S2W1Emot Flashcards
Emotion
Pattern of changes including physiological, feelings, cognition and behaviour, in response to a situation.
Short, intense, cause clear, can make mood
Mood
A pervasive and sustained emotion that when extreme can influence one’s life.
Long, subtle, cause unclear, can causeemotion.
Basic v complex
Basic independent of culture.
Complex dependent on culture.
Robert Plutchik (1980) – bipolar emotions
Anger/Fear
Anticipation/Surprise
Trust/Disgust
Joy/Sadness
Dimensions of emotion
Watson and Tellegen (1985)
High/Low positive effect
High/Low negative effect
Barrett and Russell (1998)
Misery – Pleasure
Arousal – Sleep
History vs. Modern views
Past:
Independent of cognition
Physiological theories
Now:
Increased understanding of neural basis of cognition
Cognition and emotion NOT independent
Emotions and the brain
Brain structures subcortical
Fast and automatic
Relatively unfiltered
Trigger stimulus can be unconscious/conscious
The amygdala
Almond shape
Front of temporal lobe
Part of limbic system
Connection to other regions
Damage:
Impaired recognition of anger and disgust
Inability to match pictures of same person with different expressions.
Hypothalamus
Below thalamus, above brainstem
Part of limbic system
Connected with many levels of nervous system
Role in expression rather than production
Basal Forebrain
Part of subcortical nuclei
Links to cortical and limbic areas
Receives cortical and amygdala inputs
Cognitive-emotional integration via prefrontal loops
Ochsner et al. (2009):
Bottom up vs. top down
Bottom up: aversive photos, respond naturally
Top down: neutral photos, interpret as if aversive
BU condition:
Occipital, temporal and parietal lobes (vision)
Amygdala (negative affect).
TD condition:
Dorsolaterlal prefrontal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex (high-level cognition)
Anterior cingulate and amygdala.
Appraisal theories
Cognitive processes influence when and what emotions are experienced.
Most important processes involve appraisal.
Many different theories.
Conscious top-down processing
Distinction between conscious and automatic processing.
Situation>Appraisal>Emotion>Action
Smith and Kirby (2001) Appraisal
Appraisal can occur:
Automatically (activation of memories)
Consciously (reasoning; slower/more flexible)
Brosch (2013) Appraisal
Emotional responses occur due to evaluation of environmental changes
Schartau (2009) conscious appraisals
Viewed distress or horror films.
Eperienced less distress and horror when told to appraise the situation in both self-report and GSR
Winkielman et al. (2005) non-conscious emotional processing
Participants shown happy, angry or neutral faces subliminally
Those shown happy drank twice as much as angry.
Affective blind sight (affect from stimulus without awareness)
Appraisal theories: strengths
Appraisal determines whether we experience emotion and what it is.
Individual differences can be explained.
Distinction between conscious and automatic processes is valuable
Cognitive manipulations affect emotion
Appraisal theories: weaknesses
Situational appraisal not always crucial
Research focused on passive individuals
Theories focus on emotion due to current situation, not future
Causal structure may not be unidirectional
Emotional regulation and generation
Distinction between regulation and generation blurred:
Overlapping brain regions
Research suggests differences between emotion regulation and generation.
Process model
Gross & Thompson (2007)
Emotion Generation:
Situation>Attention>Appraisal>Response.
Emotional Regulation:
Situation selection – leaving a bad situation
Situation modification – ask a friend to come
Attention deployment – distraction/reappraisal
Cognitive change – trying to think positively
Response modulation
Troy et al. (2013) Emotion regulation
Participants with high appraisal ability had less depression when stress was uncontrollable.
Participants with high appraisal ability had more depression when stress was controllable.
Kohn et al. (2014): Regulation three stages
- Emotion Evaluation:
Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex
Initiates appraisal and signal needed for regulation
- Initiation of Regulation:
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Processing regulation
- Execution of Regulation:
Regulates arousal by changing emotion
Kohn regulation strengths
Brain regions identified
Effectiveness of strategies is understood
Processes can be explicit or implicit
Influencing factors identified
Kohn regulation weaknesses
Behavioural strategies of regulation more common
Environmental influences not accounted for (lab)
Processing not explained
Individual differences not accounted for
Distinction between generation and regulation not clear cut
Attention
Increased activation of occipital region following:
Emotional compared to neutral expressions
Emotional compared to neutral scenes
Negative affect = narrowing of attention
Positive affect = broadening of attention
Motivational intensity
The strength of the urge to approach a positive stimulus or move away from a negative one.
Anger/Fear = high
Sadness = low
Happiness = high or low
Effect of emotion and motivational intensity in attention
+/- affect, high MI= narrow
Helps people acquire desirable objects and avoid unpleasant ones.
+/- affect, low MI= broaden
Leaves people open to new opportunities
Talarico et al. (2009) MI and Affect
Recall emotional autobiographical memories
Poor recall of peripheral details associated with negative emotions
Sad memories had reasonably good recall (low motivational intensity)
Good recall of peripheral details associated with positive emotions
Visual search tasks MI and Affect
Angry and happy faces are detected faster than neutral ones
Attentional blink paradigm MI and Affect
Stimuli presented in rapid succession and told to attend target stimuli.
If 2nd target appears 180-450ms after 1st it is missed.
If 2nd target is emotional such as ‘rape’ then it is not missed.
Emotionally laden words reduce attentional blink.
Mood congruency and memory
Current affect leads to recall of information with similar affect.
Happy at present time leads to recalling happy memories.
Greater for positive than negative.
Found in recognition tasks and retrieval of memories.
Mood dependency and memory
Memory improved if affect when learning is same as affect when remembered
Happy affect aids recall learnt in happy mood.
Greater for positive than negative.
Neutral words remembered better when mood at encoding matches recall
Kenealy (1997) Mood-state-dependent memory
Music manipulates mood
Participants learn route instructions
Free or cued (map) recall
Mood-state-dependent memory in free recall but not for cued.
Memory likely to be mood dependent when effortful processing required (uncued)
Amygdala and mood dependent memory
Adolphs et al., (1997)
Left amygdala damage associated with impaired memory for emotional stimuli
Sergerie (2006)
Right amygdala involved in emotional memory formation
Left amygdala involved in emotional memory retrieval
Attention and memory
strengths
Evidence for mood congruity and mood dependent memory
Effects explained by encoding specificity principle
Increasing understanding of role amygdala plays in effects of mood on memory
Attention and memory
weaknesses
Narrowing/broadening having effect on LTM only partially correct
Mood-state-dependent memory effects stronger with some tasks than others
Amygdala role not fully understood
Harder to find evidence for mood congruity and mood-state-dependent memory with negative mood (participants inclined to eliminate negative moods)
Effect of anxiety on decision making
Pessimistic
Risk averse
Inefficient processing
Why?
Threatening situations + uncertainty = anxiety.
Leads to minimising risk taking to increase certainty
Effect of sadness on decision making
Pessimistic
Risk taking if rewards involved
Analytic processing
Why?
Unattainable goal = sadness
Leads to abandon goal and low self-esteem.
See environment as unrewarding = analytical thinking on new goals
Leads to seek rewards to enhance self
Raghunathan and Pham (1999) sadness/anxiety and decisions
Job A (high salary + low job security)
Job B (average salary + high job security)
Those anxious state less likely to choose high-risk option.
Those in sad state more likely to choose high-risk option.
Cryder et al. (2008) misery is not miserly effect
Sad individuals have diminished sense of self and acquire possessions to enhance self
Sad individuals with high self-focus willing to pay 4 times as much for bottle
Effect of anger on decision making
Optimistic
Risk taking when sole decision maker
Heuristic processing
Why?
Obstacle to goal + Sense of control over situation = anger
Leads to optimism about overcoming obstacle and of success.
Effect of happiness on decision making
Optimistic
Risk averse
Heuristic processing
Why?
Positive mood = motivated to stay in mood.
Leads to avoidance of risky behaviour and analytical processing
de Vries et al. (2008) Heuristic/analytic processing
Happy prefer heuristic processing more than sad people.
Put into happy/sad mood and told to use heuristic or analytic processing.
People most satisfied with their decision making when using preferred strategy.
Persuasiveness of arguments
Griskevicius et al. (2010)
Found three positive mood states exhibited shallow (heuristic) processing.
Another two positive moods (awe and love) associated with deeper processing than neutral.
Moral dilemnas: emotion vs. cognition (train)
Change direction of train to kill one person to save 5.
90% of people choose this
No personal involvement
Weak emotional reaction
Push one person off a bridge to save 5.
10% of people choose this
Personal involvement
Strong emotional reaction
Deontological judgements
Using your heart
Moral rules and affective system
Utilitarian judgements
Using your head.
Cognitive system
Attentional bias
Tendency for a particular class of stimuli to capture attention.
Interpretive bias
Tendency to interpret ambiguous situations/stimuli in a particular way (often as threatening).
Explicit memory bias
Tendency to retrieve negative rather than positive information on memory tests involving conscious recollection.
Implicit memory bias
Tendency to demonstrate better memory for negative information on tests not involving conscious recollection.
Anxiety biases
Attention bias: attend to threat stimuli
Interpretative bias: Interpret ambiguous cues negatively
Explicit memory: Weak association
Implicit memory: No
Dot-probe task
Two stimuli presented at same time
During critical trials, one stimulus emotionally negative other neutral
A dot is presented in the location of one stimulus.
Indicate location of dot.
RT shorter under attended areas (emotionally negative)
Cognitive biases and depression
Attention bias: favour negative information
Interpretative bias: interpret ambiguous cues negatively
Explicit memory: report more -than + memories
Implicit memory: weak association
Joormann (2007) bias and depression
Impaired cognitive control in depressed individuals causes problems disengaging from negative information.
They then elaborate on this information, leading to enhanced memory of negative information.
Cognitive bias modification
Two key features:
Targets a bias known to the disorder
Practising task which aids to reduce the bias
Two main forms:
Cognitive bias modification for attention (CBM-A)
Cognitive bias modification for interpretation (CBM-I)
CBM anxiety
Multisession CBM = social phobia & GAD
CBM-A reduces recurrent negative thoughts in chronic worriers
CBM depression
CBM-A reduces intensity of depression
CBM-I reduces negative emotions following stress
Limitations of CBM research
Small sample sizes
Small number of studies
Suboptimal research quality
Optimal program varies according to how many biases are present
