Cognitive Level of Analysis

Cognition and Emotions

Emotions

• Three components of emotions:– Physiological changes• i.e. arousal of the autonomic nervous system

and the endocrine system (unconscious changes)

– Subjective feelings• i.e. what the person actually feels• happiness, sadness, etc

– Associated behavior• i.e. smiling, running away, etc

Emotions

• Serve as a guide to evaluate how important situations are

• Not necessarily a conscious process• Cognitive appraisal is simply an interpretation

which results in fight or flight• Fight or flight: physiological response which

prepares the individual for direct action to confront or avoid danger and a cognitive appraisal of the arousal– Cognitive appraisal: decision about what to do

based on previous experiences

Biological Factors in Emotion

• Amygdala seems critical in the brain’s emotional circuit–May play a critical role in emotional memories

• LeDoux describes two biological pathways of emotions in the brain– Short Route

• From thalamus amygdala

– Long Route• Neocortex (sensory cortex) hippocampus

amygdala

LeDoux’s Emotional Pathways

Neocortex/Sensory Cortex

Hippocampus

Sensory Thalamus Amygdala

Emotional Stimulus

Emotional Response

Long route

Short route

LeDoux’s Emotional Pathways

• Amygdala receives input from sensory processing areas in the neocortex and thalamus

• Projects these to areas in the brainstem that control systems like fight or flight

• Connections between the different brain structures allow:– The Amygdala to transform sensory info into

emotional signals– The initiation and control of emotional responses

LeDoux’s Emotional Pathways

• Advantageous to have both pathways because it allows us to be flexible in our responses!

• For danger, the fast and direct pathway is best

• The long pathway allows for a more thorough evaluation of a situation– Helps us avoid inappropriate responses

to situations

Appraisal

• Appraisals = Evaluations related to how the situation will impact one’s well-being– According to Lazarus

• Positive emotions emerge if the appraisal assesses potential benefit & negative for potential harm

• An important part of people’s reaction to emotional stress

• People aren’t passive; they actively interpret and evaluate the world around them

Lazarus and Folkman (1984)

• An individual’s experience of stress can be moderated by a number of factors– i.e. appraisal of threat, appraisal of

one’s own resources for dealing with stress, etc

– Influenced by personal factors like motivation, beliefs, and environmental factors

Stress Strategies

• Problem-focused coping: Change the problematic situation that causes emotional stress

• Emotion-focused coping: handle the emotions rather than change the problematic situation– i.e. escape, self-control, seeking social

support, reappraisal

Speisman et al. (1964)

• Same video of unpleasant genital surgery• 1 with gruesome commentary, 1 with

happy commentary, 1 with intellectual commentary

• Participants reacted more emotionally to the gruesome/traumatic video

• Individual’s interpretation or appraisal of the event is more important than the events themselves

Speisman et al. (1964)

• Issues of artificiality– It was conducted in a laboratory– Deliberate deception and unpleasant

situations = questionable ethics

The Flashbulb Theory

• (Brown and Kulik 1977) • A special kind of emotional memory

which refers to vivid and detailed memories of highly emotional events that appear to be recorded in the brain as though with the help of a camera’s flash

Brown and Kulik

• Suggested there may be a special neural mechanism which triggers an emotional arousal because the event is unexpected or extremely important

• It is supported by modern neuroscience– Emotional events are better

remembered than less emotional events

Neisser (1982)

• Questions the Flashbulb Memory Theory:– People don’t always know the event is

important until later• Memories are vivid because the event is

rehearsed/reconsidered after the event

– The flashbulb memories are governed by a storytelling schema following a specific structure• i.e. Where were we? What we were doing?

Who told us? How did we feel? Etc.

Neisser and Harsh (1992) / Talarico and Rubin (2003)

• Neisser and Harsh (1992)– Interviewed witnesses of Challenger

Space Shuttle tragedy 24 hours after and 2 years after

– Participants were confident in their accuracy, but 40% of participants had distorted memories

• Talarico and Rubin (2003)– Emotional intensity was often associated

with greater memory confidence, but not with accuracy

Breckler (1994) / Holmberg and Holmes (1994)

• Breckler (1994):– People’s current attitudes about blood

donation impacted their memories about how they felt when they donated blood in the past

• Holmberg and Holmes (1994):–Men whose marriages became less

happy overtime tended to recall early interactions in the marriage as being more negative than they had originally reported