1. Emotion and Cognition
Week 6

2. Today’s question
Previously we examined how cognition  emotions (i.e., the appraisal theories of emotion)
Today, we examine how emotions  cognition

3. Recap: What is cognition?
Cognitive Psychology
Memory
Attention
Decision making
Creativity …
Lower level
Higher level
Social cognition
Persuasion
Stereotypes
Judgments
Social behavior …
Higher level cognition often relies on lower level cognition.
The type of effects found in higher level should be compatible with those found in lower level.
Effects found at lower level may be extended to higher level phenomena, perhaps with addition of relevant variables (e.g., motivational relevance)

4. Before we start: Caution
What does this phrase mean?
“Negative (vs. positive) emotion improves memory”
What do you think an experiment would look like?
Could it mean:
“When/While experiencing negative emotions, people tend to remember things better”
“People have a better memory for negative information than positive information”

5. Before we start: Caution
When you read emotion literature, always ask:
1. Is the emotion experienced before the stimuli is experienced; Or
2. Is the emotion in the stimuli itself?
Good scientists are precise with their words. Fake scientists…[fill in the blank]
Remember the SRM mantras: Be clear, complete, and unambiguous.

6. Emotion-evoking stimuli
***typically emotion is a within-subject variable***

7. Memory
Encoding
Recognition
Recall (retrieval)

8. Are flashbulb memories accurate?
Initially, yes, but accuracy decreases with time, just like any other explicit memory.
Kraha & Boals (2014). Why so negative? Positive flashbulb memories for a personal event. Memory.

9. Recognition memory Evolutionary purpose?
Typical experiment: Participants see a series of pictures in study phase, and had to recognize them again in the recall phase (alongside foils).
Food (esp. decay), people (esp. enemies)

10. Recall memory
What type of memories do you think these people recall most?
Depressed people
Anxious people

11. Attentional processing
Classic Stroop
Emotional Stroop
Source of conflict?
Word meaning vs. actual color
Source of conflict?
Emotional relevance vs. color
Williams et al. (1996). The emotional Stroop task and psychopathology. Psyc Bull.

12. Eye tracking
Which face do you think a person with anxiety disorder will focus on first?
Which face will this person most fixated to?
You can change the stimuli from faces to spiders, and examine spider-phobics too.
Mogg et al. (2000). Biases in EMs to threatening facial expressions in generalized anxiety disorder and depressive disorder. J Abnorm Psy. 

13. Emotion experienced prior to task
***typically emotion is a between-subject variable***

14. Focus of attention (attentional breadth)
I see the forest!
(global)
I see the trees.
(local)
Any examples from your personal life?

15. Mood and creativity What does creativity involve?
Find a word that can be affixed with these words
cottage / swiss / cake
stick / maker / point
This is known as the Remotes Association Task (RAT). See

16. Mood and creativity
Make a guess: Who is likely to be more creative (in a lab) -- the happy person or the sad person?
Why? (Think: What does creativity involve?)

17. Mood congruency effects on memory: General experimental setup
IVs
DVs
Watch happy vs. sad films
Hot, crowded room (+) vs. cool, spacious room (-)
Free gift vs. nothing
Memory
Positive vs. negative information recalled
Judgments
“How much do you like this person?”
“How attractive is this person to you?”
“How satisfied are you with your life?”

18. Typical findings Memory Evaluations
NB: Experiments usually look at mild moods, not extreme moods (is this a problem?)

19. Mood and persuasion
Q: Are you more likely to be persuaded when you are in a positive or negative mood?

20. Mood and stereotyping IV1: Recall of happy vs. neutral incident
IV2: Read crime description. Accused is either a Hispanic guy (negative stereotype) or White guy (positive stereotype)
DV: Culpability

21. Mood and conformity IV1: Recall of happy vs. neutral incidentB C D
Participant
IV1: Recall of happy vs. neutral incident
6 simple math questions (e.g., sum of numbers from 14 – 29)
Answers passed around. Some bogus participants gave wrong answers
DV: Conformity
Which group conformed more? ___________________
Tong et al. (2008). Conformity: Mood matters. Eur J Soc Psyc.

22. Happy people are stupid, creative bigots?

23. Positive mood states influences information processing
Thinking styles: System 1 vs. System 2
Memory organization: gist vs. details
Attentional processes: global vs. local

24. Associative Network Models (Gordon Bower)
+ emotion
- event
+ event
Concepts are stored in memory nodes (memory representations)
Related concepts have stronger associations (e.g., nurse-doctor, vs. nurse-cat)
Emotions are also concept nodes, stored alongside other concepts.

25. Associative Network Models (Gordon Bower)
+ mood
- event
+ event
Concepts related to the emotion have stronger associations (e.g., anger-Trump)
When positive mood is activated, activation spreads to related concepts
You retrieve memories consistent in valence, which skews the evaluations

26. Problem with Network Models
On some days your life sucks.
Doesn’t seem to involve you recalling what happened.
Network Models cannot explain this.

27. Mood-as-information model: Premises
Mood states inform you about the state of environment
This information guides other aspects of life e.g., judgments of others, self, etc.
Schwarz & Clore (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. J Per Soc Psy.
Schwarz & Clore (2003). Mood as Information: 20 Years Later. Psy Inquiry.

28. Mood-as-information model: Modern classics
First day of sun after a harsh winter Condition 1: [chat]…“How’s life?” + “By the way, how’s the weather there?” Condition 2: [chat]…“By the way, how’s the weather there?” + “How’s life?”
Schwarz & Clore (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. J Per Soc Psy.
Schwarz & Clore (2003). Mood as Information: 20 years later. Psy Inquiry.

29. Mood-as-information model: Implications
Traditional models of cognition
Mood-as-information implications
Your mood affects you all the time without you realizing it!

30. The Unifying Proposition
Part 3: Links to Evolutionary Psychology

31. The challenge Suppose you found mood/emotion X  cognitive state Y
What sort of explanations (mechanisms) should you be looking for?

32. Link to Evolutionary Psychology (incl. Week 8)
Ultimate
Proximal
Levels of explanation
Evolutionary
Ontological (“Developmental”)
Cog
Bio

33. Key assumption 1: Neither explanations are “wrong” or “right”
“What is a chair?” Structural: Four legs, at certain angle, with a flat surface Chemistry: Lattice of carbon fibers Physics: Molecules, atoms, electrons Quantum physics: “Does a chair even exist?”

34. Example: Love Bio: activation of brain area x, y, z
Cog: [combination of appraisal dimensions]
Dev: Something we learnt
Evolutionist: What is love for? (recall Week 5)

35. Ontological (“Developmental”)
Key assumption 2: Explanations at lower level should not conflict with explanations at higher level
Example: Anger
Evolutionary
Ontological (“Developmental”)
Cog
Bio
Fend off transgressors
Warn conspecifics not to hurt you
Mate guarding
Heart rate +
Attention bias for threat cues

36. Take home messages
Fundamental low-level cognition can influence higher-level cognition.
Seek precision: Is the emotion experienced before the stimuli, or is the emotion evoked by the stimuli?
A good theory of emotion  cognition needs to consider evolutionary perspectives as well
Many nuances can be found in your readings, esp. Isen’s.