Stroopspotting: Emotion regulation during film viewing impacts emotional Stroop interference con-trol.

This study examined how emotion regulation during film viewing influences cognitive control using a novel Emotional Film-Word Stroop task. In this task, both target (emotional words) and distractor stimuli (film stills) were emotionally laden and either congruent or incongruent in va-lence. Forty-four participants viewed film clips in two phases, upregulating emotion in one and downregulating in the other, with order counterbalanced. After each phase, they completed the Stroop task with stimuli from the films just viewed. A robust Stroop effect emerged: responses were slower and less accurate for incongruent than congruent trials. While no overall main effect of stance was found, order and phase moderated results. In Phase 1, upregulation pro-duced greater Stroop interference than downregulation, supporting the hypothesis that height-ened emotional engagement impairs interference control. In Phase 2, performance improved across conditions, consistent with practice effects that reduced interference. These findings high-light the temporal sensitivity of emotion–cognition interactions and introduce an ecologically valid paradigm for assessing how regulation strategies impact interference control when applied to the same emotional material.