SAVOR THE NEW? A SINGLE SESSION OF SAVORING DOES NOT ENHANCE LPP TO PLEASANT IMAGES BEYOND PASSIVE VIEWING

Savoring is a present-focused emotion regulation strategy aimed at enhancing positive affect. Previous research has shown that savoring can increase the emotional processing of pleasant stimuli, as reflected in larger late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes for savored compared to passively viewed images. However, most savoring studies have examined neural responses during the task itself, leaving it unclear whether these effects generalize to novel stimuli. Moreover, no study has assessed baseline LPP responses to pleasant stimuli prior to the regulation session, accounting for interindividual differences in motivated attention. The present study addressed these gaps by examining whether a single savoring session – compared to a control passive viewing task – enhanced LPP amplitude in response to pleasant images and whether such effects generalized to novel stimuli. Sixty-one young adults (44 females) completed an electroencephalography (EEG) recording across three phases: a pre-session LPP assessment (T 0 ), an experimental session – savoring or control passive viewing – and a post-session LPP assessment (T 1 ). Results showed a significantly larger LPP for pleasant than neutral images, with this effect more pronounced during the post-session LPP assessment (T 1 ), independent of the experimental condition. Moreover, during the savoring session, LPP was larger for view than savor trials, suggesting that the selection of highly arousing stimuli may have left limited room for savoring to enhance emotional processing. Overall, these findings suggest that a single savoring session offers no clear advantage over simple exposure to highly arousing pleasant stimuli in healthy adults, pointing the need to clarify when savoring can meaningfully influence emotional processing.