W2 Internal Processes

Question 1

What are 3 ways to study internal psychological processes?

Answer 1

1. Self reports, eg. likert scales
2. Peripheral physiological measures, eg. heart rate, skin conductances
3. Neuroimaging - measuring activity of the amygdala, cannot use TMS in subcortical areas, only stimulus the cortex

Question 2

What are pros/cons for using peripheral physiological measures?

Answer 2

Pro = good for overt emotional responses

Con = less precise for more subtle emotional responses, eg. distinguishing between fear/disgust

Question 3

What are 4 ways we can operalisationise attentional breadth?

Answer 3

1. Navon task - checking RTs for global and local level, expecting to see slower performance on incongruent tasks, ie. identifying the local letter in a different global letter
2. Cueing paradigm - to measure breath, spatial extent of cue in different spatial locations to target, getting cueing effect in large spaces indicates broad attentional breadth
3. Flanker task in high and low perceptual load
4. Spatial distribution of IOR

Question 4

What is alternate form reliability?

Answer 4

1. same participants are tested with one form of the same test, if people score high on the global measures task, they should also have a breadth attentional breadth on the IOR = these tasks should be measuring the same construct

Question 5

If non-correlative results found with attentional breadth, how can we test if these tasks are really measuring attentional breath?

Answer 5

1. = try to rule out other related internal processes that could be measured in these tasks, eg. shifts of attention (divergent evidence)
2. Combining with psychological measures, ie. saccadic eye tracking, people show narrow activation in primary visual cortex in fMRI scans (zoom lens model, narrow lens = higher perceptual enhancement, broader vision = lower resolution)

Question 5

What internal process does the mental rotation of shapes study?

Answer 5

mental imagery

Question 6

What internal process does the Stroop Effect test?

Answer 6

Studies the automaticity of reading

(Incongruent / stroop effect = semantic meaning and colour are mismatched and incongruent, more errors and slower RTs)

Question 6

How do we study synesthesia scientifically?

Answer 6

the synesthetic Stroop task =

Synesthetic Stroop = suffering interference in naming the word when there is a different between their synesthetic colour and its physical colour

Get your synesthete colours and compare RTs between synesthete colours and random colours, should be faster at synesthete coloured words

Question 7

What internal process does the Posner cueing paradigm study?

Answer 7

Measures attentional orienting

Responses are faster on ‘valid’ trials on the target compared to ‘invalid’ trials on the target

Question 7

What are the neural findings for synesthesia?

Answer 7

1. Giving synesthetes with letters/numbers leads to activation in colour regions of visual processing (V4/V8)
2. left hemisphere activation in the left medial lingual gyrus - implicated in colour knowledge

Question 8

What does the DTI imaging show in synesthesias in relation to neural connectivity?

Answer 8

DTI shows synesthesia has greater white matter (neuron axons / connectivity) in the inferior temporal cortex (esp. For projectors)

Question 9

Is colour processing the same as visual imagery?

Answer 9

Synesthetic colour experience is qualitatively distinct to visual imagery

Question 9

What are the 3 life outcomes associated in people with synesthesia?

Answer 9

1. Highly enjoyable and integral to life
2. associated with creativity
3. Better memory in memory tests because of additional cue of colour in recalling a stimulus

Question 10

What is a construct vs. operationalisation?

Answer 10

1. Construct = a theoretical psychological concept, eg. attention, self-esteem
2. Operationalisation = methods for instantiating manipulations/ measurements of constructs, they are the objective perimeters of the construct, eg., attentional blink

Question 11

What influences the accuracy of a study?

Answer 11

the extent to which the construct and operationalization are closely aligned

Question 12

1. BMI is an operationalisation of ….
2. Number of days with low mood
3. Global precedence effect / Navon task

Answer 12

1. Physical health
2. Psychological health
3. Attentional breadth

Question 13

1. semantic processing
2. fear processing
3. proxy of SES

Answer 13

1. words and non words
2. fmri of fearful vs. neutral
3. postcode

Question 14

What is the biggest challenge in studying internal processes?

Answer 14

Hard not to accidentally manipulate another variable or the intended variables studied, eg.

Question 15

What is an example of neglecting to consider another third variable?

Answer 15

1. the broad and build model

The broaden and build model doesn’t consider arousal in its theory of emotion, and only measures valence of emotion
But valence of emotion is directly linked with arousal - thus the differences in A.B could be partially due to arousal and not just valence of emotion

Question 16

How does hypothesis relate to theories?

Answer 16

hypotheses are derived from theories

Question 17

What is falsifiability in theories?

Answer 17

1. Cannot preclude any type of objective measurement
2. Adding caveats to theories that suggest there is something connected/present but is indetectable is making a theory UNFALSIFIABLE

Question 18

What is an example of a falsifiable, testable theory?

Answer 18

1. hypothesis = “anger makes people want to approach things”,
2. method = ask people to watch an anger inducing film and self report and find people want to avoid
3. argument = proponents of this theory could claim that people have an unconscious problem with motivation to self-report
4. = testing/falsifying = Motivation would then have to be testable in this theory, eg. through ERPs otherwise it turns into being unfalsifiable

Question 19

What is an example of descriptive vs. explanatory?

Answer 19

1. Descriptive: “focused attention enhances spatial acuity”
2. Explanatory: “focused attention causes the shrinking of receptive fields around the attended location - enhances spatial acuity”

Question 20

What is the caveat to explanatory theories?

Answer 20

Caveat = Just because predictors for an explanatory theory get supported, it doesn’t mean the explanation is solely correct, eg. P-cells might be activated in focused attention

Question 21

How do we distinguish different explanatory hypotheses? / p and m cell example

Answer 21

1. Check P and M cells, neuroimaging, behavioural measures in testing temporal acuity to see if M cells are implicated in spatial or temporal acuity, eg. what happens to temporal acuity in focused attention at an attended location? Second model predicts M is better at temporal and P is better at spatial, so at an attended location, M-cells/temporal acuity would be impaired to support this hypothesis

Question 22

Recap = what is the early vs. late perceptual load theory?

Answer 22

1. Early selection of attention - attentional selection occurred EARLY in processing, unattended information was NOT PROCESSED 2. Late selection of attention - attentional selection occurs LATE in stimulus processing, unattended information is PROCESSED

Question 23

Recap = what is the perceptual load theory?

Answer 23

1. Early or late selection is dependent on current perceptual LOAD 1. When perceptual load is high = early processing / unattended info is not processed 2. When perceptual load is low = late processing / unattended info is processed, attentional resources are spread around

Question 24

Why is the perceptual load theory good?

Answer 24

1. Makes clear predictions 2. Falsifiable 3. Explanation for why both early and late processing evidence is present 4. Good converging evidence

Question 25

What part of the brain is the amygdala in and what does it do?

Answer 25

1. Amygdala is a subcortical part of the limbic system (older phylogenetic / primitive 2. implicated in fear, fear conditioning and fear-relevant stimuli, eg. spiders, fearful facial expressions, anf emotions of high positive/negative VALENCE

Question 26

What are the 2 types of dimensions in emotion theory?

Answer 26

1. Categorical approach number of discrete and basic categories of emotion that are universally recognised, fear, disgust, and have different behaviours 2. Dimensional approach - emotions can be distilled down to values of key dimensions, arousal (intensity) AND valence (pos/neg), eg. anger and fear are similar since both have high arousal and valence

Question 27

What is evidence for the dimensional approach of emotion?

Answer 27

The brain appears to be sensitive to both valence and arousal Fear and disgust as categories seem to explain brain activation even after controlling for valence and arousal

Question 27

What is the difference between fear and disgust?

Answer 27

1. Fear expands our scope of sensory information and causes rapid processing 2. Disgust restricts our sensory information, eg. reducing amount of air to breathe in, protests us from pathogens

Question 28

What was the Bocengra and Zeelenberg (2011) study? how does this show a bias towards m-cell precedence?

Answer 28

1. A fearful or neutral face is presented 2. A ring (ring with gap or no gap) is present on one side of screen Spatial task = did the ring have a gap or no gap? Temporal task = was the ring always present or did it disappear? Findings: after a fearful face, people are more sensitive to temporal gaps and less sensitive to spatial gaps compared to a neutral cue, shows bias towards m-cells in fearful processing, measuring the spatial and temporal gap

Question 28

How are m and p cells implicated in fear processing?

Answer 28

Fearful faces appear to induce spatiotemporal tradeoff in processing, - bias to magnocellular cells (larger cells, poorer spatial resolution, better temporal) - compared to parvocellular neurons

Question 29

What is the Bocengra and Zeelenberg (2009) study with gabors? / convergent evidence with their previous study

Answer 29

1. After shown a fearful/neutral task, presented with a gabor (stripped lines) and asked to make a judgment on its orientation IV: the spatial frequency of the gabor Findings = After a fearful face, people were worse at judging gabors with fine SPATIAL details, indicating that fear processing results in a bias AGAINST P-CELLS and towards M-CELLS

Question 30

Why are m-cells implicated in fear?

Answer 30

when we see a fearful face, it indicates there is some danger nearby/imminent, magnocellular neurons seem to be processed more to engage in faster speed processing of our surroundings to detect the threat and respond

Question 31

Conceptual - What effects would a disgust stimuli elicit in a gabor task?

Answer 31

1. Disgust might elicit p-cells because it would narrow down perceptual resolution Or faster processing to identify the disgusted stimulus for m-cell hypothesis? Are neutral faces really a good baseline as a comparison? How specific are these affects to these specific emotions?

Question 32

What is other evidence for fear vs. disgust neural basis?

Answer 32

1. Adopting a fearful expression enhances sensory acquisition 2. Adopting a disgusted expression reduces sensory acquisition

Question 33

Susskind et al. (2008) = What is the functional value of fear and disgust?

Answer 33

1. FEAR enhances sensory acquisition, related to rapid processing and detecting peripheral stimuli to detect predators, eg. M-cell hypothesis supported 2. Disgusted expression reduces senses, because it suggests there is a pathogen/disease nearby, eg. reducing the amount of air breathing in, protecting us from things that might make us sick

Question 34

What are the findings on sensory differences / eyes / breathing in fear vs. disgust?

Answer 34

1. Fearful expression: faster detection of peripheral stimuli, faster saccades, increased nasal inhalation capacity 2. Compared to neutral, disgusted expression: decreased detection of stimuli, slower saccades and reduced nasal inhalation

Question 35

What other type of emotive stimuli could we add to distinguish between fear and neutral faces?

Answer 35

adding POSITIVE valence, as it makes different predictions then a threat/fear-based explanation of attention

Question 36

What are 2 alternative explanations of fear processing?

Answer 36

1. threat/fear-based explanation = high attention because of evolution/fear-flight OR 2. emotive-based explanation = empathy attention towards emotion of any valence

Question 37

Recap = how to operationalise construct of motion processing being implicated in V5 / MT+ with DIVERGENT EVIDENCE?

Answer 37

1. getting a similar perceptual process like looking at static objects and check whether v5 is active