Emotional modulation of inhibitory control in rumination from empirical and computational perspectives.

Rumination involves repetitive dwelling on negative thoughts, emotions, and memories and is a risk factor for depression. Cognitive theories suggest that rumination stems from heightened automatic, emotional stimuli-driven (i.e., "bottom-up") and/or deficits in effortful, goal-directed (i.e., "top-d...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 64 - 89
Main Authors: Singh, Selena, Li, Benjamin, Gerhard, Serenna, Nunes, Abraham, Becker, Suzanna
Format: Journal Article
Published: Springer Nature Feb2026
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=191134742&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: ccm
    uiTerm: 191134742
    longDbName: CINAHL Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    dissinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        15307026
        NA4
      jtl: Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience
      issn: 15307026
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: Feb2026
      vid: 26
      iid: 1
      pid: 237
      pub: Springer Nature
      place: New York, New York
    artinfo:
      ui:
        191134742
        188972654
        10.3758/s13415-025-01360-7
        191134742
      ppf: 64
      ppct: 25
      formats:
      tig:
        atl: Emotional modulation of inhibitory control in rumination from empirical and computational perspectives.
      aug:
        au:
          Singh, Selena
          Li, Benjamin
          Gerhard, Serenna
          Nunes, Abraham
          Becker, Suzanna
        affil: https://ror.org/02fa3aq29 Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Psychology Building, 1280 Main Street West, L8S 4L8, Hamilton, ON, Canada
      sug:
      ab: Rumination involves repetitive dwelling on negative thoughts, emotions, and memories and is a risk factor for depression. Cognitive theories suggest that rumination stems from heightened automatic, emotional stimuli-driven (i.e., "bottom-up") and/or deficits in effortful, goal-directed (i.e., "top-down") processes. It remains unclear whether rumination arises from bottom-up processes impacting top-down inhibitory control or from impaired inhibition alone. We used both experimental and computational approaches to address this. Participants (N = 151) first completed self-report measures of trait rumination, followed by the standard and emotional Stroop tasks, before and after a rumination induction. Brooding, a maladaptive component of rumination, was associated with slower reaction times for both tasks. A rumination induction, expected to heighten bottom-up emotional salience, increased the congruency effect in proportion to brooding severity. To study underlying computational mechanisms, we adapted an existing parallel distributed processing model of the Stroop task to include mechanisms for emotional cue processing and subsequently numerically fit the model parameters to individual participant Stroop data. Brooding was positively associated with bottom-up weights and steeper neural activation curves in the task control layer, representing a greater sensitivity to emotional cues and changes in task demands. Higher brooding also predicted faster temporal integration (i.e., activity decay) of top-down control signals and slower temporal integration (i.e., activity persistence) of emotional cues. We therefore propose that a greater sensitivity to changes in task demands and bottom-up emotional cues, along with a diminished capacity to sustain goal-relevant control signals, underlie inhibitory control deficits in trait rumination.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
    refInfo:
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N