Physiological Psychology - VII (6)

Physiological Psychology Overview

  • Dr. Esin Tuna Demircioglu

Social Cognition and Emotion

  • Emotion Recognition

    • Identifying emotions in facial expressions

    • Emotional bias in response to stimuli

  • Cognition

    • Mental flexibility: Adapting thinking and behavior

    • Executive function: Planning and strategic problem-solving

    • Working memory: Holding and manipulating information

    • Memory types: Episodic, recognition, and response inhibition

Attention Types

  • Sustained Attention: Continuous focus on specific information

  • Selective Attention: Filtering out distractions (e.g., Cocktail Party Effect)

  • Divided Attention: Processing multiple pieces of information simultaneously

  • Alternating Attention: Rapidly shifting focus between tasks

Sensory Systems (sensation)

  • Functions: Detection and discrimination of stimuli

  • Adaptation: Responses to changing stimuli over time

Perception

  • Process of interpreting and organizing sensory information

  • Integration of input from sensory receptors into a unified experience

Categorical Perception

  • The tendency to perceive objects based on category

  • Emphasizes differences between categories and minimizes within-category differences

Aesthetic Perception

  • Involves evaluation based on personal standards and social interactions

  • Components: Hedonic values, arousal, and uncertainty

Perceptual Fluency

  • Ease of processing information influencing feelings of familiarity

    • Types: Perceptual, retrieval, conceptual fluency

Judgment and Decision Making

  • Framing Effects: Choices influenced by relative comparisons

  • Peak-End Effect: Evaluation based on the most intense and final moments of experiences

  • Counterfactual Reasoning: Reflecting on alternative outcomes post-failure

Decision-Making Processes

  1. Free-choice: Decisions unaffected by past history

  2. Value-based: Decisions influenced by knowledge and past experiences

  3. Memory-based: Decisions reliable on recall of stimuli

Outcome Evaluation

  • Importance of the medial OFC for measuring outcome desirability

  • Activity correlates with subjective experience quality

  • Role of dlPFC in processing sensory input and balancing emotional values

Social Information Processing

  • Involves understanding context, estimating uncertainty, and rapid decision-making

  • Engages self-other discrimination and attention manipulation

Conclusion

  • Anticipating cognitive control relies on the activation of specific brain regions (OFC, dlPFC)

  • Effective decision-making incorporates emotional and cognitive evaluations.