Cognition and Emotion 2 Flashcards

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1
Q

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

A

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

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2
Q

explain the affective primacy debate

A
  • 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?
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3
Q

Who is Zajonc?

A

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

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4
Q

What is the Mere Exposure Effect?

A

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

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5
Q

Outline the Mere Exposure Experiment (Zajonc)

A
  • 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

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6
Q

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

A
  • 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
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7
Q

Outline Murphy & Zajonc (1993) Priming Experiment

A
  • 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
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8
Q

Outline Murphy & Zajonc (1993) Priming Experiment Findings

A
  • 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
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9
Q

What is Lazarus’ view on cognitive appraisal on emotion?

A
  • 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
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10
Q

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

A
  • 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
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11
Q

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

A
  • 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
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12
Q

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

A

primary appraisal
secondary appraisal
reappraisal

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13
Q

what are appraisals according to Lazarus?

A

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

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14
Q

define primary appraisal

A

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

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15
Q

define secondary appraisal

A
  • 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
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16
Q

define reappraisal

A
  • 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
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17
Q

What 2 cognitive processes may be influenced by emotion?

A

attention
interpretation (how we interpret things)

18
Q

define attention bias

A

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

19
Q

define interpretative bias

A

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

20
Q

What does the Stroop Task show?

A

attentional bias

21
Q

What is a Stroop Task?

A
  • 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]

22
Q

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

A
  • 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
23
Q

what should we expect to find from Emotional Stroop Task?

A

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)

24
Q

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

A
  • 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
25
Q

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

A

looks at the early allocation of your attention

26
Q

outline the dot-probe task

A
  • 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
27
Q

outline the findings of the dot-probe task

A
  • 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
28
Q

What task is used to investigate interpretative bias?

A

Homonym Task

29
Q

Describe the Homonym Task

A
  • 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
30
Q

Outline Richard & French (1992) priming lexical decision study

A
  • 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
31
Q

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

A
  • 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

32
Q

what is the face advantage?

A

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

33
Q

What is a visual search task?

A

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)
34
Q

define target pop-out

A

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’

35
Q

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 1

grid, 9 diff faces,

A
  • 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
36
Q

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 1 Findings

A
  • 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
37
Q

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 2

4 faces, one discrepant

A
  • 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
38
Q

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 2 findings

A
  • 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
39
Q

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 3

A
  • 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
40
Q

Outline Hansen & Hansen (1988) Experiment 3 findings

A
  • 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

41
Q

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

A

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