Fig. 1.

Schematic of the study design. Participants were randomly assigned to either a depletion (n = 24) or control (n = 24) group. Both groups completed a single functional run of the emotional scenes task followed by either the attention control task (depletion group) or passive viewing (control group) which were identical in instruction save for the requirement that the depletion group inhibit reading a series of words that appeared on screen (see ‘Methods’ section). Finally, participants completed another functional run of the emotional scenes task, in this way the first functional run served as a pre-depletion measure of baseline emotional reactivity.