Fig. 1.

Task Design. Each trial started with an instruction screen of 2 s, showing a cue indicating the experimental condition: Red arrow pointing upwards indicated Increase, video camera indicated Look and green arrow pointing downwards indicated Decrease. The instruction was followed by the presentation of an IAPS picture for 8 s, during which subjects were asked to either up-regulate (Increase), down-regulate (Decrease) their emotions or not modulate their emotions at all (Look-Neutral, Look-Negative). After this regulation phase, subjects rated their current emotional state on a scale from 1 to 4 within 4 s. Each trial ended with a jittered fixation phase of 4–8 s.