Lecture 9 - How Emotion affects Cognition Flashcards
Reminder: What is the high road/low road response system
LOW ROAD: A rapid response from the amygdala without much sensory processing (natural preparedness)
HIGH ROAD: Allows more elaborate processing (via the sensory cortex) that allows behavioural change if necessary
Emotional stimuli can elicit AUTOMATIC RESPONSES and “GRAB” ATTENTION
–> Critical for survival/reproductive success so prioritised
–> Preparedness: evolved to fear specific stimuli in natural world (snakes etc.) but not modern dangers (eg. cars)
Evidence that unconscious emotions can influence behaviour (Winkielman et al. (2005))
Winkielmen et al. (2005)
o Flashing up an emotional stimulus (happy, neutral or angry) followed by a neutral stimulus (priming procedure)
–> subliminal presentation that you’re NOT CONSCIOUSLY AWARE OF
–> people believe they’re asked the gender of the neutral face
–> asked to then pour, consume and rate a lemonade drink, and rated mood/arousal
FOUND
–> happy face presented: poured and drank more (mood unaffected)
BUT
–> only seen in people who were THIRSTY
What is unconscious priming of behaviour?
Unconscious priming of behavior refers to the phenomenon where exposure to certain stimuli influences subsequent behavior or decision-making without conscious awareness.
–> This can occur through various sensory channels (e.g., visual, auditory) and can affect attitudes, preferences, and actions without individuals being aware of the influence.
Common example: people will drive a harder bargain being sat on a hard chair
Common example: people rate others as more friendly after having held hot coffees
Attentional Bias: List the tasks used to assess attentional bias
- Detection Tasks
- Visual Search Tasks
- Emotional Stroop Tasks
- Attentional (DOT) Probe Task
Some of these tasks are now being adapted to modify cognitive biases
–> These tests are frequently used in clinical psychology research to assess the role of cognitive biases in the development and maintenance of disorders
Outline 1. Detection Tasks
The selective allocation of attention to disorder-related stimuli over neutral stimuli
–> if an individual is prone to attending to a more particular type of stimulus (eg. a spider in an arachnophobe) - they should be able to detect it faster if it located amongst distractors
X P spider @
Outline 2. Visual Search Tasks
Dependent on both the TARGET and the DISTRACTORS that surround it
–> People are quicker to detect a threatening face when it is surrounded by neutral stimuli compared to when surrounded by happy faces
O O O O O
O O O O O
O O O D O
O O O O O
O O O O O
Outline 3. Emotional Stroop Tasks
The instruction is “read out loud the colour in which the words are printed and ignore the content of the word*
–> Compare the reaction time when word content is NEUTRAL or related to DISORDER
Difficulties in interpreting slowed reaction times…usually taken to reflect “attentional bias” BUT:
1. Disorder-relevant words may INDUCE rumination
2. May induce emotional reaction that slows response
3. Avoidance of anything to do with disorder (could ignore word)
ALSO: studies suggest FAST (current trial) and SLOW (previous trial) interference effects (locked presentation of words can lead to slow effects)
Outline 4. Attentional (DOT) Probe Task
You get a fixation cross in the centre of the screen - with two words - one above and one below AND a dot that is covering one of the words
–> You vary where the dot appears
–> Measure: is it quicker to be located behind a neutral or negative word
Attentional Bias= RT(neutral) - RT(emotional)
–> BUT could involve engagement/disengagement bias
Attentional Bias in Anxiety Disorders and Depression
Attentional Bias: A systematic tendency to attend to a particular type of stimulus over others (eg. negative/drug-related)
–> Suggested to be an underlying process involved in a range of disorders
Anxiety Disorders
–> Reliable evidence of a bias for threatening information
–> Both for subliminal and supraliminal (conscious) stimuli
–> Eye-tracking suggests increased vigilance for threat and slower disengagement (trouble moving away from stimulus)
Depression
–> Meta-analysis (Peckham et al. 2010) suggests a bias and greater ‘lingering’ of attention on sad stimuli
–> Eye-tracking shows maintenance of gaze on sad stimuli and less on positive stimuli
What happens in the brain when exposed to emotional stimulus?
Emotional stimuli cause EARLY NEURONAL RESPONSES
- at 100ms-120ms prior to identification - like an early warning signal in the brain –> occurs in PREFRONTAL CORTEX
Emotional stimuli cause INCREASED FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY (synchronised activity) between AMYGDALA and VISUAL CORTEX (occurs in the amygdala)
–> Amygdala lesions ABOLISH bias for emotional stimuli
Emotional stimuli and emotion can bias competition for resources processing in the VISUAL CORTEX responses
Key Mechanisms: Memory
–> What are the stages of processing?
–> What is the Weapon Focus effect?
Three Stages: Encoding, storage, and retrieval
Each stage may be relevant to development of psychopathology (eg. selective encoding or retrieval)
–> A number of factors influence what is encoded and retrieved eg. stimulus salience, mood, environment, personal factors
One example of selective memory: is the WEAPON FOCUS effect
–> The weapon appears to capture a good deal of the victim’s attention, resulting in, among other things, a reduced ability to recall other details from the environment:
o details about the assailant, and to recognise the assailant at a later time
Leads to issues surrounding eye-witness testimony
–> demonstrates that attention and memory interact
Do we have enhanced memory for certain stimuli?
We remember POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE scenes better than neutral ones
–> relates to the amount of blood flow to the AMYGDALA at the time of encoding
–> Amygdala damage reverses memory bias for emotional > neutral
Retrieval of AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIES: people tend to have very rich and salient memories of very shocking events
- Sharot et al. 2007 - studied 9/11 New Yorkians - asked to recall 9/11 and the summer 2001
–> People close to event had increased amygdala activation when recalling 9/11
Can fear memories be erased?
–> It would sometimes be helpful to alter disturbing memories (eg. in PTSD)
–> Research suggests that memories can be modified by BLOCKING THEIR RECONSOLIDATION - which requires protein synthesis in the amygdala
Outline the Model of Antidepressant Action
Classical antidepressant drugs - eg. the ones that take weeks to induce mood change, such as SSRIs - significanlty improve mood only after a few weeks of treatment DESPITE biological changes taking place within a few hours
The model proposes that for these early biological effects to be translated into clinical improvement, two key processes need to happen:
1. A positive shift in the processing of emotionally salient information
–> Such a shift has been shown to occur at behavioural and neural level as early as after a single dose
2.Subsequently - this new more positive bias needs to be enacted by INTERACTIONS WITH THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
–> Leads to the development of new positive associations in learning –> happens in context of biological and neuroadaptive processes - lengthy process and explains the delay in symptomatic improvement
What is mood-congruent memory?
The selective encoding or retrieval that occurs while individuals are in a mood state consistent with the affective value of the material
–> eg. finding that during a sad mood, it is easier to recall sad information
hypothesised to be a factor in the MAINTENANCE of depression
Memories can be triggered by places, events, or even one’s own mood - can serve to maintain a mood state
–> Schemas: the emotional state excites the relevant emotion node in memory and through spreading excitation activates associated memories in the associative network
What is mood-state-dependent memory?
Better free recall when in the same MOOD STATE at encoding and retrieval
–> Thought congruity: content of thoughts/judgements are congruent with mood state
