Emotions, Perception, Attention, Social Psychology, Identity and Individual Differences

Emotions are innate and some are learned.

Emotions are: Cognitive, Physiological, Behavioural and Social.

Theories: 

James-Lange - Event -> Arousal -> Interpretation -> Emotion

Cannon-Bard - Thalamus sends impulses to Cortex = Perception -> Conscious experience of emotion. Thalamussens impulses to Hypothalmus = Perception of emotion arousing stimulus -> General physiological cahnges.

Two Factor - Emotion is based on two factors: physiological arousal and cognitive label. 

Evolutionary - Darwin researched the expression of emotions in an effort to support his theory of evolution.

Initially people are born with some emotions but learn others as we develop.Some emotional responses are learnt from society.

By age 4 we can regulate our emotions and understand basic rules.

Emotions trigger, facilitate and maintain relationships.

Amygdala: first response and fear.

Fear - Increased amygdala activity

Love - Decreased amygdala and Pre-Frontal Cortex activity.

Eye - Processes light. Humans see 380-760nm (violet to red).

Brain - Visual (optical) cortex

Dorsal pathway (occipital to parietal) - Where, fast, viewer centred, bottom up.

Ventral pathway (occipital to temporal) - What, Slower, object centered, top-down.

Perception combines what we see with what we know: Bottom up processing, Top down processing

Colour - 3 cone cells (trichomatic vision) - Colour blindness

After images - rebound effect in retinal gangleion cells

Visual disorders:

• Achromatopia (damage to V4)
• Akinotopia (damage to V5)
• Blindsight (damage to V1)

One eye - Monocular cues:

• Occlusion
• Ariel Perspective
• Linear Prespective
• Relative size
• Texture and size constancy
• Horizon ration relation

Two eyes - Steropsis (3D) 

• Binocular disparity

3D movies - Cause reactions in some people and can't be seen by others.

2 main methods for 3D films:

• Passive 3D
• Active 3D

Object perception is based on features and context.

Local/Global processing - Navon

Whole is greater than sum of parts - Gestalt School

Movement - Multiple images from retina combined by brain

Motion aftereffect - Waterfall illusion

Optic Array/Flow - Bottom up information (light) guides perception of motion - Gibson

Apparent Motion - Rapid presentation of images gives the appearance of motion - How TV/Movies work.

We can identify humans on the basis of movement alone.

How we feel and behave is partly determined by perception. Lots of things affect how we perceive the exernal world: Things, people, learning, attention, thoughts, time.

When something goes wrong with perception it affects our reality. We are able to perceive things that aren't there - Hallucinations.

Sometimes we are unable to perceive things which are there: 

• Blindsight
• Achromatopsia

Depth cues are easy to manipulate and impossible to perceive correctly if they violate the norms.

Mismatches between top-down and bottom-up information are not always perceived.

Reality is a subjective visual experience; We see what we perceive which may not actually be what is there as it is easy to fool the visual system.

Constuctivist approach:

• Richard Gregory
• Visual experience is constructed.

Change Blindness - We don't always notice things which change when we're paying attention elsewhere.

Inattention Blindness - We aren't always aware of what we're not paying attention to.

Selective attention - Can't process everything so we choose what to process based on our behavorial goals.

Cover and Overt cues.

Distraction - It's easy to distract someone using overt cues and change blindness.

Normative social influence - We like to be liked.

Informational social influence - We like t be right

Norms change.

Linked with attitudes and persuasion.

We obey orders if:

• They're in authority
• They're experts
• When we don't know what's happening
• In crisis situations

Cognitive dissonance - If we don't like what we're doing we justify it to ourselves

Cognitive dissonance is resolved.

An evaluation of a person, object or situation - Learned predisposition, association, expressed evaluation.

3 components:

• Affective (emotion)
• Behavorial (predisposition to act)
• Cognitive (belief and ideas)

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) - Changing attitudes and cognitive dissonance

Self perception alternative (Bem) - If unsure of attitudes infer from our own behaviour.

Theory of Reasoned Action - Fishbein & Azjen (1975)

Implicit attitudes, stereotypes and schemas.

Process of changing attitudes: Soruce, message, audience.

Process - Central, careful/deliberate arguments.

Peripheal - Superficial, relies on emotions and impressions.

Aids to persuasion - Foot in the door, door in the face, appeal to fear.

Persuasion fails more times than it succeeds:

• Reactance
• Forewarning
• Inoculation

Burger (1986)

Reciporcity norm

Anchoring

Explanation for cause of behaviour/events

First impressions:

• Primacy effect
• Schemas (exemplars)
• Stereotypes (abstractions)

Personal (internal) vs situational (external) dispositions.

Fundamental attribution error - Overestimating person and underestimating the situation.

Actor - observer effect

Self-serving bias

Attribution theory (Kelley): Consistency, distinctiveness, consnesus.

Discounting principle & Augementation principle.

The self develop/emerges through:

• Play
• Interactions with others
• Behaviours and choices

Our identity is our attitudes attached to the self

Self perception differs: We choose which identity to portray, there is a hierarchy of roles and these change across our lifespan.

Self esteem affects our behaviour, attitudes and identity.

Our online persona gives us space to explore different aspects of our identity.