Most of our measures of a key cognitive process don't agree

Key Points:

• A study published in Nature reveals that common methods used to measure cognitive reappraisal, a key emotional regulation ability linked to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), do not correlate well with each other, indicating inconsistencies in how this capacity is assessed.
• Researchers analyzed 40 functional MRI datasets alongside trait questionnaires and task-based affective ratings, finding very small effect sizes and almost no correlation between these different measures of reappraisal capacity.
• The study found that brain activity in decision-making areas correlated positively with amygdala activity, contradicting expectations that these areas would show increased activity when emotional responses are down-regulated.
• The findings suggest that questionnaires, task-based ratings, and fMRI capture different aspects of emotional regulation, often under varying conditions and time scales, highlighting the need to reassess how reappraisal capacity is measured and interpreted.
• The researchers emphasize caution in making strong claims about an individual's emotion regulation capacity based on current brain imaging methods and call for the development of new tools to better capture the complex re-evaluation process.