Chapter 6 Arousal, Behavior, and Affective Tone

I. Arousal and Performance A. An Analogy for Arousal –Arousal: mobilization or activation of energy for and during behavior. –Arousal increases the vigor of behavior and affects the efficiency.

I. Arousal and Performance B. Categories of Arousal –1. Physiological Arousal Changes in sympathetic nervous system, e.g., heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and perspiration. –2. Brain Arousal Positron emission topography and magnetic resonating imaging measure blood, glucose use, and oxygen flow in active brain areas. –3. Psychological Arousal Activation-Deactivation Adjective Check List measures the degree of energetic (tired-lively) arousal and tense (calm- anxious) arousal. Energetic is highest midday and lowest early morning and night.

I. Arousal and Performance C. Source of Arousal –1. Stimuli Cue function determines type of response. Arousing function determines intensity of response. –2. Collative Variables Stimulus novelty, complexity and incongruity determine arousal. –3. Incentives They energize approach/avoidance behavior and heighten arousal. –4. Tasks Person becomes aroused to perform a task based on need, value of task incentive, and likelihood of success.

I. Arousal and Performance D. Arousal within and among Individuals Stimulation increases arousal. Individuals vary in degree of increase. E. Dimensionality of Arousal Unidimensionality: arousal is a single dimension that ranges from sleep to excitement. Directional fractionation of response: arousal varies along several dimensions that do not all correlate with one another.

I. Arousal and Performance F. Arousal and Behavior –1. Inverted-U Relationships As stimulation or arousal increases, performance increases, levels off, and then declines. Trait anxiety: personality trait to perceive environment negatively. State anxiety: situation evokes apprehension or tension. –2. Yerkes-Dodson Law Arousal interacts with task complexity: low arousal for best performance on difficult tasks; high arousal for best performance on easy tasks. –3. Zones of Optimal Functioning Individual inverted-U curves each with a zone of optimal arousal where an athlete performs best.

I. Arousal and Performance G. Explanations for Arousal-Performance Relationships –1. Arousal as Response Magnifier Arousal increases strength of all responses, both correct and incorrect.

I. Arousal and Performance –2. Cusp Catastrophe Model Cognitive and physiological arousal interact: at higher levels of cognitive, increases in physiological produces optimal performance (cusp), further increases shatters performance (catastrophe). –3. Cue Utilization Hypothesis With increased arousal, less attention is given to problem cues. –4. Arousal and Memory As arousal increases, there is better recall of central detail and a decline in recall of peripheral detail. –5. Cool and Hot Memory Systems Cool memory in hippocampus works best under low arousal and hot memory (amygdala) works best under high arousal.

II. Arousal and Affective tone A. Variation in Affective Tone Arousal may be tinged with positive or negative affect. –1. Optimal Level of Stimulation Theory As arousal increases, the degree of pleasantness of affective tone increases, levels off, and then decreases in an inverted-U fashion. –2. Arousal Regulation via the Negative Feedback Loop A person maintains a desired level of arousal by changes in behavior. Arousal model of interpersonal intimacy: people adjust their behavior (eye contact) with others to maintain a comfortable level of arousal.

II. Arousal and Affective tone A. Variation in Affective Tone –3. When Arousal Is Too Low Sensory deprivation: reducing sensory stimulation from touch, sound, and light to lowest level possible. Situation is boring and aversive. B. Arousal, Stimulus Complexity, and Preference Intermediate complexity is preferred over lesser or greater complexity. Repeated exposure decreases perceived stimulus complexity. This results in decreased liking for simple stimuli and increased liking for complex stimuli.

II. Arousal and Affective tone C. Incongruity-Resolution and Affect –1. Schemas, Assimilation, and Accommodation Schemas: knowledge structures of environmental regularities. Assimilation: new information is integrated into an existing schema. Accommodation: schema is modified to assimilate new information.

II. Arousal and Affective tone –2. Schema Incongruity Model Successful assimilation and accommodation of information yields positive affect. Unsuccessful accommodation yields negative affect. –3. Incongruity Resolution, Arousal, and Humor A punch line is resolved when it is assimilated into an alternative schema imbedded in the joke stem. This resolution triggers humor. –4. Arousal-Safety Model of Laughter Incongruities judged safe trigger humor; judged dangerous trigger fear

II. Arousal and Affective tone D. Music –1. Music Regulates Arousal Music alters arousal and induces positive or negative affect. –2. Incongruity Resolution and Appreciation of Music The enjoyment of music comes from assimilating pieces of music into activated musical schemas. –3. Musical Complexity As musical complexity increases, liking of the music increases, levels off, and then decreases (inverted-U relationship).

II. Arousal and Affective tone D. Music –4. Musical Complexity and Experience With experience, complex music is enjoyed more and simple music is enjoyed less. –`Musical grammar processor: it assimilates musical notes into a primitivemusical grammar processor that works the same way each time and is sealed off from memory.