effects of emotion on cognition Flashcards
What is the ‘priming procedure’ and how has it been studied?
Emotional faces are unconsciously processed when we are unaware- ppts did this and then were asked to pour and rate a drink- those primed w happy faces drank and poured more but this did not influence their mood however those primed to the angry face poured less, but the effect was only seen in people who were thirsty.
What did Bargh et al investigate about unconscious/subliminal priming?
Priming of hot drinks (making interviewer hold a hot drink in comparison to a cold one) made a person more likely to get hired- temperature in cognitive biases.
What is attention?
A process by which specific stimuli within the environment are selected for further processing
What can be used to test attentional bias?
Paradigms e.g. selective allocation of attention to disorder related stimuli in detection tasks. Visual search tasks can also be used e.h. asking a ppt if there is a sad face in an array of faces as this is dependent on the distractors that surround it.
What is the Emotional Stroop Task?
Reading the colour in which the words are printed but other words instead of other colours- comparing the reaction time when the word content is neutral compared to when it is emotional. Disorder relevant words may induce an emotional reaction that slows response.
What is the dot/attentional probe task?
Seeing if the ppt is quicker to locate the dot when it is a neutral word compared to a negative word. Measure attentional bias by subtracting emotional RT from neutral RT.
What is an attentional bias?
A systematic tendency to attend to a particular type of stimulus over others.
How does attentional bias differ in anxiety and depression?
Anxiety- Seems to be increased engagement (attention is grabbed rapidly) but a slower disengagement
Depression- more bias and lingering involving negative stimuli and maintenance of gaze
What effect can emotional stimuli have on structures in the brain?
Can cause early neuronal responses prior to identification to do with structural decoding of the face. Can caused increase functional connectivity between the amygdala and the visual cortex.
What is the flashbulb memory response?
Autobiographical response - where we tend to have vivid memories of shocking events that caused an elevated emotional response, resulting in increased amygdala activity when remembered
What did LeDoux find in relation to PTSD and the amygdala response?
Fear memory replacement through exposure training and manipulation of memory- use of propranalol (anaesthetic) can lessen the negative emotional impact of some memories.
What is mood congruent memory?
A form of selective memory that involves selective encoding or retrieval that occurs when individuals are in a mood state consistent with the affective value, hypothesised to be a factor in the maintenance of depression.
What is mood state dependent memory and thought congruity?
The content of thoughts and judgement are congruent with mood state
What are the three cognitive biases associated with anxiety and depression? (Eyseneck and Keane)
Attentional bias- tendency to attend to neg over neutral stimuli
Interpretive bias- tendency to interpret ambiguous situations in a threatening manner
Memory bias- better retrieval of relatively neg vs. pos/neutral info
Why is memory bias often associated with depression?
Function of replacing failed goals with new ones- slowing down and disengaging so may be more important to have a memory of negative events in this case
What is cognitive bias modification?
Patients are trained to attend away from neg stimuli which can lead to a reduction of symptoms- it has also been used in the context of addiction
What is the appraisal process?
As soon as the stimulus is prsented, you process what relevance it has to your survival
What do appraisal theories focus on?
Appraisals start the emotion process which can occur automatically or consciously, consisting of different levels of appraisal e.g. primary, secondary and reappraisal
What does emotion regulation describe?
The management and control of emotional states via various processes such as selective attention and appraisal
What strategies can be used to regulate emotion in cognition?
Attentional control (distraction)- thought to be a pos regulation strategy
Cognitive change (reappraisal)- can change how stimuli is interpreted in the enviro
What areas of the brain are involved in emotional regulation?
DLPFC, DMPFC, hippocampus and dorsal ACG
What did Van Dillen et al find about reappraisal in attention tasks?
People had to reappraise or were distracted when faced with a neg stimulus (had to do a maths equation) and then rate emotions at the end of each trial. Found that compared to just viewing the emotional pictures, people who did a distraction or reappraisal- these mood states were reduced. Suggests both stratagies were effective- both strategies reduced amygdala response to the emotional picture. The prefrontal cortex dampens the amygdala response.
What did Siegle et al investigate about emotional regulation in depression?
word flashed up- have to say if this word was pos neg or neutral. Followed by a distraction/displacement task. Found that there was a sustained amygdala response to negative emotional words in depression.
What relationship does depression have to emotional regulation in the brain?
Inverse relationship between DLPFC and amygdala response towards negative words, consistent with the idea that more activity in the prefrontal cortex dampens amygdala response
