
Lecture 5: Emotions and cognitions
We were assigned the paper: De Waal, F.B.M. (2011). What is an animal emotion? Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 1224, 191-206.
Why the paper of De Waal?
- Introduction of new term: anthropodenial. It means: it’s bad to deny that other animals might have emotions
- Studying emotions in animals can help us understand our own emotions
- Animals can form simpler models for emotional processes
- A comparative perspective can inform us about:
- Specificity of behavior
- Evolution of behavior
- Occurrence of behavior despite certain differences
Zajonc-Lazarus debate
Zajonc: “Affective and cognitive processes are coordinated by separate systems and can operate independently.”
VS
Lazarus: “An emotion cannot be produced without a prior cognitive appraisal.”
Support for the primacy of affect
- Le Doux’ low road (affective blindsight, subliminally presented affective pictures etc)
- Mere exposure effect: repeated exposure to an object leads to increased positive affective reactions
Zajonc’s mere exposure effect
- Participants were shown photos of faces.
- The number of times each face was seen was varied.
- The more often a face was presented, the better they liked it (Zajonc, 1968).
- Experiment with words consists of two steps.
- Step 1. Subliminally present nonsense words such as “zebulons” and “worbus” (visually masked).
- Step 2. Rate aesthetics of words:
- Same nonsense words (old/familiar) vs
- Other nonsense words (novel/unfamiliar)
- Result. “Familiar” nonsense words were liked more than unfamiliar words
Lazarus
- The mere exposure effect can be explained as a form of appraisal of valence, good or bad (which is ‘cognitive’)
- Preference ≠ Affective reaction
Lazarus’ experiment
- Lazarus and Alfert (1964) showed students a filmed circumcision ritual and manipulated the accompanying soundtrack.
- Some participants heard a soundtrack that minimized the negative emotional impact of the film by denying the pain involved in the surgery and emphasizing the joyful aspects of the procedure.
- Others heard no soundtrack at all.
- The way the video was appraised determined the emotional response.
Appraisal conclusion
- Appraisal alters body responses and emotions ->Basis for a discussion:
- Lazarus: appraisal is a cognitive function
- Zajonc: appraisal is an implicit function
- Both Lazarus & Zajonc are probably right:
- Early appraisal is probably not cognitive but an implicit gut feeling (preference)
- Late/Slow appraisal is cognitive, rational thinking (Mandler) that sometimes can be “quickened” by enough arousal
Arnold’s theory of appraisal
- Appraisal is NOT a conscious interpretation or intellectual judgment
- Rather: fast, rough evaluation, a relational judgment (good for me, bad for me)
- Resulting emotion = felt tendency toward positively appraised events, or away from negatively appraised events
- Emotion is accompanied by drive-inducing physiological changes
Do only humans appraise?
- Animals respond to the suddenness of a situation, its novelty, predictability, correspondence to expectations, or controllability.
- They also know social norms (hierarchy, age, social context)
- So the answer is ‘no’. Also animals can do more than just reacting to an emotional event. They take many things into account.
Conclusions about appraisal
- Arnold: unconscious feeling of which emotional response is appropriate
- Early appraisal is probably not cognitive but an implicit gut feeling (preference, experience, novelty)
- Key mechanism for behavioral flexibility, allowing the adjustment of the organism to complex and changing environments (evolutionary adaptive).
Emotions color our world: Perception
- Even if the stimulus is the same, we might perceive it differently
Visual illusions
- Dominance of right versus left hemisphere (individual differences!)
- Dominance of one picture category over another
- Also emotion influences our perception
Emotions and consciousness
- Emotional stimuli enhance awareness
- Stimuli congruent with mood are more likely to enter awareness (implications mood disordes)
Emotions drive our attention
- Attention enhances mental representations and allocates neural resources to relevant processes/items/representations
- Bottom-up (distraction/saliency) vs top-down (self-controlled)
Attentional bias in RTs
- Reaction times are a function of attentional biases
- Individual differences:
- Older people show a stronger bias towards happy expressions
- Young children do not show an attentional bias (for angry faces)
- Attentional biases more often found in women than in men, over emotions and over age groups
What drives our attention?
- Biologically salient stimuli
- Species-specific
- Whatever is relevant for us at this particular moment! (mood)
Bad decisions without emotion: Judgement
- Our emotions are often linked to social situations
- Others’ emotions impact on our emotions AND on our judgements (facial feedback theory)
Pupil mimicry
- ...is stronger in within-species interactions and an evolutionary old phenomenon
- …correlates with trust
- …possibly a perspective taking tool
- We associate dilated pupils with positive emotions
Better memories with emotions: Memory
- Emotional arousal activates amygdala
- Amygdala innervates hippocampus --> better memory
- Incidental/implicit/unconscious emotional processing is more likely to enhance memory storage
- Increased arousal facilitates memory consolidation (McGaugh & Cahill)
- Suppressing emotions impairs memory
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Emotion and cognition lecture notes
- Emotion and Cognition - Lecture 1 notes
- Emotion and Cognition - Lecture 2 notes
- Emotion and Cognition - Lecture 3 notes
- Emotion and Cognition - Lecture 4 notes
- Emotion and Cognition - Lecture 5 notes
- Emotion and Cognition - Lecture 6 notes
- Emotion and cognition: Lecture 7 notes
- Emotion and cognition: Lecture 8 notes

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