{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/109641"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/109641","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"The impact of focused attention on emotional evaluation: An eye-tracking investigation","abstract":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2022-12-01","abstract_html":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2022-12-01","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Bogdan, Paul C."],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Dolcos, Sanda","Dolcos, Florin","Buetti, Simona"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2021,"date_issued":"2021-03-05T21:47:36Z","date_published":"2021-03-05T21:47:36Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:50Z","subjects":["affect","emotion control","emotion-cognition interaction","framing","affective perception"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["A version of this thesis was accepted for publication. Material from: Dolcos, Bogdan, O’Brien, Iordan, Madison, Buetti, Lleras, & Dolcos (2020, in press). The Impact of Focused Attention on Emotional Evaluation: An EyeTracking Investigation. Emotion. 10.1037/emo0000895."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109641","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Dolcos, Sanda","Dolcos, Florin","Buetti, Simona"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Bogdan, Paul C."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2021-03-05T21:47:36Z","2023-03-05T21:47:41Z","2020-12-10","2020-12"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["affect","emotion control","emotion-cognition interaction","framing","affective perception"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["A version of this thesis was accepted for publication. Material from: Dolcos, Bogdan, O’Brien, Iordan, Madison, Buetti, Lleras, & Dolcos (2020, in press). The Impact of Focused Attention on Emotional Evaluation: An EyeTracking Investigation. Emotion. 10.1037/emo0000895."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109641"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2022-12-01","Emotional well-being depends on the ability to successfully engage a variety of coping strategies to regulate affective responses. Most studies have investigated the effectiveness of emotion regulation (ER) strategies that are deployed relatively later in the timing of processing that leads to full emotional experiences (i.e., Reappraisal and Suppression). However, less is known about strategies engaged in earlier stages of emotion processing, such as those involving attentional deployment. Here, we investigate the effectiveness of self-guided Focused Attention (FA) in reducing the impact of unpleasant pictures on the experienced negative affect. Participants viewed a series of composite images with distinguishable foreground (FG, either negative or neutral) and background (BG, always neutral) areas, and were asked to focus on the FG or BG content of the pictures. Eye-tracking data were recorded while performing the FA task, along with participants’ rating of their experienced emotional response following the presentation of each image. First, proving the effectiveness of self-guided FA in down-regulating negative affect, focusing away from the emotional content of pictures (BG focus) was associated with lower emotional ratings. Second, trial-based eye-tracking data corroborated these results, showing that spending less time gazing within the negative FG predicted reductions in emotional ratings. Third, this reduction was largest among subjects who habitually use Suppression as an emotion regulation strategy. Overall, the present findings expand the evidence regarding the FA’s effectiveness in controlling the impact of emotional stimuli, and inform the development of training interventions emphasizing attentional control to improve emotional well-being.","The student, Paul Bogdan, accepted the attached license on 2020-12-09 at 18:11.","The student, Paul Bogdan, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2020-12-09 at 18:21.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2020-12-10 at 10:51.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16110 on 2021-03-04 at 16:33:54","Made available in DSpace on 2021-03-05T21:47:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 BOGDAN-THESIS-2020.pdf: 421345 bytes, checksum: 7c690297b9e8603f7e7d5eb19dc06696 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4208 bytes, checksum: 7d0a266fbe3ac94ed1367912d61561ed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2020-12-10","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 117347 Lift date: 2023-03-05T21:47:41Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The impact of focused attention on emotional evaluation: An eye-tracking investigation"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Dolcos, Sanda","Dolcos, Florin","Buetti, Simona"],"dc:creator":["Bogdan, Paul C."],"dc:date":["2021-03-05T21:47:36Z","2023-03-05T21:47:41Z","2020-12-10","2020-12"],"dc:description":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2022-12-01","Emotional well-being depends on the ability to successfully engage a variety of coping strategies to regulate affective responses. Most studies have investigated the effectiveness of emotion regulation (ER) strategies that are deployed relatively later in the timing of processing that leads to full emotional experiences (i.e., Reappraisal and Suppression). However, less is known about strategies engaged in earlier stages of emotion processing, such as those involving attentional deployment. Here, we investigate the effectiveness of self-guided Focused Attention (FA) in reducing the impact of unpleasant pictures on the experienced negative affect. Participants viewed a series of composite images with distinguishable foreground (FG, either negative or neutral) and background (BG, always neutral) areas, and were asked to focus on the FG or BG content of the pictures. Eye-tracking data were recorded while performing the FA task, along with participants’ rating of their experienced emotional response following the presentation of each image. First, proving the effectiveness of self-guided FA in down-regulating negative affect, focusing away from the emotional content of pictures (BG focus) was associated with lower emotional ratings. Second, trial-based eye-tracking data corroborated these results, showing that spending less time gazing within the negative FG predicted reductions in emotional ratings. Third, this reduction was largest among subjects who habitually use Suppression as an emotion regulation strategy. Overall, the present findings expand the evidence regarding the FA’s effectiveness in controlling the impact of emotional stimuli, and inform the development of training interventions emphasizing attentional control to improve emotional well-being.","The student, Paul Bogdan, accepted the attached license on 2020-12-09 at 18:11.","The student, Paul Bogdan, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2020-12-09 at 18:21.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2020-12-10 at 10:51.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16110 on 2021-03-04 at 16:33:54","Made available in DSpace on 2021-03-05T21:47:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 BOGDAN-THESIS-2020.pdf: 421345 bytes, checksum: 7c690297b9e8603f7e7d5eb19dc06696 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4208 bytes, checksum: 7d0a266fbe3ac94ed1367912d61561ed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2020-12-10","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 117347 Lift date: 2023-03-05T21:47:41Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109641"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["A version of this thesis was accepted for publication. Material from: Dolcos, Bogdan, O’Brien, Iordan, Madison, Buetti, Lleras, & Dolcos (2020, in press). The Impact of Focused Attention on Emotional Evaluation: An EyeTracking Investigation. Emotion. 10.1037/emo0000895."],"dc:subject":["affect","emotion control","emotion-cognition interaction","framing","affective perception"],"dc:title":["The impact of focused attention on emotional evaluation: An eye-tracking investigation"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Psychology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.S."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:50Z"}