional regulation abilities exhibit enhanced proactive control and weakened reactive control. college students with high emotional regulation abilities exhibit superior cognitive control in both reactive and proactive control modes compared to those with low emotional regulation abilities.