Emotion Cognition Interactions
Are thoughts cool and emotions hot?
In some views, thoughts are "cool", associated with calm and measured responses. Emotions are "hot", driving behavior and impelling us to do something immediately. However, emotions and thoughts are intertwined, and work together to drive behavior. The neural mechanisms associated with both are connected at many different levels of organization.
Emotion and Perception/Attention
If you are being chased by a tiger, you don't want to waste time looking at the flowers. Emotions can guide what we attend to and percieve.
Find the angry face
Find the happy face
Emotion and Perception/Attention
Emotional stroop: Name the color of the words
Stroop task: Name the color of the words:
Ugly Pretty Smart
Red Blue Green
Emotion and memory
There is better recall of personal events during important or emergency situations - flashbulb memory. For example, people more vividly remember where they were for the 911 attacks. These memories are no more accurate than events in neutral situations, even though people had high confidence in their memory.
Emotion and memory
Which list of words do you think is remembered better?
Emotional items seem more distinctive, unusual, rare, or strange, helping us to remember them. We think about and rehearse emotional words more, also aiding in recall.
no barely frightening sad terrifying
assured bright sky happy table
Mood and memory
Mood Induction
Mood Dependent Memory
Mood influences our processing strategy
Fiedler (2001) suggests that our mood influences how we process information:- Positive Mood -> Assimilation: We interpret new information based on what we already know.
- Negative Mood -> Accomodation: We adjust our existing knowledge by incorporating new information.
Mood influences our processing strategy
Levine and Pizarro (2004) propose that mood affects cognitive processing flexibility:- Positive Mood -> Looser Processing: Since positive moods signal that goals have been achieved, cognitive effort is relaxed.
- Negative Mood -> Tighter Processing: Negative moods indicate unresolved problems, prompting more focused attention and careful decision-making.
Emotion and Decision Making
Imagine you are given $2,000 in fake money to spend. You should choose a deck of cards, with each card revealing if you won or lost money.
Safe Decks: Could win $50, or lose $0
Risky Decks: Could win $100, or lose $50
How do you think subjects performed? What about subjects with damage to the vmPFC?
Emotion and Decision Making
Other researchers claim that emotions help in the decision making process. If you find yourself in a good mood around someone, then that can lead you to answer yes when they ask you out on a date. Emotions play an integral role with thoughts and reasoning in order to determine behavioral choices.
Emotion and Reasoning by Analogy
Analogies are considered a type of mental representation. There are three types: 1. Analogies about emotions 2. Analogies that involve the transfer of emotion between situations. 3. Analogies that generate new emotions
Hinojosa et al (2017)
This study sought to answer the following research questions:
- How does mood influence language production? Past research mostly studied the effect of mood on language comprehension
- Are processing stages in speech production “modular”? If they are influenced by mood, then they are not modular.
Hinojosa et al (2017)
Participants had to watch video clips, and answer questions about presented objects.
Hinojosa et al (2017)
Results:
It took longer for participants to perform the task when they were in a negative mood (1251 ms) compared to a neutral mood (1186 ms).
However, this result was not statistically significant. If we based our conclusions on RTs, we would have concluded that mood didn’t matter. BUT ERP results informed us that mood mattered
Hinojosa et al (2017)
Being in a negative mood disrupts those processes involved in the selection of phonological representations during speech generation
Source localization of the scalp ERP effectNegative minus neutral mood conditions
Affective computing
Affective computing is computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions and other affective phenomenon. It receives and recognizes emotions in humans, such as facial expressions and head gestures. For example, your computer could tell when you are tired or frustrated based on your facial expression, and recommend that you rest and take a break.
Affective computing
FaceSense at MIT affective computing group combines bottom-up cues and top-down predictions to do things like tag facial expressions, head gestures, and affective-cognitive states from real time videos. An ANN (Artificial Neural Network) by Petrushin (2000) can process features such as energy, speaking rate, and fundamental frequency. It can recognize anger, fear, happiness, sadness, neutral, at 70% accuracy.
Affective computing
Researchers are also focusing on the internal architecture of emotional beings. The CogAff architecture outlines how cognitive-emotional processing can take place in a person or machine.
Affective computing: Kismet
Affective computing: Kismet
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/sociable/emotions.html
Affective computing: Kismet
Kismet is programmed with activation conditions, and associated emotional responses to produce a certain behavior. For example, at the loss of a desired object, the associated emotion is sorrow, and kismet will react against the important loss.
From Kismet to Jibo
(Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, MIT)
Mood dependent memory:We remember items better when our current mood matches our mood during the encoding of those memories. For example, I'll remember a list of words better if I was in a good mood during encoding, and a good mood during recall. I won't remember the list of words as good if I was in a good mood during encoding and a bad mood during recall, or a bad mood during encoding and a good mood during recall.
Mood Induction:Our mood during encoding influences the words we remember. For example, if a person is in a good mood during encoding, they are more likely to remember the word "flower". If that person was in bad mood during encoding, then they are more likely to remember "death".
This is the threat superiority effect.
People are faster at detecting an angry face than happy faces among hidden neutral faces. This effect is only found in angry faces, and not sad faces. The effect is driven by how threatening the stimulus is, not the valence of the stimulus.
The Stroop task demonstrates that readers cannot suppress word meanings.
It is difficult to name the color without accidentally reading the word.
Our perceptual/attentional systems are oriented toward negative stimuli.
It is more difficult to ignore the word "ugly" when naming the color, than the word "pretty". We have longer reaction times when naming the word ugly as a result.
Normal subjects learned through trial and error which decks were the "safe" decks, and chose only cards from those decks. Patients with vmPFC damage kept choosing cards from the "risky" decks, suggesting that the emotional processing that helps us learn from our mistakes was impaired with damage to this area.
Reflective Processing: This is where metacognition comes into play, or the ability to think about and control other mental states. You can be aware of your emotion, but choose not to act on it. For example, deciding to give a public speech, despite your fear of public speaking.
Reactive Processing: These are reflex-like responses in which a stimulus automatically triggers a reaction—for example, the fear experienced after bumping into something in the dark.
Deliberative Processing: These involve representations of alternate plans of action. The best behavioral response is selected given the circumstances. For example, should you go on a roller coaster ride at an amusement park, considering your level of fear and a possible medical condition?
Emotion II
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Transcript
Emotion Cognition Interactions
Are thoughts cool and emotions hot?
In some views, thoughts are "cool", associated with calm and measured responses. Emotions are "hot", driving behavior and impelling us to do something immediately. However, emotions and thoughts are intertwined, and work together to drive behavior. The neural mechanisms associated with both are connected at many different levels of organization.
Emotion and Perception/Attention
If you are being chased by a tiger, you don't want to waste time looking at the flowers. Emotions can guide what we attend to and percieve.
Find the angry face
Find the happy face
Emotion and Perception/Attention
Emotional stroop: Name the color of the words
Stroop task: Name the color of the words:
Ugly Pretty Smart
Red Blue Green
Emotion and memory
There is better recall of personal events during important or emergency situations - flashbulb memory. For example, people more vividly remember where they were for the 911 attacks. These memories are no more accurate than events in neutral situations, even though people had high confidence in their memory.
Emotion and memory
Which list of words do you think is remembered better?
Emotional items seem more distinctive, unusual, rare, or strange, helping us to remember them. We think about and rehearse emotional words more, also aiding in recall.
no barely frightening sad terrifying
assured bright sky happy table
Mood and memory
Mood Induction
Mood Dependent Memory
Mood influences our processing strategy
Fiedler (2001) suggests that our mood influences how we process information:- Positive Mood -> Assimilation: We interpret new information based on what we already know.
- Negative Mood -> Accomodation: We adjust our existing knowledge by incorporating new information.
Mood influences our processing strategy
Levine and Pizarro (2004) propose that mood affects cognitive processing flexibility:- Positive Mood -> Looser Processing: Since positive moods signal that goals have been achieved, cognitive effort is relaxed.
- Negative Mood -> Tighter Processing: Negative moods indicate unresolved problems, prompting more focused attention and careful decision-making.
Emotion and Decision Making
Imagine you are given $2,000 in fake money to spend. You should choose a deck of cards, with each card revealing if you won or lost money.
Safe Decks: Could win $50, or lose $0
Risky Decks: Could win $100, or lose $50
How do you think subjects performed? What about subjects with damage to the vmPFC?
Emotion and Decision Making
Other researchers claim that emotions help in the decision making process. If you find yourself in a good mood around someone, then that can lead you to answer yes when they ask you out on a date. Emotions play an integral role with thoughts and reasoning in order to determine behavioral choices.
Emotion and Reasoning by Analogy
Analogies are considered a type of mental representation. There are three types: 1. Analogies about emotions 2. Analogies that involve the transfer of emotion between situations. 3. Analogies that generate new emotions
Hinojosa et al (2017)
This study sought to answer the following research questions:
Hinojosa et al (2017)
Participants had to watch video clips, and answer questions about presented objects.
Hinojosa et al (2017)
Results:
It took longer for participants to perform the task when they were in a negative mood (1251 ms) compared to a neutral mood (1186 ms).
However, this result was not statistically significant. If we based our conclusions on RTs, we would have concluded that mood didn’t matter. BUT ERP results informed us that mood mattered
Hinojosa et al (2017)
Being in a negative mood disrupts those processes involved in the selection of phonological representations during speech generation
Source localization of the scalp ERP effectNegative minus neutral mood conditions
Affective computing
Affective computing is computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions and other affective phenomenon. It receives and recognizes emotions in humans, such as facial expressions and head gestures. For example, your computer could tell when you are tired or frustrated based on your facial expression, and recommend that you rest and take a break.
Affective computing
FaceSense at MIT affective computing group combines bottom-up cues and top-down predictions to do things like tag facial expressions, head gestures, and affective-cognitive states from real time videos. An ANN (Artificial Neural Network) by Petrushin (2000) can process features such as energy, speaking rate, and fundamental frequency. It can recognize anger, fear, happiness, sadness, neutral, at 70% accuracy.
Affective computing
Researchers are also focusing on the internal architecture of emotional beings. The CogAff architecture outlines how cognitive-emotional processing can take place in a person or machine.
Affective computing: Kismet
Affective computing: Kismet
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/sociable/emotions.html
Affective computing: Kismet
Kismet is programmed with activation conditions, and associated emotional responses to produce a certain behavior. For example, at the loss of a desired object, the associated emotion is sorrow, and kismet will react against the important loss.
From Kismet to Jibo
(Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, MIT)
Mood dependent memory:We remember items better when our current mood matches our mood during the encoding of those memories. For example, I'll remember a list of words better if I was in a good mood during encoding, and a good mood during recall. I won't remember the list of words as good if I was in a good mood during encoding and a bad mood during recall, or a bad mood during encoding and a good mood during recall.
Mood Induction:Our mood during encoding influences the words we remember. For example, if a person is in a good mood during encoding, they are more likely to remember the word "flower". If that person was in bad mood during encoding, then they are more likely to remember "death".
This is the threat superiority effect. People are faster at detecting an angry face than happy faces among hidden neutral faces. This effect is only found in angry faces, and not sad faces. The effect is driven by how threatening the stimulus is, not the valence of the stimulus.
The Stroop task demonstrates that readers cannot suppress word meanings. It is difficult to name the color without accidentally reading the word.
Our perceptual/attentional systems are oriented toward negative stimuli. It is more difficult to ignore the word "ugly" when naming the color, than the word "pretty". We have longer reaction times when naming the word ugly as a result.
Normal subjects learned through trial and error which decks were the "safe" decks, and chose only cards from those decks. Patients with vmPFC damage kept choosing cards from the "risky" decks, suggesting that the emotional processing that helps us learn from our mistakes was impaired with damage to this area.
Reflective Processing: This is where metacognition comes into play, or the ability to think about and control other mental states. You can be aware of your emotion, but choose not to act on it. For example, deciding to give a public speech, despite your fear of public speaking.
Reactive Processing: These are reflex-like responses in which a stimulus automatically triggers a reaction—for example, the fear experienced after bumping into something in the dark.
Deliberative Processing: These involve representations of alternate plans of action. The best behavioral response is selected given the circumstances. For example, should you go on a roller coaster ride at an amusement park, considering your level of fear and a possible medical condition?