Reflection Rumination Reduces Negative Emotional Processing During Goal-Directed Behavior: An ERP Study

Trait rumination is a repetitive and often maladaptive attentional focus on the consequences of depression. Rumination independently contributes to cognitive control dysfunction associated with depression. However, it is not clear how the effects of rumination on cognitive control may contribute to negative attention biases as well, or whether it is specific to brooding or reflective rumination. To address these questions, the current study examined the link between trait rumination, cognitive control, and attentional biases. Participants were given a task to remember three neutral faces across a delay period with a single irrelevant sad, happy, or scrambled face distractor. Memory accuracy was also collected. Additionally, the amplitude of the emotion processing late positive potential (LPP) component was recorded by electroencephalograph (EEG) in response to distractors. Brooding and reflection were not associated with memory accuracy. Brooding was not significantly related to LPP amplitudes. A significant emotion by reflection interaction on LPP amplitudes was observed. As the reflection levels increased, the LPP amplitudes for sad faces decreased relative to amplitudes for scrambled faces. The effects were maintained while controlling for brooding and depression. The results suggest that reflection may bias attention toward control over negative distraction but not improve accuracy and, thus, may contribute to cognitive inefficiency associated with depression.