Advanced Cognition and Emotion Flashcards
EFFECTS OF EMOTION ON COGNITION
- emotional stimuli elicit automatic responses/grab attention; crit for survival/reproductive success so prioritised
- “preparedness” evolved to phobic stimuli in natural world (ie. snakes) not modern dangers (ie. cars)
- unconscious emotions (ie. from drinking/resting) can also influence beh
COGNITIVE BIAS TOWARDS EMOTIONAL STIMULI
- classic tests from cog psych widely used to demonstrate influence of emotional stimuli on attention/memory/decision-making
- oft used in clinical psych to assess role of cognitive biases in development/maintenance of disorders
- some are being adapted to treatments to modify cognitive biases
ATTENTION
- a process by which specific stimuli within the external/internal environment are selected for further processing
ATTENTION PARADIGMS
- assess attentional bias
- detection tasks
GILBOA-SCHECTMAN et al (1999) - visual search task (cartoon frown among smiles)
- if an individual is prone to attending a particular type of stimulus, they should detect it faster if located amongst distractors
EMOTIONAL STROOP TASK
- oft taken to reflect attentional bias
- “… read out loud colour in which words are printed; ignore content….”
- compare RT when content = neutral/disorder-related
- studies suggest fast/slow trials interference effects
LIMITS - disorder-related words may induce internal attention (trigger rumination)
- may induce emotional reaction that slows response
- cognitive avoidance
ATTENTION PROBE TASK
MACLEOD et al (1986)
- attention bias = RT (neutral) - RT (emotional)
- but could involve either engagement/disengagement bias
GRAFTON et al (2012)
- distinguishes between engagement/disengagement biases; cue stimulus presented before/after target stimuli pairs
ATTENTIONAL BIAS
- systematic tendency to attend to particular type of stimuli over others (ie. drug/negative related) over neutral stimuli
- underlying process involved in range of disorders
AB X ANXIETY
BAR-HEIM et al (2007)
- reliable evidence of threatening info bias both subliminal/supraliminal (conscious) stimuli
ARMSTRONG & OLATUNJI (2012)
- eye-tracking suggests increased threat vigilance/slower disengagement
AB X DEPRESSION
PECKHAM et al (2010)
- greater lingering of attention on sad stimuli
ARMSTRONG & OLATUNJI (2012)
- eye-tracking shows gaze maintenance on sad stimuli > positive
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE BRAIN?
PREFRONTAL
- emotional stimuli cause early neuronal responses (100-120ms) prior identification (-170ms)
- can bias competition for processing resources; ^ visual cortex responses
AMYGDALA
- emotional stimuli cause ^ functional connectivity (synchronised activity) between amygdala/visual cortex
- lesions abolish emotional words bias
- visual info flows from primary visual area to temp cortex which projects back to all visual areas
MEMORY
- 3 processing stages: encoding/storage/retrieval
- each relevant to psychopathology development (ie. selective encoding/retrieval)
- factors influence what is encoded/retrieved (ie. stimulus salience/mood/environment/the personally important)
THE WEAPON FOCUS EFFECT
LOFTUS (1979)
- selective attention to memory; interaction proven
- weapon captures victims attention; reduced ability to recall environmental/assailant details + assailant recognition later
AMYGDALA X AMYGDALA
HAMMAN et al (1999)
- enhanced memory for positive/negative VS neutral scenes associated w/amygdala activity during encoding
- amygdala damage reverses memory bias; question of retrieval of autobiographical memories
ERASING MEMORIES
LEDOUX & DAVIDSON
- altering disturbing memories (ie. PTSD) can be helpful
- research suggests memories can be modified via blocking reconsolidation, requiring amygdala protein synthesis
MOOD-CONGRUENT MEMORY
- selective encoding/retrieval occurring while individual is in a mood state consistent w/affective material value
- hypothesised to be a factor in depression maintenance; ^ depressed = ^ negative events/failures/losses recall
DEPRESSIVE SCHEMAS
EYSENCK & KEANE
- earlier access/activation of associated sad representations in schema/semantic network
- aspects of mood-congruent memory/thought congruity (ie. thinking of a bear and actually seeing one activates similar areas)
ANTIDEPRESSANT EFFECTS ON MEMORY
HARMER et al (2004)
- pps showed faster reaction times classifying positive VS negative words + ^ immediate free recall of positive words after 7d antidepressant treatment
- antidepressants increased positive bias in attention/memory in healthy controls
COGNITIVE BIAS STRENGTH
ANXIETY = future threat anticipation - attentional bias (->0) = HIGH - interpretive bias (0=-) = MEDIUM - memory bias (->+/0) = LOW DEPRESSION = replacing failed goals w/new ones - attentional bias (->0) = LOW - interpretive bias (0=-) = LOW - memory bias (->+/0) = HIGH
COGNITIVE BIAS MODIFICATION
- cognitive bias tasks = treatments normalising abnormal cognitive bias
BROWNING et al (2012) - attentional bias modification = patients w/anxiety/depression trained to attend away from negative stimuli; symptom reduction
COG BIAS MOD X OBESITY
STICE & LAWRENCE et al (2017)
- training attention/responses away from unhealthy to healthy food
- intervention VS controls showed statsig reduced brain reward/attention region responses to high-calorie images; reduced monetary valuation of high-calories/greater body fat loss over 4w
EMOTION REGULATION
OCHSNER & GROSS (2008)
- management/control of emotional states via various processes (ie. selective attention/appraisal)
- automatic/controlled; conscious/unconscious affecting points in emotion generative process
- ACTIVE - PASSIVE; beh control (suppressing emotions) -> attentional control (distraction) -> cog change (reappraisal) = process of reinterpreting stimuli meaning to emotional response (ie. girl crying from joy not sadness)
EMOTION GENERATIVE PROCESS
GROSS & THOMPSON (2007)
- situation -> attention -> appraisal -> response
- situation selection -> situation modification -> attention deployment -> cognitive change -> response modulation
COMPLEX EMOTION REGULATION PROCESS
ATTENTIONAL CONTROL -> COGNITIVE CHANGE
- selective inattention to emotional stimuli
- performing distracting secondary tasks
- attention to/judgement of emotional VS neutral stimuli attributions
- anticipatory/expectancy driven emotion
- S-R reversal/extinction
- placebo
- top-down appraisal
- reappraisal
EMOTION REGLATION (NEURO TERMS)
PHILLIPS et al (2003)
- REGULATION =
- DLPFC/DMPFC
- Dorsal ACG
- hippocampus
- AFFECTIVE STATE =
- amygdala/insula
- VLPFC/orbitofrontal cortex/ventral ACG
- thalamus/ventral striatum/brainstem nuclei
DISTRACTION VS REAPPRAISAL
VAN DILLEN et al (2007)
- may work via occupying limited capacity of working memory w/info displacing negative emotional material
ER X AMYGDALA
- prefrontal cortex dampens amygdala response
- reduction in activity for conjunction of reappraisal/distractions
ERR X AMYGDALA
SIEGLE et al (2002)
+ word (150ms) = positive/negative/neutral? -> XXXXXX (9s) emotion (valence identification)
- sustained amygdala response to negative emotional words in depression
- decreased emotion regulation in depression = inverse relationship between DLPFC + amygdala response to - words
ABNORMAL EMOTION REGULATION IN DEPRESSION
MITTERSCHIFTHALER et al (2008)
- response to negative VS neutral words in depression
- faster reaction times for negatives; overall slower for controls
ELLIOTT et al (2002)
- bias towards sad targets in depression linked to ^ anterior cingulate response
FU et al (2004)
- decreases in ventral anterior cingulate responses to increasing intensity sad faces correlated w/antidepressant response
DEPRESSION TARGETING BRAIN TREATMENT
LEAST - MOST INVASTIVE:
- transcranial direct current stimulation
- transcranial magnetic stimulation
- deep brain stimulation (shows overactive brain region linked to sadness)
BRAIN TRAINING IMPROVING EMOTION REGULATION
SCHWEIZER et al (2012)
- groups receive 20d of emotional working memory training/control training
- activates working memory network (fronto-parietal regions); deactivates emotional regions (amygdala/insula)
- task performance improves w/training + on untrained emotion regulation tasks
VENTROMEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX
- lesions = widespread impairment of emotional expression identification (visual/auditory)/disinhibition/impulsiveness/misinterpretation of others moods = impaired decision making
FRONTAL LOBE INJURY
- ie. PHINEAS GAGE (1848)
- lasting effects in personality; previously kind/thoughtful; now rude/antisocial; friends said he was “no longer Gage”
- physician Harlow said equilibrium between faculties/animal propensities = destroyed
- Gage = fitful/irreverant/indulging in gross profanities; little deference for friends; impatient of restraint/advice conflicting w/wants
- emotional/social beh permanently altered via damage
