Study Protocol Overview and Emotional Memory Task
anxiety
As mentioned previously, we were interested in how biofeedback training affected positive emotional memory bias and how this bias related to the changes in resting amygdala-mPFC functional connectivity. Data for the emotional memory task was collected as part of a larger 7-week intervention study, in which participants completed 5 weeks of biofeedback training (more information on biofeedback training described below). Participants completed questionnaires assessing mood and anxiety at every lab visit and completed various cognitive tasks and an MRI scan at Week 2 (pre-intervention) and Week 7 (post-intervention) of the study. We discuss the full study protocol, emotion and MRI outcomes in a separate paper (Nashiro et al., The emotional memory task utilized stimuli from The Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) (Marchewka et al., As mentioned above, the emotional memory task was administered over two lab visits, during Week 4 and Week 5. At the Week 4 visit, participants viewed, in random order, one of the two sets of emotional stimuli with the set selected randomly for each participant. After viewing each image, participants were asked to rate how positive, negative, or neutral they found the images on a 1–9 scale (1 = When participants returned for their Week 5 visit, they were first given the same free recall task and same instructions as in Week 4. After completing the free recall, participants completed a recognition test, where they viewed, in random order, the 36 stimuli seen during Week 4 intermixed with 36 previously unseen stimuli. As part of this recognition test, we asked participants to rate the subjective vividness of their memories using the Remember/Know (RK) paradigm (Tulving, Thus, for the recognition test, participants were given 3 response options for each image: Remember, Know, and New. “Remember” was described as having a vivid memory of an image, such that it could evoke thoughts or feelings when it was seen, recollections of something else that happened at that same moment, or where in sequence the image was. “Know” was described as being confident in having seen the image but that nothing specific related to thoughts, feelings, or experience could be associated with the image. “New” was described as being confident that the image was not seen before. Each image was displayed on the screen for 3 s, and there was no time limit for providing their responses.