Cognition and Emotion - Summary Notes

Introduction

• Cognitive psychology's computer analogy doesn't easily address cognition-emotion relationships.

• Cognitive psychologists often neutralize participants' emotions, but interest in cognition and emotion is growing, seen in memory and decision-making research.

• Chapter covers:

  • Cognitive appraisal of situations influencing emotional experience.

  • Emotion regulation processes for managing emotions and achieving goals.

  • Effects of emotion on cognition.

  • Cognitive biases in anxiety and depression.

• Structure of emotions: Categorical (distinct emotions) vs. Dimensional (misery-pleasure & arousal-sleep; positive & negative affect).

  • Both approaches describe a two-dimensional space.

  • Most researchers use a categorical approach; findings can often be re-interpreted dimensionally.

Appraisal Theories

• Cognitive processes determine emotional states via appraisal of situations.

• Roseman and Smith: Appraisals initiate physiological, expressive, and behavioral changes.

• Lazarus's theory:

  • Primary appraisal: Situation is positive, stressful, or irrelevant.

  • Secondary appraisal: Resources available to cope are considered.

  • Reappraisal: Monitoring and modification of stimulus and coping strategies.

  • Appraisal can be automatic or conscious/deliberate.

• Developments in appraisal theory:

  • Each emotion is linked to a specific appraisal pattern.

  • Smith and Lazarus identified six appraisal components:

  • Primary: Motivational relevance and congruence.

  • Secondary: Accountability, problem-focused and emotion-focused coping potential, future expectancy.

  • Different emotions are distinguished by appraisal components.

  • Smith and Kirby: Appraisal involves associative processing, reasoning, and appraisal detectors.

  • Associative processing: Rapid, automatic, inflexible.

  • Reasoning: Deliberate, slow, flexible.

Evidence

• Cognitive appraisal influences emotional experience.

  • Studies used anxiety-inducing films with manipulated soundtracks (denial, intellectualization) to reduce stress.

• Specific appraisal components determine experienced emotion.

  • Scenarios presented to participants.

  • Anger linked to other-accountability, guilt to self-accountability.

• Parkinson: Appraisal manipulations accounted for <30% variance in emotion ratings.

• Kuppens et al. Determinants of anger are flexible; no single appraisal is necessary or sufficient.

• Individual differences in emotional reactions arise from differences in situational appraisal.

  • Trait anger linked to appraisals of threat, blame, and frustration.

• Smith and Kirby: Appraisal involves rapid associative processes.

  • Chartrand et al., Automatic appraisal influences mood.

Concerns with Scenario-Based Research

• Limited genuine emotion experienced.

• Situations and appraisals vary, obscuring effects.

• Correlational, not causal.

• Robinson and Clore: Findings from scenarios may generalize to emotional situations.

• Bennett, Lowe, and Honey: Appraisal theory applies under naturalistic conditions.

• Siemer, Mauss, and Gross: Appraisals predict emotion intensity.

  • Personal control negatively associated with guilt, shame, sadness.

  • Other-responsibility negatively associated with anger.

• Siemer and Reisenzein: Appraisal judgments are slower than emotion judgments because emotion inferences become automatized.

• Berndsen and Manstead: Cognitive appraisals can occur after emotions.

• Roseman and Evdokas: Manipulated appraisals causally impact emotions.

Evaluation

• Appraisal influences emotional experience.
  Individual differences are partially explained by varying appraisals.

• Smith and Kirby: Clarified appraisal processes (associative vs. reasoning).

• Limitations:

  • Appraisal isn't always crucial; associations may trigger emotions.

  • Causality is bidirectional; appraisals and emotions blur.

  • De-emphasizes social context.

  • Distinction between automatic/deliberate appraisal needs more research.

  • Lazarus' list of emotions lacks detailed justification.

Emotion Regulation

• Emotion regulation: Redirecting spontaneous emotion flow.

• Strategies: Cognitive appraisal, breathing, relaxation, eating, distraction.

• Gross and Thompson's process model: Strategies used at different times:

  • Situation selection and modification.

  • Attentional deployment (distraction).

  • Cognitive change (appraisal).

  • Response modulation.

• Attentional deployment reduces negative mood; working memory is key.

  • Van Dillen and Koole, Task demand affects mood after negative photos.

  • Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activated, amygdala dampened with high demand.

• Rothermund Attentional counter-regulation minimizes emotional states.

  • Attend to positive stimuli in negative mood, vice versa.

• Attentional processes influence emotional states, but effects aren't always beneficial.

Cognitive Reappraisal

• Reinterpreting stimuli to change emotional response.

• Prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate involved in cognitive control.

• Reappraisal strategies vary in processes/brain areas used.

• Ochsner and Gross, Distinguished between reinterpretation and distancing; both activate prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate.

• Reduced amygdala activation reduces emotional reactions.

• Wager et al.: Successful reappraisal linked to ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activity, reduced amygdala, increased nucleus accumbens.

  • Expressive suppression: Ineffective due to late prefrontal activation, increased amygdala activity.

• Reinterpretation and distancing involve different mechanisms.
  Reinterpretation: Dorsal prefrontal cortex activation
  Distancing: Medial prefrontal cortex activation.

Evaluation

• Neuroimaging enhances understanding of reappraisal.

• Higher cognitive control in prefrontal cortex reduces amygdala response.

• Processes vary with reappraisal strategy.

• More research needed on cognitive-control processes similarity and causal links between prefrontal activation, and reduced amygdala activity.

Multi-Level Theories

• Cognitive system is complex; multiple processes underlie emotion.
  Emotional conflicts arise from conflicting cognitive processes.
  LeDoux: Role of amygdala in emotional significance.

• Sensory information relayed simultaneously from thalamus to amygdala and cortex.

• Fast-acting thalamus-amygdala circuit allows rapid response in threatening situations.

• Cortical circuit produces detailed evaluation.

Non-Conscious Emotional Processing

• Processes below awareness can produce emotional reactions.

• Öhman and Soares: Phobics react to subliminal phobia-relevant pictures.

• Morris et al.: Masked conditioned angry face activates right amygdala; Superior colliculus, thalamus involved.

• Affective blindsight Patients with blindsight (visual cortex lesions) discriminate emotional stimuli without conscious perception.

• Jolij and Lamme: TMS-induced disruption shows affective blindsight in normal individuals.

SPAARS Model

• Schematic, Propositional, Analogical, and Associative Representation Systems.

• Analogical level: Basic sensory processing.

• Propositional level: Emotion-free information about world/self.

• Schematic level: Facts + goals = emotional response to goal thwarting (sadness, happiness, anger, fear, disgust).

• Associative level: Rapid, automatic emotions without schematic models.

• Emotion occurs via cognitive processing (schematic) or automatically (associative).
  Associative-driven emotion generation: Schematic model accessed in past experiences.

• Emotional experience depends more on associative level given repeated experience or preparedness (evolutionary fear of certain objects).

• Consciousness, attention affect the process.

• Power and Dalgleish, Five basic emotions are in all cultures.
  This is based on cognitive appraisal, universal expressions, and physiological patterns research, and most other emotions are blends of the basic ones.

Evaluation

• Two-route theory aligns with the theories of Smith and Kirby and LeDoux, superior to one-route theories.

• SPAARS model has evidence for components.

• More research is needed, especially clarifying interactions of processes and determining the use of inhibitory or attentional processes.

• Functional neuroimaging would provide clarity to the processing operations.

Mood and Cognition

• Mood influences cognitive processes (e.g., recalling unhappy memories when depressed).

• Mood state (positive or negative) influences cognitive processing so that thoughts and memories match (or are congruent with) that mood state.

Bower's Network Theory

• Sematic network accounts for phenomena

• Assumptions:

  • Emotions are nodes in semantic networks.

  • Emotional material is stored as assertions.

  • Thought occurs via node activation.

  • Nodes are activated by external or internal stimuli.

  • Activation spreads to related nodes.

  • Consciousness involves activated nodes above a threshold.

• Testable hypotheses:

  • Mood-state-dependent memory: Memory is best when the mood at retrieval matches that at learning.

  • Mood congruity: Emotionally toned information is learned and retrieved best when there is correspondence between its affective value and the learner’s (or rememberer’s) current mood state.

  • Thought congruity: An individual’s free associations, interpretations, thoughts, and judgements are thematically congruent with his/her mood state.

  • Mood intensity: Increases in intensity of mood cause increases in the activation of associated nodes in the associative network.

• Tulving:Encoding specificity and Morris:Transfer-appropriate processing predict mood-state-dependent effects.

Mood-State-Dependent Memory Research

• Manipulated mood, word learning/recall.

• Ucros review showed moderate support.

• Positive mood states lead to stronger effects.

• Kenealy: Controled level of learning with free recall or cued recall tests.

• There are strong mood-state-dependent effects in free recall but not in cued recall.

• Eich: More internal resourses the easier memory is recalled. Also read the words in internal state of learner at encoding.

Mood-State-Dependent Memory: Dissociative Identity

• Different identities have different mood states.
  Bower predicted inter-identity amnesia.

• Such effects are not evident on implicit memory tests.

• Huntjens et al. found intrusions like those of the simulators.
  Patients with this dissorder are unable to belief themselves to retreive memories.
  Huntjens et al.: Even if not remembering learning, the interference can be studied with group types and is consistent.
  Huntjens et al.: Also tested using implicit memory testing the serial reaction time task and the data resulted in that there were implicit memory testing and interdenity amnesia.

Mood Congruity

• Procedures is mood induction, followed by learning. Then a memory test.
  Mood congruity is shown by a greast recall is emotion is matched to mood.

• Bower Gilligan study: Mood with the characters and what they remembered.

• Better evidence for mood-congruuent retrieval with positive affect.
  People in a mood that is negatice, will try to more to improve their mood.
  Rusting and DeHart research shows: Word recall and positive reappraisal for moods.

• Negative focus, had effect.

• Postitive repraisal changed.
  Many fail, because negativ moods can change and repair often.
  Willingness can vary in the current mood, to remember something.
  Fielder et als study, memory effects in a better or wore mood in film with positive or negative words from charile chaplin or movie about jail scene. Concluding that they did not cause effect.
  Used functional magnectic imaging, Lewis found sad and happy emotional regions on the brain. Subgenual cingulate: positive words with positive re-activation. Posteriolateral oribtofrontal cortex: Negative stimluli presented or negative moods.

Thought Congruity

• In different ways but similar in use, positive mood may trigger more positive judgment while the harsh will give those with more sad to act more lenienet for judgement.

• Forgas and Locke shows workplace scenarios.

• Judgment influence can be the participation which effect that the happy is very optimistic and leniet while the un happy are critical.
  McFarland founds that individual show affect on one self. Ruminative approach.
  With two attetion of self:
  -Rumintive approach: Is where they tend with the negative traits.
  -Reflect: The reflection approach of self where they have a feeling of openness to explor.
  With using a negative vs neutral evenet visualization during expermenation of moods effect in the end the participants were mostly thinking thought the ruminative aproach for those who have more to ruminate on during negaitivty where those with less thought of themselves in neutrality with less and neutrality.
  More evidence is required but in its place is the affect infusion model.

Mood intensity

• The hypothesis has not has relatively as research.

• However some evidence that can be used is
  Eich

• Testing that most that there that if recall for mood in stronger and the stronger when mood states is induced.

Evaluation

• Bower's network theory has extremely influncetional has oppended up the hole thing.
  -Experimental has given support on the phenom that have has predicted, including mood-state-dependent recall, mood congruity, and thought congruity.
  -Some failing, have given due to motivation in negativy as of more trying change the mood state of the the brain.
  Bower has limited theory: More general than actually happens.
  -Theory, is notoriously difficult, due to cognitive context.
  -Thoery being oversimplified, emotions, moods and are node representations in semantic networks.
  Emotion change in intensity over time where cognitions is more rapidly. Emotional status is very theoretical, confused.

Affect Infusion Model

• The affect fusion model
  -The starting point for the model is the nodtion of The affectfusion
  -Where influnece selectivly affect the:
  -Attenton
  -Learning
  -Memory

• decsion making
  In processing strategies of affective infusion.
  Which very in
  -There are four process in these varity of process it is as followed as which effect will affect these four thing. Such four processing strategies in which infulsion is key too have: DIRECT ACCESS, MOTIVATED PROCESSING STRATEGY, HERISTIC PROCESING AND SUBSTANTIVE PROCESSING.
  With 4 direct acess is used from the familiar, for example in such to remember something form how you acted with a politcal view will not effect the situation now.
  Process inforamtions to influnce stragies, improving of for example the state of pre- exsitin goas; Mood has little to know change to effect strongly to poliicla effects.
  With the least effect the huristic processing is with the cuurent feelings to for example what had in affect influnec that may may be good because the feeling but will change for better to worse on the effect for views of life.
  Substanitive processing is is: A process where there extensive that in its own in that the the process select and in that of influnces to make such judgement,memory, attetion to infomation, and that which is the is often plays and infulence affect role.
  Eichs theory:
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Discussion

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