Associative Network Models

Associative Network Models

• Memory functions as a network of semantic concepts that describe objects and events.
• Brain modality systems summarize info about a subject and stores it as a "node" or "unit".
• Nodes link to other nodes that accompany it, storing concepts in memory.
• When thinking back, info extracted from the experience will infer about the object.
• The main concept is the proposition, and descriptive qualities are descriptive propositions.
• Nodes connect via associative links, formed through experience.
• Links indicate the strength of the connection between propositions.
• Spreading activation occurs when exciting a node which activates linked nodes.
• Exposure to a category makes related thoughts easier to recall.
• Nodes represent beliefs about emotional states, linked to emotions via associative pathways.
• Emotions also link to autobiographical memories of emotional experiences.
• Knowledge about emotions is separate from the bodily experience of emotion.

Embodied Simulation Models

• Emotions link to bodily experiences.
• Memory of an object/event involves reactivating sensory-motor events from the original encounter.
• This is useful for storing emotional information in the conceptual system.
• The concept of an object is the set of sensory, motor, and affective states associated with the experience.
• Understanding emotional meaning involves partially reactivating posture, expression, and associated feelings.
• It's based on re-experiencing the emotion rather than abstract conceptualization.
• Study: Participants recreated emotions and made emotional expressions to judge if words had emotional meaning.

Emotion and Attention

• Emotion shapes perception by influencing what we pay attention to.
• Emotion can influence both the objects we attend to and the breadth of our attention scope.
• Approaching someone walking a dog, attention to their face might make me think of them as friendly, or the dog may suggest anxiety.

Emotional Objects Capture Attention

• Objects with emotional significance attract attention.
• Threatening objects elicit fear or anxiety and capture attention.
• Threatening faces are detected more rapidly than friendly ones in a crowd.
• Emotional reactions can quickly capture attention, even in limited attention conditions.
• It's harder to disengage attention from a threatening object.
• People pay attention to threatening things when already anxious or fearful.
• Evolutionary theory suggests that emotional reactions to threats were selected for survival.

Emotional Influence on Scope of Attention

• High-arousal unpleasant states narrow the scope of attention.
• The cue-utilization hypothesis says threatening stimuli increases arousal, restricting attention to central cues.
• Weapon focus: Attention narrows in high arousal states during crimes involving a weapon.
• Emotion's influence on the scope of attention is due to arousal or motivational intensity.
• High motivational intensity narrows attentional focus, while low motivational intensity broadens it.

Emotion-Congruent Word and Face Processing

• The emotion-congruence hypothesis states that objects/events with the same emotional significance as the current emotional state are classified more efficiently.
• In a lexical decision task, people can decide if a string of letters is a word.
• People in happy states name words with happy meanings faster.
• Emotion affects perception of words related to the emotion.

Emotion Influences Memory

• Emotional events/objects are recalled more easily than neutral ones.
• Better recall of emotional information accompanies impaired recall of non-emotional aspects.
• Memory is better for information related to the general theme of the emotional event.
• Peripheral information associated with the 'gist' of the event is easier to recall.
• Older people pay more attention to positive information.
• People tend to remember negative information better because they require more action/adaptation and generate more physiological arousal.
• Emotion makes information more memorable.
• Emotions influence memory through mood-congruent memory and mood-state-dependent memory.

Mood-Congruent Memory

• Mood-congruent memory is when someone in a particular mood retrieves information from memory with the same tone.
• It derives from associative network models of emotions.
• An emotional state excites the relevant emotion node, spreading excitation throughout the network.
• People may falsely recall information that is congruent with their emotional state.

Mood-State-Dependent Memory

• Mood-state-dependent memory involves better retrieval during a specific emotional state of anything learned during that same state.
• The match between emotional state at encoding and recall is important.
• A mood state can cue stored information at a later time.
• Mood-state-dependent memory is more likely in free recall tasks.
• People recall emotional material better than neutral material.
• Emotional states serve as cognitive context for memory.

Emotion and Judgement

• Mood-congruent judgement is the tendency to make judgements congruent with the current emotional state.
• Those in a negative state estimated negative events were more likely.
• Those in a positive state were more optimistic in their risk estimates.

Explanations of Mood-Congruent Judgement

• The affect-as-information model states that people use their affective state as relevant information when making evaluative judgements.
• Feelings could be heuristics/simple tricks for making an efficient judgement.
• Heuristics are simple rules of thumb involving forming an opinion without paying attention to detailed information.
• The use of affect as information is reduced when people realize their emotions have nothing to do with the object of judgement, but associative network models do not predict these correction processes.

The Unique Role of Discrete Emotions

• Anger and fear had differential impacts on risk estimations.
• Fear makes participants overestimate risk, whereas anger and happiness make participants underestimate risk.
• The Appraisal Tendency Framework says appraisals associated with different discrete emotions lead to predictable effects on evaluation.
• Anger/happiness associates with control, whereas fear associates with situational control.

Emotions and Processing Strategies

• Emotion plays a role in our information-processing strategies.
• Happy people are less influenced by arguments and more influenced by heuristics.
• Happiness increases reliance on generalized knowledge, whereas sadness leads people to be more sensitive to detailed information and rely on less heuristics in judgement.
• The hedonic view is that individuals seek to experience/maintain a positive state by avoiding tasks that could alter it.
• The informational view is that affective states inform us about the state of the environment.
• Positive states validate thoughts, and negative states invalidate what we're thinking.
• Judgements are emotionally congruent, and judgemental strategies are affected by emotions.

Emotion and Decision Making

• If the expected outcome is positive, the alternative has high utility/value.
• Choices are often made to maximize utility.
• Somatic marker hypothesis: Expected emotions guide decisions.
• Options are "marked" by a particular emotional expectation stored in memory.
• People create embodied simulations of possible choice outcomes.
• Expected emotions guide decisions.