Negative emotion differentiation shapes attentional allocation during emotional processing: evidence from ERP components.

Negative emotion differentiation (NED) refers to an individual's ability to distinguish between different negative emotions. Low NED means that individuals have difficulty accurately distinguishing between negative emotions, making them more susceptible to these emotions, which can affect attentional processing. Using a visual search task combined with electroencephalography, we examined how participants with low versus high NED allocate attention to emotional stimuli across distinct processing stages. Behaviorally, high-NED individuals showed greater accuracy under the negative emotional condition than low-NED individuals. Moreover, they exhibited enhanced amplitudes of P2 and LPP to negative stimuli, whereas no group differences were observed for the early N1 component. These findings suggest that high-NED showed more efficient processing of emotional information compared to low-NED individuals, an advantage largely supported by increased attentional resource allocation and top-down processing of emotional stimuli, as reflected in ERP markers. Together, these findings provide converging behavioral and neurophysiological evidence that high NED individuals exhibit greater efficiency in emotional recognition and regulation. This study further highlights NED as a potentially modifiable target for improving emotional functioning and psychological well-being.