Difficulties in implicit emotion regulation of the deaf college students: An ERP study

Background Deaf college students have been found to experience more difficulties in emotion regulation due to their hearing loss. However, few studies have used neurological measures to assess the characteristics of implicit emotion regulation among deaf college students. Methods 30 typical hearing college students and 27 deaf college students completed the implicit emotion regulation task while recording ERP data. Results The behavioral results indicated that deaf college students exhibited higher emotional experience intensity compared to typical hearing control. The ERP results showed that deaf college students had lower LPP amplitudes when using reappraisal and suppression strategies. Furthermore, the LPP of cognitive reappraisal was associated with an increase in depression scores among deaf students. Conclusions Deaf college students may have deficits in implicit emotion regulation, which can effectively predict depression.