Chapter 3: Emotion and cognition Flashcards
Darwin’s theories of emotion, 1872
Emotions have an evolutionary meaning. Hence emotions are expressed similarly across cultures (support from studies, e.g. sweaty palms and blushing (in more primitive tribes people blush all over, whereas modern, dressed societies only blush by their cheeks)).
Joseph Ledoux, 1996 theory of emotion, biological underpinnings
Studied fear condition in rodents and the sequence of stages the brain goes through when processing fear stimuli. Found that the amygdala has two pathways leading to it.
The fast pathway: sensory input is perceived, led to thalamus and then to amygdala; emotional response
Slow pathway: stimulus to thalamus then primary sensory cortex, association cortex, hippocampus, amygdala; emotional response.
Flashbulb memory, Brown, Kulik 1977
Vivid memories of circumstances in which one first learned of a surprising and emotionally arousing event..
Questionnaire: asked 80 men from ages 20 to 60 about assassination as well as other socially and significant events. It was unlimited recall. They found that the two variables that created flashbulb memory were surprise and a high level of personal consequentiality. Once these things reach a certain level, it triggers the maintenance mechanism overt and covert rehearsal.
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James-Lange theory of emotion
External stimuli cause a physiological change and the interpretations of this change is emotion. I.e. yo see a snake, then it produces physiological changes and then your mind reads this as an emotion. You are happy because you smile etc. Seems counter-intuitive, but neuroscience has evidence that supports it a bit.
Cannon-Bard theory of emotion
Two parallel processes: a physiological response and a conscious experience in emotion. I.e. conscious experience of emotion is not a result of the bodily change, but accompanies it.
Schachter and Singer theory of emotion
Two-stage processing: first physiological response then cognitive interpretation. E.g. a snake produces a physiological response and then your brain scans the environment looking for explanations for the physiological response, then when the snake is noticed the brain cognitively interprets the physiological response as an emotion. The advantage is that it provides an explanations for the fact that we may feel different emotions in the same physiological circumstances, like crying.
Lazarus theory of emotion (theory of appraisal)
Cognitive interpretation as the first step then physiological changes. The theory asserts that the quality and intensity of emotions are controlled by the initial cognitive appraisal.
Sharot et al 2007
A: investigate personal recollections of 9/11.
P: Questionnaire, recall
M: 24 participants were asked to retrieve memories from 9/11 and other control events from 2001. They were placed in a fMRI and asked to retrieve 60 autobiographical memories about cue on screen.
R: Downtown participants exhibited selective activation of the amygdala when recalling 9/11 events, but not control. 83% activated left amygdala more.
Midtown activated 40% left amygdala more.
Selective activation of the left amygdala correlated with the proximity to the WTC.
C: Close personal experience is critical in engaging the neural mechanism that underlies flashbulb memories.
Sharot et al (2004)
Showed that selective activation of the amygdala is also observed while subjects are remembering negatively arousing photographs. Subjects were place in an fMRI scanner and shown neutral and negatively arousing photographs that they had seen an hour before. The amygdala was activated when remembering old emotionally arousing photographs. Hence amygdala is involved in remembering emotional stimuli. Suggests flashbulb memories may be a special case of a more basic underlying neural mechanism linked to processing emotionally laden experiences.
Neisser et al (1996)
Investigating flashbulb memory of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Some participants were close to the earth quake as it happened, some were further away. The ones further away had poor recall compared to the closer ones. Longitudinal correlational study (correlation between personal consequentiality and vividness of memory)
Bohannon (1988)
Gathered from the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. A group was interviewed two weeks after the explosion and another eight months after. Higher self-reported emotional reactions correlated with greater vividness of recall, so did rehearsal through telling others.
Neisser and Harsch (1992)
Examined memories after Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. Questionnaire asking the day after about the circumstances surrounding receiving the news. Same questionnaire three years later. Consistency was very low (answered 42% the same way). They were still 83% confident about their correctness though. They could not explain the discrepancies and were confused
Talarico and Rubin (2003)
Asked participants to record their memory of first hearing about 9/11 and of a recent everyday event. The same students were tested 1, 6 or 32 weeks later. They also self-rated their emotional responses to the events they describe, vividness of the memory and belief in its accuracy. The results showed both declined in accuracy over time. Ratings of vividness declined only for everyday memories. Emotional response to the news correlated with later belief in the accuracy of memory Emotional response to the news did not correlate with the accuracy of memory.
C: Flashbulb memory are only special in their perceived accuracy.
