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