Emotion and Cognition- 180-186

Patterns of Action

Charles Darwin's evolutionary explanation of what emotions are. An external stimulus set a certain type of physiological arousal (adrenaline, sweatty palms, etc.) in motion, and this contributed to the survival and reproduction of the individual. Thus emotions have an evolutionary explanation as an adaptive function.

Jame-Lange theory of emotion (1884)

theory proposing that emotions result from our interpretations of our bodily reactions to stimuli: emotion is an interpretation of a physiological response

Cannon-Bard theory of emotion (1927)

theory in which the physiological reaction and the emotion are assumed to occur at the same time: emotion is a direct result of a stimulus

Schachter-Singer two-factor theory (1962)

Theory that to experience emotion one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal: similar to James-Lange, but here the cognitive interpretation involves scanning the surrounding environment for an explanation of what to feel.

Theory of Appraisal: Richard Lazarus

Claims that cognitive appraisal precedes physiological arousal, and then reinterprets the emotion based on that.

Joseph LeDoux

proposed that the amygdala serves as a "hub" of rapid emotional response, especially to sensory input involving threat ,which is processed via a "low road", but that non-threatening stimuli can be processed more slowly via the neocortex, also called the "high road"

Bidirectional

The interaction between emotion and cognition.

Theory of Flashbulb Memory

A special memory mechanism theorized by Roger Brown and James Kulik in 1977. Posits that surprising and emotionally arousing events imprint in one's memory like a photograph.

Overt rehearsal

Discussing an event with other people

Covert rehearsal

replaying an event in one's mind

Mechanism of formation of flash-bulb memories

Brown and Kulik suggested that, from an evolutionary perspective, encoding events more clearly that are surprising and are personally consequential is beneficial for survival and are therfore a special mechanism of memory.

Mechanisms of maintenance for flash-bulb memories

Overt and covert rehearsal (Brown and Kulik)

Sharot et al (2007)

Found evidence for a unique neurological foundation for flashbulb memories. Activation of the amygdala was measured using fMRI imaging in participants who recalled memories of 9/11 attacks in Sep 2001, which they had witnessed. The measurements were taken 3 years after the actual events, but amygdala activation was still seen. This suggests that the amygdala is involved in the formation of flashbulb memories.

Talarico and Rubin (2003)

Found that when students at Duke University (North Carolina) recalled their personal memories from the 9/11 terrorist attacks (New York) they had greater confidence in the accuracy of their memory of the events than was actually the case. In reality, their so-called flashbulb memory became just as inconsistent over time as the other memory they recalled in the study. This suggests that although flashbulb memories are more vivid, or remembered in greater detail, they are not necessarily more accurate other memories.