Cognition and Emotion 2

Question 1

What idea do Cognitive Appraisal Theories have in terms of creating an emotional experience?

Answer 1

these theories have the idea that cognitive systems are involved in appraisal, this creates an emotional experience

Question 2

explain the affective primacy debate

Answer 2

• some psychologists suggest cognition is necessary in order to have an emotional experience (cognitive appraisal theory)
• other psychologists claimed that cognitive processes = not necessary in order to have an affective response to stimulus
• the affective primacy debate looks at what comes first; emotion before cognition OR does cognition come before emotion?

Question 3

Who is Zajonc?

Answer 3

psychologist that claimed cognitive processes = not necessary to have affective response

Question 4

What is the Mere Exposure Effect?

Answer 4

the idea that people show a preference to things that are familiar to them over things that are new to them

Question 5

Outline the Mere Exposure Experiment (Zajonc)

Answer 5

• ppts subliminally (unconsciously) presented with images
• images presented whilst ppts completed a different primary task
• ppts then asked to make preference judgement (this is equivalent to an affective response to stimuli) to stimuli seen subliminally and new stimuli

FINDINGS:
- ppts gave a higher liking rating to the previously seen stimuli

Question 6

What does the Mere Exposure Experiment by Zajonc show about emotion and cognition?

Answer 6

• ppts gave higher likeability rating to stimuli that had been subconsciously seen over new stimuli
• stimuli that had been subliminally shown was NOT cognitively processed
• this shows emotion coming before cognition
• supporting primacy debate
• suggests cognition is not required for an emotional experience

Question 7

Outline Murphy & Zajonc (1993) Priming Experiment

Answer 7

• tested the primacy affective hypothesis
  (idea that feeling emotional experience comes before appraising and evaluating)
• ppts presented with an ideograph (i.e.: chinese ideograph, symbol etc.)
• ideograph = second stimulus
• before being presented with ideograph, ppts presented with a prime stimulus
• prime stimulus = angry or happy face
• this was to see if this influenced likeability rating
• prime stimulus shown for: 4ms, 1 second, none at all
• ppts were asked to rate likeness of stimulus
• likeness rating was compared to no prime condition

Question 8

Outline Murphy & Zajonc (1993) Priming Experiment Findings

Answer 8

• there is an increase in likeability when happy prime presented for 4ms compared to control
• Happy prime seems to increase the likeability judgement of the ideograph
• Angry prime seems to reduce the likeability judgement of the ideograph
• when prime presented for 1 second, cognitive processes could occur
• cognitive processes allowed ppts time to realise their affective response = due to prime rather than the secondary stimulus
• demonstrates emotional experience occurring BEFORE cognitive appraisal

Question 9

What is Lazarus’ view on cognitive appraisal on emotion?

Answer 9

• developed from Schachter & Singer’s work
• believed cognitive appraisal = integral feature of all emotional states
• cognitive appraisal helps determine the nature and intensity of the emotional response

Question 10

Outline Lazarus, Speisman et al. (1964) study of Appraisal

Answer 10

• Presented ppts with videos
• One of the videos was a Stone Age circumcision ritual
• Another video was an accident in a workshop
• Experimenters manipulated the soundtrack the was being played to ppts
• Whilst ppts watched these videos, ppts were being measured on physiological responses to measure their stress levels
• Ppts asked to rate level of anxiety

Conditions of videos:
- No soundtrack (control group)

• Trauma narrative: emphasised pain, danger of video
• Denial narrative: denied the pain and harm to the people involved in video
• Scientific/intellectualisation narrative: from more scientific pov, detach pain and emotion from video
• ppts were measured on arousal/stress using pulse monitor during viewing

Question 11

What were the findings of Lazarus, Speisman et al. (1964) study?

Answer 11

• found that denial and scientific narrative condition reduced the stress and intensity of ppts emotional response
• this is compared to trauma narrative and control group
• this suggests we can manipulate ppts cognitive appraisals that they make whilst watching videos
• this results in different experiences of intensity of arousal or an affective response

Question 12

What are the three types of appraisals put forward by Lazarus?

Answer 12

primary appraisal
secondary appraisal
reappraisal

Question 13

what are appraisals according to Lazarus?

Answer 13

these are evaluations of a situation and how they are relevant to our goals, concerns and well-being

Question 14

define primary appraisal

Answer 14

this refers to the cognitive process that occurs when person is evaluating whether an event is stressful or relevant to their well-being

looking at the significance or meaning of the stimulus to individual

Question 15

define secondary appraisal

Answer 15

• individual evaluates existing coping mechanisms/resources and the possibilities they have for controlling the situation present in primary appraisal
• if person has the resources available to cope, this can change the emotion felt and the affective response that person makes

Question 16

define reappraisal

Answer 16

• emotion regulation strategy
• involved reframing the meaning of a situation to alter the emotional impact of a situation
• once evaluated, you monitor primary and secondary appraisals and modify them in necessary

Question 17

What 2 cognitive processes may be influenced by emotion?

Answer 17

attention
interpretation (how we interpret things)

Question 18

define attention bias

Answer 18

when presented with two competing stimuli, attention bias is the tendency to focus on a more emotionally related stimuli as opposed to a neutral stimuli

Question 19

define interpretative bias

Answer 19

this is the tendency to interpret a situation or ambiguous stimuli in a negative (usually threatening) way

Question 20

What does the Stroop Task show?

Answer 20

attentional bias

Question 21

What is a Stroop Task?

Answer 21

• ppts shown the names of colours in congruent or incongruent ink
• ppts asked to report the colour of the ink
• ppts were slower on the incongruent task

(i.e.: word ‘RED’ appears in blue ink, ppt would have to identify colour of the ink as ‘blue’ [incongruent example]

Question 22

What is an Emotional Stroop Task?
(looking into attention bias)

Answer 22

• ppts are shown both emotional and neutral words in different coloured inks
• ppts asked to identify ink colour and ignore meaning of word
• compare reaction times of emotional words and neutral words
• Stroop task examines attention to the word meanings by looking at how the words meaning interferes with the ability to name the colour

Question 23

what should we expect to find from Emotional Stroop Task?

Answer 23

attentional bias suggests we would focus on more negative stimuli than neutral

therefore we should expect to see a slower reaction time with the emotional words as emotional meaning captures attention away from the relevant stimulus (the colour of the ink to identify)

Question 24

What are the findings of the Emotional Stroop Task and what does this show about attention bias?

Answer 24

• anxiety related attentional bias
• ppts with high anxiety = slower at identifying colour of emotional words compared to ppts with low anxiety
• ppts with low anxiety = low interference effects
• this shows emotional meaning of word is capturing attention away from relevant stimulus (colour of word)
• demonstrates attentional bias of ppts as they show preference over emotionally related stimuli over neutral stimuli
• this is reflected in the slower reaction time of identifying colour of words

Question 25

What does the dot-probe / attentional probe task do?

Answer 25

looks at the early allocation of your attention

Question 26

outline the dot-probe task

Answer 26

- ppts included anxious patients and control group (no anxiety) - ppt presented with fixation cross so ppts look in middle of screen - two stimuli presented simultaneously, side by side - one stimulus = emotional (threat-related) - other stimulus = neutral - stimuli presented for 0.5 seconds - task is to detect the dot (probe) as quickly as possible (this dot appears either left or right) - experimenters examined the speed of responses when dot was previously on the same side of a neutral vs emotional stimuli

Question 27

outline the findings of the dot-probe task

Answer 27

- control group (group with no anxiety) were faster for neutral trials over threat trials HOWEVER - for anxious group, these ppts were slower in the neutral trials (this could be explained by threatening stimuli capturing attention, therefore less attention on neutral stimuli) - demonstrating attentional bias for threat

Question 28

What task is used to investigate interpretative bias?

Answer 28

Homonym Task

Question 29

Describe the Homonym Task

Answer 29

- ppts = high/low trait anxiety - ppts auditorily presented with homophones - homophones = words that are spelt different, mean different, sound same - ppts asked to write down word they think they hear - high trait ppts more likely to write down the threat related spelling of the homophones - shows anxious individuals show an interpretive bias

Question 30

Outline Richard & French (1992) priming lexical decision study

Answer 30

- ppt presented with a fixation cross - then presented with a prime word - prime word in this task = homograph - homograph = different meaning, same spelling words - then target word/nonword is presented - ppts responds whether word presented was a word or nonword

Question 31

Outline Richard & French (1992) priming lexical decision study findings

Answer 31

- if prime word and target word are related in meaning, responses = faster - because homographs are used, different interpretations can be used (this is what is being investigated) - if you use 'batter' as an example for a prime word, the target word 'assault' can only be semantically similar IF negative interpretation of 'batter' is used - So, Batter-Assault should be faster than Batter-Pancake if threat-related interpretation is made for the homograph prime RESULTS: - ppts with higher anxiety trait showed greater priming effects (answered quicker) for target words that were related in meaning when prime interpreted negatively

Question 32

what is the face advantage?

Answer 32

tendency to pick out faces over non-face objects in a cluttered environment

Question 33

What is a visual search task?

Answer 33

where you have a cluttered environment with distractors with the aim of finding and a target - task is to identify if target is present/absent - ppts reaction time and accuracy measured - set size can vary (refers to how many distractors present, size of search display)

Question 34

define target pop-out

Answer 34

this is an automatic process does not require attention able to identify target quickly with relation to emotion, this is the idea that some emotions 'pop-out'

Question 35

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 1 grid, 9 diff faces,

Answer 35

- ppts shown a grid of 9 different faces - grid showed different people displaying an emotion - one half of the trials = the same emotion displayed (i.e.: all faces were happy) - other half of trial = one face showing a different emotion - ppts were asked to respond whether faces were showing the same emotion or if there was an odd emotion out

Question 36

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 1 Findings

Answer 36

- ppts had reaction times and error rates for face detection measured - data suggests there is an anger superiority effect - this means ppts found it easier detecting the odd face out when that face was showing anger rather than happiness

Question 37

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 2 4 faces, one discrepant

Answer 37

- presented ppts 4 faces - all 4 faces = same person - of the four, there was one discrepant face - I.e.: one angry face in a crowd of 3 happy faces and vice versa - task: ppt had to determine WHERE face was as quick as possible

Question 38

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 2 findings

Answer 38

- ppts quicker at locating angry face amongst happy faces than other way round - BUT these experiments do not tell us whether certain emotional expressions 'pop-ou' of crowds - this is because search set always same size

Question 39

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 3

Answer 39

- varied number of faces ppts had to look through to find target - either 4 faces (2x2) or 9 faces (3x3) (all same expression apart from one discrepancy) - ppts had to respond whether faces were the same or different

Question 40

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 3 findings

Answer 40

- ppts are faster at finding an angry face in a happy crowd overall compared to finding a happy face in an angry crowd POP OUT: - the difference between looking for happy face in angry crowd = significant difference when set size changes (it takes longer to find happy face in angry crowd when set size is bigger) - BUT, looking for angry face (a threat related emotion) in set of happy face distractors, difference in set size = NOT significant Angry face not affected by number of distractors Lack of difference suggests we are getting pop out for angry face

Question 41

What does research by Hansen & Hansen (1988) tell us about interpretation bias

Answer 41

remember, interpretation bias = the tendency to interpret a situation or ambiguous stimuli in a negative (usually threatening) way classic study shows angry/threatening faces 'pop-out' in crowds of happy or neutral faces suggests perhaps anger is easier to spot over other emotions