Week 3: Emotion Processing: Bottom-Up Effects of Emotions on Cognitive Processes

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

Is a set of cognitive functions that select and prioritise some information for further
processing.

Question 2

Emotional Stimuli

Answer 2

Objects, events, or situations that signal potential danger or reward, can grab attention.

Question 3

‘Pop-out’ Effects of Emotional Stimuli

Answer 3

• Things that signal danger or reward (scary animal or delicious food) quickly grab our attention.
• We quickly focus on important things helped us survive.
• Our brains process emotional things faster and remember them better.

Question 4

Discrepant Stimulus

Answer 4

A stimulus or something that stands out or is different from the other things around it.

Question 5

Autonomic Arousal

Answer 5

This refers to the body’s automatic responses to a stimulus, like increased heart rate or sweating.

Question 6

Pop-Out Effect

Answer 6

This is when a stimulus is so different from others that it immediately grabs your attention, like a red dot on a white page.

Question 7

Attentional Bias

Answer 7

The tendency to pay attention to some things while simultaneously ignoring others.

Question 8

Negative Attentional Bias

Answer 8

Is a specific type of attentional bias that refers to a tendency to focus on negative information, particularly threats.

Question 9

Attentional Orienting

Answer 9

Automatically directing attention towards a specific stimulus.

A hypervigilance towards the emotional stimulus

Question 10

Attentional Avoidance

Answer 10

Deliberately shifting attention away from a specific stimulus.

Question 11

Eye Tracking Methods

Answer 11

Are methods that enable a more continuous measure of attention because they can measure initial fixations to particular stimuli as they appear on a screen. As well as the length of time spent gazing at a particular stimulus before a fixation away from the stimulus occurs.

Question 12

Hypervigilance

Answer 12

Excessive attention to potential threats.

Question 13

Disengagement Difficulty

Answer 13

Trouble shifting attention away from a stimulus.

Question 14

Emotional Stroop Task

Answer 14

Measures the impact of emotional words on task performance.

Question 15

Social Threat Cues

Answer 15

These are words or phrases related to social situations that might cause anxiety, such as “rejected,” “embarrassed,” or “alone.”

Question 16

Physical Worriers

Answer 16

Individuals who are primarily concerned with physical symptoms of anxiety, like heart palpitations or shortness of breath.

Question 17

Positive Attentional Bias

Answer 17

Is an attentional bias that is associated with optimism and resilience.

It’s less common in depression.

Question 18

Maladaptive

Answer 18

Behavior or thoughts that are harmful or dysfunctional.

They interfere with a person’s ability to adjust to their environment and achieve their goals.

Example: In anxiety - excessive worry and avoidance behaviors

Question 19

Psychopathology

Answer 19

The scientific study of mental disorders.

It also refers to the manifestations of mental illness.

Question 20

Self Associations (self-reference effect)

Answer 20

Information related to oneself is learned and remembered better than information about others.

Question 21

Fear Conditioning

Answer 21

The occurrence of an aversive or unpleasant stimulus can transfer some of the fear-provoking effects to other neutral stimuli that are in the environment through association.

Question 22

Fear Extinction

Answer 22

To reduce the fear, the individual has to experience
the conditioned threat stimulus without the aversive unconditioned stimulus across many trials.

Question 23

Phobia

Answer 23

An excessive and irrational fear of a specific object or situation.

Unlike fear, they are often persistent and uncontrollable.

Question 24

Vicarious Learning

Answer 24

Sometimes also referred to as observational learning or social referencing.

It is when people acquire fears by observing fearful responses to what was previously a neutral stimulus or situation in other people.

Question 24

Social Referencing

Answer 24

Relying on others’ emotional cues to guide one’s own behavior.

Question 25

Informational/Instructional Transmission

Answer 25

Learning about a threat through verbal communication can lead to fear.

Verbal > Visual
Adult (authoritative) > Peer

Question 26

Maintenance of Fear

Answer 26

The combination of fear generalization and impaired extinction contributes to the persistence of phobias.

Question 27

Appetitive Conditioning

Answer 27

A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a positive or rewarding event.

Question 28

Aversive Conditioning

Answer 28

A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an aversive or unpleasant event.

Question 29

Memory

Answer 29

It is the process by which new information is encoded, consolidated, and subsequently retrieved.

Question 30

Confabulation

Answer 30

The creation of fabricated memories to fill in memory gaps.

Question 31

Korsakoff’s Syndrome

Answer 31

A severe memory disorder caused by a lack of thiamine (vitamin B1) in the brain.

It’s often associated with chronic alcohol abuse, but it can also occur due to other conditions that lead to malnutrition.

People who suffer from this have difficulty learning new information and recalling recent events.

Question 32

Memory & Emotions

Answer 32

Stress hormones affect memory retention.

Emotional events are better remembered than nonemotional events.

Emotional arousal can narrow attention to honing in on particular aspects of the central event but not those that are peripheral.

Question 33

Flashbulb Memories

Answer 33

Refer to memories that are laid down in great detail to salient events, however, the details can be inaccurate over time.

Question 34

Weapon Focus Effect

Answer 34

The tendency to focus on a weapon in a crime scene, leading to poorer memory for other details, including the criminal.

Question 35

Memory Consolidation

Answer 35

The process of making memories stable and long-lasting.

Question 36

Overgeneral Autobiographical Memory

Answer 36

Vague and general memories, often seen in people with mental health conditions.

Question 37

Causes of Overgeneral Memories

Answer 37

1) Extreme stress
2) Structural memory deficit
3) Adaptive strategy for managing extreme emotional distress
4) Resulting from people with psychiatric conditions following a stressful life event

Question 38

Intrusive Visual/Involuntary Images

Answer 38

Vivid, unwanted, and recurring memories, often associated with trauma.

Question 39

Mood-Congruent Memory

Answer 39

We remember things that are similar to the mood that we are in.

Is about what you remember based on your current feelings.

Question 40

Mood-Dependent Memory

Answer 40

We are better at recalling information when our mood at retrieval matches our mood during learning.

Is about when you remember something based on your past feelings.

Question 41

Context-Dependent Learning

Answer 41

Material is thought to be recalled best when in the same environment as when it was learned.

Question 42

Implicit Memory Test

Answer 42

In these tasks, it is not obvious that the participants are being tested on memory.

Question 43

Implicit Memory

Answer 43

Memories that are unconscious and unintentional.

Question 44

Mood Disturbance

Answer 44

A significant alteration in mood, typically characterized by symptoms like sadness, euphoria, or irritability.