Section 3.2 of my IB HL Psychology text book all about cognition and emotion at the Cognitive Level of Analysis. Discusses the biology behind emotions and how this affects stress and memory. Short section!

1. Cognitive Level of Analysis
Cognition and Emotions

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. LeDoux’s Emotional Pathways
Neocortex/
Sensory Cortex
Hippocampus
Sensory Thalamus Amygdala
Emotional Stimulus
Emotional
Response
Long route
Short route

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. Speisman et al. (1964)
• Issues of artificiality
– It was conducted in a laboratory
– Deliberate deception and unpleasant
situations = questionable ethics

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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.

16. 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

17. 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