Emotion & Cognition (5) Flashcards
what are emotions?
- complex states of humans characterised by changes in autonomic nervous system arousal accompanied by distinct physiological expressions, specific action tendencies, and subjective feeling expereicnes of a certain valence (Pham ,2007)
what do emotions differ in?
- valence (positive or negative)
- type (happiness/ anger/ sadness etc.)
how were emotions viewed until 1980s by cognitive psychologists?
- part of social not cognitive psychology
- non-cognitive processes
how are emotions represented in the cognitive system, according to the associative network models? (e.g., Bower, 1981)
- knowledge of emotional states stored in memory as nodes, through a network of semantic concepts based around 5 core emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust)
- knowledge linked to autobiographical memories of the experience of each emotion
- activation of nodes (due to experiencing emotion) above certain thresholds triggers associated information coming into consciousness and influencing reactions/ behaviours
how are emotions represented in the cognitive system, according to the embodied simulation models? (e.g., Neidenthal, 2007)
- knowledge of emotional states not separate from sensory-motor sy
- understanding emotional meaning of event/ object entails reactivating neuron’s for all three modalities
- knowledge based on re-experiencing of emotions not abstract conceptualisation of knowledge about emotions
what does research suggest influences how we perceive/ interpret stimuli?
- how we’re feeling
- neutral facial expressions seen as negative when feeling anxious (Ohman et al., 2001)
how do our emotions impact how we perceive/ interpret stimuli?
- react to stimuli in line with current emotional state then automatically direct attention to stimuli as stimuli is important , preparing you to act adaptively
what do objects with emotional impact attract?
attention
threatening objects effect
- threatening-looking objects capture attention more than neutral objects (Williams et al., 2005)
- evident on various attention research tasks
examples of attention research tasks
- dot probe
- stroop
attentional blink tasks
attention narrowing when feeling threatened/ fearful (Gasper & Clore, 2002)
- focus more on information (cues) associated with threatening stimuli at expense of peripheral cues
- effect due to high-level of arousal linked with negative emotions engendered by threatening situations
- high-arousal emotional states induced in lab
Weapon focus effect (Loftus et al., 1987)
- due to narrowing of attention when highly-aroused (differential allocation of attentional resources
- studied with eye-witnesses to crime (memory for information about crime = greater for weapon_
- effect suggests arousal level is greater influence on attention
emotion and information processing
- after stimuli attended to, emotion can affect how information is cognitively processed
- emotion-congruence - effect due to emotional state activating stimuli/ object- consistent associations stored in memory
‘emotion-congruence’
objects/ stimuli with emotional significance that match with how we’re feeling classified/ processed quicker than neutral or emotion-incongruent material
memory (Schacter, 1999)
active and constructive process for storing, encoding and retrieving information about experiences form past
how does emotion impact memory (Bower, 1981)
emotion can influence encoding, storage and retrieval elements of process
- emotion-induced events recalled better and easier than neutral events (Houston et al., 2013)
- due to emotional impact of event and associated narrowing of attentional focus
mood-congruent memory (Bower et al., 1981)
- recall better for information that fits with current feelings
- recall details of sad events more accurately than happy events when feeling sad (Snyder & White, 1982)
- participants in mood recalled more facts about person in story who was experiencing same mood as them (Bower et al., 1981)
- effect due to current emotional state activating emotion-relevant information in memory
mood-congruency study (Halberstadt et al., 1995)
- participants induced to feel different positive and negative emotions using music recalled words that fitted with their mood better than words that didn’t fit with their mood/ no emotional connotation