Effect of emotion on memory - emotional regulation Flashcards
Mechanism behind preferential encoding and retrieval of emotional memories Mechanism behind emotional regulation
Patient BP: who, what, when?
Cahill et al (1995); degenerative disease caused specific bilateral lesion of amygdala, leaving hippocampus largely intact. 2 slideshows shown to participants, one that narrates history and one that involves a car incident. Patient BP remembered elememnts of both, without the usual emotional enhancement that is found towards the traffic incident.
DA neurotransmitter levels in amygdala
Fried et al (2001): increase during emotional cognitive tasks: this was found by surgically placing electrodes on the amygdala in epileptic patients
Hippocampus link to emotional enhancement of memory (preferential encoding)
Kensinger and Corkin (2004): fMRI study of participant when studying a word list including emotional and neutral words.
They looked at brain activity (when subsequently remembered minus when forgotten) as this is the key to successful encoding. The link between amygdala and the hippocampus was particularly important N.B. Emotional words were better remembered, especially negative and this was hypothesised to be due to rehearsal.
The non-emotive word encoding activated the cortex-hippocampal network
Study comparing the memories of Summer 2001 with that of 9/11.
Sharot et al (2007): fMRI study: Blood oxegen level dependent (BOLD) response was measured and amygdala was concluded to be involved in the retrieval of the emotional memories (although was also modulated by personal involvement as those that were 2 miles from the towers showed a higher percentage of signal change from retrieval of Summer memories to that of 9/11, than those that were 4 miles from the towers, in midtown)
The volume of amygdala in bipolar patients
Altshuler et al (2000): structural MRI, with volumetric analyses showed an increased amount of grey matter (increased size) of bipolar patients.
Working definition of emotion regulation
Voluntary attempt to modify the emotional consequences of perceiving an emotional stimulus and/or experiencing an emotional situation.
N.B. Can be mental (persuading oneself that it is not important etc.), or physical (control respiratory patterns from diaphragm with reg. breaths)
Appraisal theory
Leventhal and Schesrer (1987): Stimulus - Appraisal (conceptually, schematically, and at sensori-motor level) - Reaction
Reappraisal vs Suppression
Lazurus (1964): film clip with commentries which illectualised, denied or outlined the trauma of a circumcision of a young tribal boy. Skin conductance was measured.
James Gross (1998): Film Clip with instructions to participant before. Suppression (response-focused regulation) actually increased physiological responses, such as finger pulse amplitude, temperature and skin conductance.
The potential brain area involved in reappraisal
Ochsner et al (2002): fMRI showed activation in the Lateral Pre-Frontal Cortex when participants were asked to reappraise negative emotive images (those that were jsut asked to attend to the pictures did not have this activation). Activation in the amygdala and the medial orbitofrontal cortex (MOFC), which is related to Damasio’s VMPFC area decreased.
Implications of the activation of the Lateral Pre-Frontal Cortex in reappraisal
Relating to the Baddeley Working Model would suggest that the Central Executive is recruited.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Holmes - cognitive vaccine - stop the consolidation/rehearsal of memory with a spatial distractor task; flashbacks are visual and sensorial representations. After a violent film, Tetris lowered flashbacks from 7 to 3.
Learned helplessness
One of the symptoms of clinical depression.
An association has been found between this phenomenon and certain phases of of the appraisal model (Leventhal and Schesrer (1987)), including the appraisal of coping potential and pleasantness.
Seligman (1967) experimented on dogs and found that if dogs learned that no result came from trying to attempt to escape from Pavlovian Harness, when put in a box where escape was possible, the dog did not try.
The role of emotional regulation in depression
Johnstone et al (2007): fMRI of patients with Major Depressive Disorder while they were presented with emotional and neutral images and asked to either attend or reappraise. They lack the ability to inhibite link between systems of cognitive regulation of emotion and systems involved in production of automatic emotional responses, which normal patients use during reappraisal.
