The impact of attentional allocation on cognitive reappraisal of negative pictures: Evidence from ERP and neural representation patterns

This dataset comprises behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) data collected from an emotion regulation task paradigm. The study employed a 2 (attention region: emotional region, non-emotional region) × 2 (strategy: viewing, cognitive reappraisal) within-subjects design. During the experiment, participants first viewed emotional pictures, then prepared to either cognitively reappraise or passively view the images according to cue words. In the subsequent cognitive reappraisal implementation phase, attention allocation was manipulated by guiding participants to focus either on the emotional or non-emotional regions of negative pictures. Subjective emotion ratings and EEG activity were recorded while participants performed cognitive reappraisal or passive viewing under different attentional focus conditions. The experiment included 27 participants, each completing 180 trials divided into 3 blocks. The experimental procedure was programmed using E-Prime 3.0 software. Behavioral data were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance in SPSS 27.0.1. EEG data were recorded with Curry 8.0 software and processed offline using the EEGLAB toolbox (version: 2025.0.0) in MATLAB R2024a. Amplitudes were extracted for the frontal early LPP (500–1000 ms) and frontal late LPP (1000–4000 ms) at the Fz electrode, as well as for the parietal early LPP (500–1000 ms) and parietal late LPP (1000–4000 ms) at the Pz electrode.