Emotional regulation plays a pivotal role in socialization and personal development. However, little is known about the time course of emotional responses and the interaction with the subjective assessment of emotional intensity. The aim of this project was to examine the time course of emotional responses to visual stimuli when they naturally subside and when they are cognitively suppressed.

Healthy volunteers (n=48) viewed 54 images, each lasting for 6 sec, taken from the International Affective Picture System (18 positive, 18 negative, 18 neutral). In the passive condition, subjects had to press a button to view the next image when their response had subsided. In the active condition, subjects had to press a button to view the next image when their response was successfully suppressed. After each presentation, participants rated the intensity of their response on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 9 (highest). Time to resolution (TTR) after image presentation and intensity ratings were averaged (mean±SD).

TTR (seconds) for neutral images was 7.22 ± 7.91 and 4.49 ± 5.41 for passive and active condition, respectively. For positive images, 12.1± 9.2 and 8.66 ± 7.13 for passive and active condition, respectively. For negative images, 15.68 ±10.14 and 11.42 ±8.25 for passive and active condition, respectively. TTR was statistically significantly shorter (p<0.006) for all images during suppression. TTR in both conditions correlated positively with intensity of emotional response.

TTR of emotional responses to emotionally valenced images increases with intensity of the associated response and decreases with voluntary suppression.