Emotion and Cognition

Emotion and Cognition: Perception and Attention

• Attention, perception, memory, judgment, and decisions are all affected by emotional state.
• Emotions can influence cognition, implying emotions are separate from mental processes like memory, but it is still uncertain if they are distinct

Perspectives on Emotion and Cognition

• Some theorists view emotion and cognition as two independent systems in the brain, where emotions are independent of cognitive processes but can influence them.
• Others believe cognition precedes emotion and is necessary for its occurrence, while some emotions require a sense of self developed through cognitive development.
• Emotion and cognition are interdependent, where cognitive processes can alter emotion, and emotion can influence or regulate cognitive processes.

Models of Emotion Knowledge

• Two general classes of models show how emotion knowledge is stored and structured in cognitive systems: Associative network models, and embodied simulation models

Associative Network Models

• Memory operates as a network of semantic concepts describing objects and events.
• The basic unit of thought is the proposition, where objects or events are recorded in memory through descriptive propositions.
• When perceiving something like a dog, the brain's modality systems process visual, auditory, and emotional information.

Summary and Storage in the Brain

• Sensory information is summarized and stored as a "node" in the brain.
• Nodes store information, like "DOG," linked to other nodes representing features like "BARKING," "FURRY," and "SCARY."
• Associative links connect nodes, preserving the strength of connection between propositions.
• Activation of one node spreads to related nodes through associative links.

Emotional States and Memory

• Knowledge of emotional states is stored in memory within nodes, where the semantic network is based around five core emotions: fear, happiness, sadness, disgust, and anger (smiling linked with being happy).
• Knowledge is linked to autobiographical memories, and activation of nodes above certain thresholds triggers associated information, influencing behaviors.
• Each emotion node connects to nodes representing propositions about the emotion, including subjective feeling, facial expressions, and objects/events associated with it.
• Activating knowledge about one emotion can also activate knowledge of its opposite emotion.

Embodied Simulation Models

• Knowledge of emotional states is integrated with the sensory-motor system.
• Sensory-motor states are represented by neurons specific to sensory, motor, and affective modalities.
• Understanding emotional meaning involves reactivating neurons for all three modalities, reflecting feelings and actions during the initial experience.
• Knowledge is based on re-experiencing emotions, not abstract conceptualization, which means the knowledge is abstract; you need to re-experience it to access the knowledge

Research on Word Meaning

• Studies show how emotion affects understanding of word meaning, where participants recreate the emotion to judge emotional meaning.

Emotion and Attention

• Attention involves focusing, sustaining focus, and shifting focus and emotion can influence what objects we attend to and the breadth of our attention scope.

Emotional Objects and Attention Capture

• Feelings influence how stimuli is perceived, for example neutral faces, and neutral facial expressions may be seen as negative when feeling anxious.
• Attention is given to stimuli because they are important, preparing adaptive actions.
• Objects with emotional impact attract attention, such as threatening objects that elicit fear or anxiety.

Effects on Attention Research

• Stroop effect is involved
• Negative facial expressions are detected faster than positive ones.
• People detect threatening faces more rapidly in crowds.

Eye-Movements and Darwin's Theory

• Eye movements are more accurate for fearful faces, and attention is greater for threatening stimuli when feeling anxious.
• This aligns with Darwin's theory of evolution, where survival chances are enhanced by avoiding danger.

Scope of Attention

• Attention is affected by emotions.
• Scope of attention refers to what someone is able to attend and process a range of different items.
• Attention narrows when feeling threatened or fearful, focusing on cues associated with threatening stimuli.
• Attention expands when feeling happy related to the Broaden and Build Theory.

Happiness and Signals

• Happiness signals safety, triggering exploration and learning.
• Resource building during happiness relates to work and relationship success.

Weapon Focus Effect

• The 'weapon focus effect' is a narrowing of attention when highly aroused which affects what eyewitnesses recall

Emotion Cogntive Processing

• After stimuli are attended to, emotion affects information processing, and objects with emotional significance are classified/processed faster if they match the current feeling.
• Emotional state activates stimuli/object-consistent associations stored in memory, requiring less perceptual information for object classification.

Emotion and Information

• Reaction times are faster for letters as words aligning with current affective states.
• Happy people recognize happy words faster, and sad people recognize sad words faster.

Emotion and Memory

• Memory involves storing, encoding, and retrieving information, and emotion can influence these processes; emotion-induced events are recalled better due to their impact.

Mood-Congruent Memory

• Current feelings impact recall, and congruent emotions make retrieval easier.
• Participants in happy or sad moods recall more facts about stories matching their mood.

Mood-State-Dependent Memory

• Information is better retrieved when learned in the same emotional state.
• Recall is better when participants are in the same (induced) mood state as when learning.

How emotion Influences perception

• Emotion leads to focused attention and influences elements of memory process through: Mood-congruency models, and mood-state-dependent models

Emotion and Cognition: Judgment and Decision Making

• Judgment involves evaluating aspects of a situation, while decision-making involves choosing between multiple options.

Mood-Congruent Judgment

• Those in negative states judge negative events as more frequent, while those in positive states are more optimistic.

Unconscious Feelings & Affect

• Brief flashes of emotional faces influence judgments even when masked.
• The affect-as-information model suggests individuals use affective state as relevant information for evaluative judgments.
• Emotions are used as heuristics and also guide the focus on specific information

The influence of emotions on how risk is calculated

• Anger and fear have differing impacts on risk estimations; fear makes individuals overestimate risk, whereas anger makes individuals underestimate risk
• Happy people are often more efficient in tasks requiring broad categories and that rely greatly on stereotypes, whereas sadness results in more sensitivity to rely on detailed information

Hedonic View

• Individuals seek positive states and avoid tasks altering them.

Informational Models

• Affective states inform about the environment and indicate whether careful processing is needed.
• A decision involves choosing among alternatives, and expected emotions guide these decisions.

The Somatic Marker Hypothesis

• Options are “marked” by a particular emotional expectation stored in memory.

Card Game example

• Those with ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage cannot determine "good" decks and they do not show skin conductance before choosing

Emotion Regulation Definition

• Processes used to influence what emotions one has, when they have them, and how they experience and express them

Usefulness of Emotion

• can be helpful if for example episodes of fear causes one to avoid fights, but can be unhelpful to express all emotion. anger can case someone to harm a love one etc.

Gross's Model: The Process Model

• Includes antecedent-focused strategies (situation selection, modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change) and response modulation.

Situation Selection

• Taking actions that make more likely to be in a situation with desired emotion, Like avoiding social situations

Situation Modification

• Taking actions to alter the emotional impact, like choosing a restaurant

Attentional Deployment

• Directing attention to influence emotional response which causes a diminished response, the brain shows this early on with electrical signals

Cognitive Change

• Appraising a situation to alter its emotional impact

Response Modulation

• Directly influencing experiential, behavioral, or physiological components of the emotional response.
• Maladaptive strategies: Using food (binge or restriction), alcohol
• Adaptive: Using deep breathing

Gross emotional response can be maladaptive

• Can become maladaptive long-term or short-term.

RIchard and Gross experiment

• Measured the effect of suppression on memory
• Suppression decreases memory performance, and the resources used to suppress.
• The slides that were used were accompanied by 3 bits of information

Emotional experience

• Reappraisal reduces negative experiences, and suppression does not change them

Social Consequences

• Suppression impacts relationships, can lead to one being less liked by peers and get less social support.

Cognititve consequences

• Suppression linked with decreased memory

Physiology

• There is an increase in sympathetic activation

Well-being

• Is associated with lower well being especially in Westen samples, but not in Chinese ones

Reappraisal

• Reappraisal may not work for everyone, it is not adaptive at all times and context is important. Also it may not be one or the other: healthy people use reappraisal in low intensity contexts and distraction in high affective intensity ones