Abstract
To investigate the (putative) affect-reducing effect of the clinical method lateral eye movement (EMD) in the normal range an experiment was conducted, assuming that arousal reduction and mood elevation compared to other types of distractions are significant. Possible placebo and experimenter effects are discussed. An emotionally colored arousal was generated, followed by lateral eye movement and two variants of distraction. Before and after the treatment, arousal and subjectively experienced mood of subjects was measured. The implementation was camouflaged to rule out any placebo effects. Results suggest an effect in arousal reduction compared to distraction in general and to a specific distraction condition in particular. There were no effects on the subjectively perceived mood. To which extent the method could be confirmed was discussed.
