Chapter 8: Emotion and Cognition

What affects perception?

Expectations, motivations, and emotions

Objects that have (emotional) value are…

selected, fixated, accentuated

Coin Study

Have kids match size of a coin or cardboard disk

• Result → overestimated size of coin (especially ‘poorer’ kids)

When object has been rewarded in the past it becomes…

more obvious/salient

When object has been punished in the past it becomes…

more back-grounded

Line Profile Study

• Trained participants on four profiles - 2 gave money, 2 lost money

• Result → when combined stimulus of 1 that gave money and 1 that lost money was shown, participants saw the profile that gave money first

Attention

set of process that allow us to focus selectively on an object, sustain that focus, and shift that focus at will

Emotion impacts attention by…

influencing what we attend to and how wide our attention scope is

_______ faces capture attention, especially _____ ones

emotional; threatening

Visual “Pop-out”

one stimulus is not like the others (target) resulting it standing out from other stimulus (distractors)

• usually color or shape differences

Pop-out is found regardless of…

number (#) of distractors

Parallel Search

evaluation all the stimulus at the same time

• occurs when target is present (fast yes)

Serial Search

looking at one stimulus at a time

• occurs when target isn’t present (slow no + slower with increase of distractors)

Once emotional stimulus is found it is…

very difficult to shift attention away

Emotional Stroop Task

Slowed down naming of color due to attending to emotion words or facial expressions

Dot Probe Detection Task

2 words on screen (top and bottom) then next screen is dot, assign the dot to be either top or bottom

• Result → slow to indicate dot when not corresponding with an emotion word (because still attending to it), faster when corresponding with emotion word

Emotional stimuli…

capture attention and hold captured attention

High arousal (during emotional states)…

narrow the scope of attention to focus on relevant cues

weapon focus

threatening stimuli tend to capture and hold people’s attention (especially if they are in a heightened state of anxiety)

What is the consequence of weapon focus?

Especially for eye-witnesses for crimes, can miss out on other details (ex. face, clothing, environment) because only looking a weapon

low intensity _______ attention and high intensity ______ attention

broadens; narrows

When weapon is present, remember…

central details the most and less peripheral details

• even higher in high arousal vs. low

When weapon is not present, remember

central details and peripheral details equally

Perception

taking information from environment and interpreting/putting it in your head

Emotions makes encoding…

emotionally similar (to current state) information faster

lexicon decision task

a task where the speed that a person is able to identify a string of letters as a word or not is measured

• people in specific emotion states recognized the words associated with that emotion state faster

• happy state → faster recognition of happy words

Morph Task

play movie with face going from an emotional state to a neutral one, ask participants to stop at frame where they stop seeing the emotion

• Result → ambiguous faces are interpreted based on YOUR emotional state (happy people say the face as happier for longer)

Associative network models

memory is web of concepts that stand for objects and events

• each concept is a ‘node’ that is connected to other nodes via associative links which are formed through experience

spreading activation

when one node is activated resulting in other nodes linked via association to activate too

• makes it easier when you see a sample to easily retrieve the related concepts with it

Emotion Nodes

Has information about the 5 basic emotions including:

• when it should be expressed (voluntary and automatic)

• knowledge of its components

• autobiographical memories of events connecting to that affective state

• verbal labels

Emotion congruent retrieval

retrieve info from memory that is in line with current affective state

Homophone Study

induced happy, sad, and neutral states with music and then had participants listen to homophones and write what they heard (mourning vs. morning)

• Result → emotional state resulted in the emotional congruent word (especially for sad words)

Two Task Study

measure natural mood while doing categorical retrieval (emotion primes word) and association task (activate with a word then asked to say a relate word)

• Result → more positive mood associated with more positive word retrieval and association

Emotion state dependent memory

material learned in one emotion will be retrieved and remembered better in that emotional state

Neutral Info Study

learn about neutral info in a specific state, came back and induced that state or a different one and then asked to recall

• Result → recall info better when it is in the same state \ it was learned in

arousal-based competition (ABC) theory

emotional arousal enhances memory for high-priority, salient information and suppress memory for low-priority, non-salient things

NEVER forget model

negative events get reactivated and thought about more than positive/neutral information resulting in more vivid and accurate memories

Emotion can ____ or _____ memory (quality)

enhance; impair

Emotion can enhance memory even if it is induced…

30 minutes later

Enhancement mechanisms

Adrenaline released during emotional arousal impacts brain and amygdala function

• amygdala is involved in the circuit for memory consolidation

  of emotional events

Flashbulb Memories

Vivid, long-lasting memories surrounding a person’s experience of shocking events

Flashbulb memories are different than normal memories because…

• Last a lifetime

• Do not decay or change

Flashbulb Mechanisms - Adaptive

Vivid recall of an emotional event may help the animal or human cope with any similar situation in the future

• adrenaline enhances recall

Flashbulb Mechanisms - Cognitive

rumination and over-rehearsal of emotional salient memory and due to news and repeated recall

• greater elaboration

No correlation between _____ and ______ for flashbulb memories

confidence; accuracy

What did the UK study (Diana Death and Resignation Margaret Thatcher) find that the Challenger study didn’t?

People have more accurate flashbulb memories when they are highly aroused and directly impacted (compared to being more detached to the event)

9/11 Study

Compared brain scans of people who experienced 9/11 who were downtown (closer) and uptown (farther)

• Result → level of arousal, valence, and vividness memory for downtown group much higher and amygdala was more activated

Affect-as-information model

people use their emotions as relevant information when making judgements

• emotion is used a quick short cut to make efficient judgements

somatic marker hypothesis

when making decisions, people create embodies simulations of where they think they will feel if they choose each of the choice outcomes