OBJECTIVE: Emotional reactivity in bipolar affective disorders has received increased attention as a relevant issue with regard to the ability to respond to emotional external stimuli for individual real world adaptation. We investigated emotional reactivity using the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) paradigm in bipolar patients during the depressive phase compared to healthy controls. METHOD: Twenty-three bipolar patients with a major depressive episode without manic symptoms and 27 healthy control subjects were recruited. They were asked to judge their emotional reactivity while viewing 90 pictures selected from the IAPS. Their ratings were categorized according to the emotional valence and arousal in response to pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant stimuli. RESULTS: The patients showed lower valence ratings for neutral pictures compared to healthy subjects. No significant between-group differences were found for the pleasant and unpleasant pictures. Higher activation for patients to all emotional stimuli was seen. CONCLUSION: Patients during the depressive phase gave more negative valence to neutral images. This can suggest that they are more pessimistic in the way they perceive the environment as more reactive to emotional cues.