Psychology-Of-Cognition-And-Emotion-munotes

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COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE,
ATTENTION AND PERCEPTION
Unit Structure
1.1 Cognitive Neuroscience
1.1.1 Cognitive Neuroscience
1.1.2 Neuronal Structure and Function
1.1.3 Intelligence and Neuroscience
1.1.4 Methods of cognitive neuroscience
1.2 Visual Percep tion
1.2.1 Visual Object Recognition
1.2.2 Face perception
1.3 Attention and Consciousness
1.3.1 Attention Processes
1.3.2 Theories of Attention
1.3.3Consciousness of Mental Processes
1.3.4 Preconscious Processing
1.4 Neuropsychological basis of Attentio n and Visual Perception
1.5 Questions
1.6 References
1.1 COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: NEURONAL STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION; INTELLIGENCE AND
NEUROSCIENCE; METHODS OF COGNITIVE
NEUROSCIENCE 1.1.1 Cognitive Neuroscience:
Cognitive Neuroscience scientifically studi es how different structures of
our brain can influence different mental processes; Various methods of
investigating the brain, such as MRI, fMRI, PET, CT scans, etc. are
utilized for it. Typically, a cognitive neuroscientist is a research scholar
who focus es on unraveling the mystery of our brain and understanding its
contribution to cognition. As a result of technological and scientific
advancement, along with the progression of sophisticated computer
technology, cognitive neuroscientists have not only bee n able to broaden
our understanding of how the brain works, and what it does, but also solve
the problems that were encountered by the contemporary scientific
philosophy.
The term "Cognitive Neuroscience" refers to the scientific and biological
study of di fferent brain areas and their corresponding influence on our
thought processes . With the help of brain -scanning techniques, cognitive munotes.in

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2 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
2 neuroscientists have been able to find the specific brain areas correlated
with particular behaviours, moods, and emotions .
It is important to note that there are some crucial points of distinction
between cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology. The subject
matter of Cognitive Psychology as a discipline revolves around the
scientific study of our thinking processes, whereas Cognitive
Neuroscience inherently revolves around finding the relation between
specific brain activity and thinking.
Neuroscience , however, studies the entire nervous system at the molecular
and cellular level, of which the brain is a small yet mos t significant part.
Cognitive Neuroscience is the scientific integration of neurobiology and
cognitive functions (especially executive cognitive functions).
Historical Origins:
Cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field that has risen from the
sacral conjunction of neuroscience and psychology. The successful
establishment of this discipline is a result of a radical rethinking of
research methodology that has been made possible by the incorporation of
valuable insights from other fields. Typically, cognitive neuroscience
focuses on describing the association between our mind and neural
mechanisms. Historically, the initial efforts of subdividing the brain with
its correlated mental function proved to be somewhat controversial and
problematic. Phreno logy, one of the earliest attempts towards localization
of brain functions referred to the prediction of mental abilities involving
the measurement of the supposed shape of the scalp and its bumps. It is
not surprising to know that the phrenology movement was a failed attempt
because it lacked an empirical scientific basis, thereby becoming obsolete
in the long run.
The aggregate field view, which held that all regions of the brain are
involved in every single one of our actions, was also eventually reject ed as
more precise brain -mapping techniques became available. This began
primarily as a result of experiments conducted by Hitzig and Fritsch , who
have graced humanity by providing experimental support for the
hypothesized motor area in the cortex through his experiments on dogs,
wherein they electrically stimulated specific parts of the cerebral cortex
which produced movement in dogs.
Integrating ideas and methods from other fields, such as Gestalt
psychology, Neuropsychology, and the Cognitive Revolution , led to the
development of cognitive neuroscience. This field aims to better
understand the relationships between different types of neural substrates
and the behaviours they underlie.
Origins in Philosophy:
Philosophers' interest in the mind dates back c enturies.It is now generally
accepted that we need to investigate the full chain of causes for a
phenomenon if we are to gain a thorough understanding of it, beginning munotes.in

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3 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception with atomic theories from the 5th century and continuing through Galileo,
Descartes, and Boyle in the 17th and 18th centuries. For example,
Descartes' believed that the machines built by humans could work as
models of scientific explanation. Aristotle believed that our brain was our
body's cooling system and our competence for intelligence ca me from our
heart. It was in the 2nd century AD that the Roman physician, Galen ,
contradicted it and advocated that the source of our mental activity was
our brain. He also believed that are personality and emotions were invoked
by our other organs, and no t the brain. One of the first people to believe
that the centre of our mind and emotion is in fact our brain and the
nervous system was an anatomist and physician, Andreas Vesalius . These
and many such other ideas and propositions which led to the emergenc e of
philosophical explanations about the mind also contributed to the
establishment of psychology, which in turn contributed to the field of
cognitive neuroscience.
Combining Neuroscience and Cognitive Science:
The interaction between cognitive science an d neuroscience was not much
before the 1980s. Cognitive Neuroscience took up the herculean task of
integrating the then -recent theoretical foundations of cognitive psychology
from the 1950s and 1960s with different methods and perspectives from
experimenta l psychology, neuroscience, and neuropsychology. (The
formal establishment of neuroscience as an integrated discipline had not
happened until 1971).
EEG (1920) and MEG (1968) were the predominantly used methods in the
earlier days of cognitive neuroscience . The end of the 20th century saw
the evolution of new technologies such as TMS (1985) and fMRI (1991)
which have paved its way into the mainframe methodology of cognitive
neuroscience. Sometimes, other brain imaging methods like PET and
SPECT have also be en used by cognitive neuroscientists.
Near -infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an upcoming non -invasive
technique that utilizes the absorption of infrared light to determine
changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated haemoglobin in the cortical
areas. A procedure called Single -unit recording uses a microelectrode to
measure the electrophysiological responses of a single neuron and is also
used in some animals. Apart from this, there are other methods like facial
EMG, eye tracking, and microneurography which are al so used. The
Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) was first developed in the 1970s by
Gail Carpenter and Stephen Grossberg to describe many elements of how
our brains absorb information. Pattern recognition and prediction issues
have also been examined, along w ith a small number of neural network
models employing supervised and unsupervised learning approaches.
In 2014, Stanislas Dehaene, Trevor Robbins, and Giacomo Rizzolatti were
awarded the Brain Prize for their ground -breaking work in understanding
cognitive and behavioural disorders and the higher brain mechanisms that
underpin complex human abilities like language, mathematical ability,
motivation, and social cognition . In 2014, Brenda Milner, Marcus Raichle, munotes.in

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4 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
4 and John O'Keefe were recognised with the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience
for their ground breaking research on the brain's specialised networks for
memory and cognition. O'Keefe had a spectacular year in 2014; as in
addition to his Pulitzer Prize, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine with Ma y-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser for their discovery of
the brain cells responsible for our complex navigational system. The Brain
Prize was awarded to Wolfram Schultz, Peter Dayan, and Ray Dolan in
2017 for their integrated analysis which connects reward to learning and
its underlying brain mechanisms which have obvious influences on human
behaviours with special reference to decision -making involving drug
addiction, compulsive behaviour, schizophrenia , and gambling.
1.1.2 Neuronal Structure and Function:
A neuron, also known as a nerve cell, is the fundamental building block of
the nervous system of animals. Neurons are electrically active cells that
exchange information with neighbouring cells across junctions called
synapses.
Figure: Structure of Neuron


Broadly speaking, considering their functions, neurons can be classified
into three types - sensory neurons, motor neurons, and interneurons.
Sensory neurons are responsive to receiving input from external stimuli
like light, touch, or sound that can impac t the cells of our sensory organs.
They are also tasked with sending this information to the brain or spinal
cord.
Motor neurons on the other hand, receive commands from the brain and
spinal cord and are responsible for sending these commands to our
muscl es, who carry out the ultimate movement commands. munotes.in

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5 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception Interneurons provide a unique purpose as well by connecting neurons to
one another; a network of neurons is called a neural circuit.
Typically, a neuron consists of the following parts - Soma, Dendrites, an d a
Single Axon.
The Soma is its cell body which has a compact structure, whereas, the
dendrites are filaments that extend from the Soma.
The axon can be seen leaving the Soma at something that looks like a
swelling and is called as the axon hillock . This axon hillock can travel
upto 1 metre in humans and probably more in other species. Even though
it branches, it still maintains a consistent diameter.
At the longest end of the axon's branches are structures that we call axon
terminals , which play a vital role in transmitting the electrical signal
through the synapse to another cell. (It is important to also note that
sometimes some neurons may not have axons or dendrites. Neurite is the
term used to refer to small processes on neurons that are probably st ill
developing and will eventually grow into axons or dendrites.)
Neurons primarily use their soma and dendrites to receive information
from the environment, while their axons are responsible for transmitting
those signals to neighbouring neurons. The syna pses allow for the
transmission of information and signals from the axon of one neuron to the
dendrite of another.
This process is both, electrical as well as chemical in nature. As a result of
the maintenance of voltage gradients across the membrane of ne urons,
they are electrically excitable in nature.
Neurons typically generate an all-or-nothing electrical impulse , when
there are high voltage changes over a small interval. This is termed as an
action potential , which rapidly travels throughout the exam and in the
process also leads to the activation of synaptic connections as it reaches
them. Synaptic signals also can be of two types by nature - excitatory or
inhibitory which causean increase or decrease in the net voltage
respectively.
Neurogenesis is the process through which new neurons are generated in
our brain. It is formed by the neural stem cells majorly during prenatal
brain development and childhood, after which neurogenesis typically
stops.
Neurons can differ in size and shape and can be categor ized on the basis of
their structure and function. One of the first categorizations of grouping
neurons was done by an anatomist called Camillo Golgi and he classified
them into two types. Type I neurons typically had long axons and were
used to communicat e long distance signals and Type II neurons had short
axons. The elemental morphology (structure) of type I neurons includes
soma and a long axon which is peculiarly covered by a white fatty
substance called the myelin sheath that provides insulation and p revents munotes.in

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6 electrical interference from surrounding neurons. The cell body is wrapped
around by the dendritic tree, and as mentioned earlier is responsible for
receiving incoming signals from the other neurons. The axon terminals are
branched off at the end o f an axon and release neurotransmitters in the
synaptic cleft . The synaptic cleft is the gap between the terminals and the
other neuron's dendrites.
Structural Classification:
Apart from Golgi I and II neurons, based on their anatomy, most neurons
can be c lassified as:
 The unipolar neurons have a single extension from their cell body
 The bipolar neurons have one axon along with one dendrite
 The multipolar neurons have 1 axon along with 2 or more dendrites
 The anaxonic neurons are those neurons where we cann ot distinguish
between its axon and dendrite/s.
 The pseudounipolar neurons consists of an axon which is interestingly
split into two branches, out of which one goes to the peripheral
nervous system and the other to the central nervous system.
Functional Cl assification:
Direction:
Neurons are classified into three groups based on their function:
 Sensory neurons, also known as afferent neurons, are in charge of
relaying information from sensory organs and tissues to the central
nervous system;
 Motor neuron s, also known as efferent neurons, are in charge of
relaying motor commands from the central nervous system to various
parts of the body;
 Interneurons, given their unusual name, are in charge of connecting
neurons within the central nervous system.
Action on Other Neurons:
To distinguish the neuron that sends the signal from the neuron that
receives it, the terms "presynaptic" and "postsynaptic" are often used. The
postsynaptic neuron receives information from the presynaptic neuron
through neurotransmitte rs released by the former.
Metaphorically speaking, imagine a neurotransmitter to be the key and a
receptor to be a lock! A neurotransmitter has the potential to activate
multiple types of receptors at the same time. These receptors can typically
be catego rised as excitatory (which cause an increase in the firing rate),
inhibitory (which cause a decrease in the firing rate), or modulatory munotes.in

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7 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception (which cause effects that last long but are not directly related to the firing
rate). The effect on the postsynaptic neu ron is influenced by the type of
receptor which gets activated.
At this point, it is imperative to note that the difference between inhibitory
and excitatory neurotransmitters is not absolute. The kind of chemical
receptors present on the postsynaptic neur on usually determines whether
the resultant effect is excitatory, inhibitory, or modulatory. A single
neurotransmitter released by a single neuron could possibly have an
excitatory or inhibitory or modulatory effect respectively on different
targets. Many common neurotransmitters have displayed consistent
actions, therefore, neuroscientists commonly categorise neurotransmitters
based on their effects. For example, GABA (gamma -aminobutyric acid)
typically has an inhibitory effect causing a decrease in neuron al
excitability (Benzodiazepines are medicines that enhance the transmission
of GABA and are used in managing anxiety), and glutamate which is
majorly involved in learning and memory, is excitatory in nature.

Discharge Patterns:
Neurons can also be class ified in terms of their electrophysiological
characteristics -
 Tonic neurons are those that are tonically (constantly) active and fire
at a constant frequency
 Phasic neurons are those that fire in bursts
 Fast-spiking neurons are those that are known for the ir high firing
rates.
1.1.3 Intelligence and Neuroscience:
Researchers have always been intrigued by identifying the neural basis of
human intelligence. The earliest attempts made to study the neuroscience
of intelligence included studying correlations bet ween external head
parameters and intelligence or measuring the weight and brain volume
postmortem . However, modern technological and scientific advancements
have graced our fraternity with methodologies like MRI, fMRI, EEG,
PET, etc. that allow us to stud y the living brain and decipher different
correlates of our higher -order mental functions.
Researchers have found empirical evidence for human intelligence
correlates, which include the overall brain volume, volumes of white
matter and grey matter, along w ith cortical thickness, and neural efficiency
to name a few. Even though our understanding of the marvelous brain has
greatly increased in the last three decades, more research is warranted to
understand its entirety.
Brain volume:
The development of MRI a nd fMRI have bestowed upon us a non -
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8 function respectively. Generally, it has been found that brain size and
volume are positively correlated with overall cognitive functioning and
intelligence. It is interesting to note that the strongest correlations between
intelligence and brain volume have been found in the frontal, temporal,
and parietal lobes of the brain .
Many studies have found the correlation of intelligence in healthy adults
and total brain volume to be approximately 0.4 when using tests of high
psychometric standards. Another study that utilized the UK Biobank and
was conducted on a large scale (n = 29k) reported a correlation of .275.
Such studies have been questioned by criti cs with respect to the variation
in scales since not much is known about them.
McDaniel conducted a meta -analytic review and found two interesting
conclusions - the correlation between in vivo brain size and intelligence
was higher for females (0.40) than f or males (0.25) and this correlation
typically increased with age , meaning the smaller the child, the lesser the
correlation between brain size and intelligence.
It is important to note that the volume of one's brain alone doesn't
constitute the most accur ate account of one's intelligence, and neither does
it mean that it doesn't account for anything. On an average, brain volume
explains about 12% to 36% of the variance in intelligence.
The amount of variance explained by brain volume hugely relies on the
type of intelligence being measured too. For example, studies have shown
that when measuring verbal intelligence, 36% of variance can be attributed
to brain volume, however, when measuring visuospatial intelligence, only
10% of variance can be. Brain size a nd intelligence have been shown to
correlate positively, however this relationship has been exaggerated in the
literature, according to the work of psychologist Jakob Pietschnig. We
demonstrate that it is not justifiable to interpret size as an isomorphic
proxy of human intelligence differences, despite his statement that it is
tempting to interpret this connection in the context of human cognitive
evolution and species variations in brain size and cognitive capacity.
Grey matter:
Grey matter volume, like t otal brain volume, has been shown to correlate
favourably with IQ. More specifically, persons with a higher IQ have a
greater concentration of cortical grey matter in the prefrontal and posterior
temporal regions of the brain. Both verbal and nonverbal IQ have been
discovered to have a positive correlation with cerebral grey matter, which
is rather intriguing.
Extensive research has also found gender differences in the correlation of
grey matter and intelligence. Men typically have stronger IQ and grey
matter correlations in the frontal and parietal lobes while women show the
strongest IQ and grey matter correlations in their frontal lobes and Broca's
area. It is fascinating to note that the overall intelligence in both genders is
not affected despite these differences. Thus, we can also conclude that munotes.in

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9 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception humans can achieve the same level of cognitive ability through different
ways or brain areas .
A particularly interesting methodology that is utilized in studying the
correlates of cortical grey matter with intel ligence is called voxel -based
morphometry (VBM) . VBM has blessed researchers to study these
correlates with higher spatial resolution, and have identified that in healthy
adults the strongest positive correlations of grey matter and intelligence
are found in frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes, whereas in
children between 5 to 18 years of age, such correlations have been
identified in the anterior cingulate region.
Reis and colleagues were able to discover that the grey matter in the
prefrontal cortex of children between 5 and 17 strongly contributes to
variance in intelligence compared to subcortical grey matter. Frangou and
coworkers also examined the links between grey matter and IQ in children
and young adults (aged 12 -21) and found some fas cinating findings. Their
first set of findings were pretty much in line with earlier studies and found
positive correlations between grey matter in the orbitofrontal cortex,
cingulate gyrus, cerebellum, and thalamus and intelligence.
Contradictorily, they also found negative correlations between grey matter
in the caudate nucleus and intelligence. Also, as far as children under the
age of 11 are concerned, researchers haven't been able to find significant
positive correlations between grey matter volume and intelligence since
intelligence develops with time.
White Matter:
White matter typically consists of myelinated axons and takes care of
transmitting signals between neurons and also provides electrical
insulation. The white matter also takes care of conne cting together
different regions of the grey matter in the cerebral cortex. The biggest
white matter structure in the brain is the corpus callosum , and many
studies have found statistically significant positive correlations between
areas of the corpus call osum and cognitive performance. It has also been
noted that even though the size of the corpus callosum positively
correlates with both verbal as well as nonverbal intelligence, the
association was found to be stronger for nonverbal measures compared to
that of verbal ones.
The integrity of white matter tracts is an essential contributor
toinformation processing speed and their decreased integrity is directly
linked with lesser intelligence. Such discoveries imply that our brain is
structurally interconnect ed and relies heavily on axonal fibers which are
crucial for the efficient and fast processing of information, therefore,
affecting our general intelligence.
Unfortunately, VBM studies were unsuccessful in finding an association
between intelligence and co rpus callosum in healthy adults. From this
contradictory finding, we can conclude that the relationship between grey
matter and intelligence is way too stronger compared to white matter
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10 Cortical Thickness:
The thickness of cortical areas has also b een found to be positively
correlated with human intelligence. As expected, the association between
cortical thickness and IQ follows a pattern of negative correlation in early
childhood and by late childhood, the pattern shifts to a positive
correlation . It has been found that children who are more intelligent
develop cortical thickness more steadily and over larger time durations
than those who are not so intelligent. It would be a little unfair to base
intelligence on cortical thickness alone because socioeconomic
circumstances and educational opportunities also play a very important
role in determining the growth and development of intelligence.
Cortical Convolution:
If one keenly observes the surface of our brain, one may realize how it has
many convolut ions (meaning folds); these folds and creases in the cerebral
cortex of the human brain permit a large surface area of our marvelous
brain to be fit within our skulls. The cortical convolution has increased
significantly over the period of human evolution. It is hypothesized that
the higher the degree of such cortical convolutions in the human brain, the
higher their distinct cognitive abilities.
Neural Efficiency:
Multiple brain imaging studies involving the use of PET scans have
discovered that people who are more intelligent typically show less
activation in their brain during a cognitive task , as measured by glucose
metabolism , wherein it was found that the more intelligent people are, the
better their brains are at processing information and therefore r equire less
energy to accomplish the task. This hypothesis is formally termed as the
neural efficiency hypothesis .
Many studies involving fMRI and EEG have shown that the difficulty
level of a task also is a crucial factor that affects neural efficiency. I t has
also been observed that the more able an individual is, the more they
invest their cortical resources in difficult tasks. This has been profoundly
true in the case of the prefrontal cortex because people with greater
intelligence show greater levels of activation in the prefrontal cortex when
working on difficult tasks compared to those with lower intelligence.
Many scientists have also proposed that individuals blessed with higher
intelligence have a better capacity to block interference out compared to
those individuals with low intelligence.
Parieto -frontal Integration Theory (P -FIT):
The Parieto -frontal integration theory advocates for a biological model of
intelligence. They believe that the human intelligence stems from a
sophisticated, integrate d, and widely distributed neural network, majorly
involving the frontal and parietal lobes. Barbey and colleagues recently
conducted a lesion mapping study and have gathered evidence which
supports the Parieto -frontal theory of intelligence. munotes.in

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11 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception 1.1.4 Methods of Cognitive Neuroscience:
Psychophysics:
Psychophysics can be defined as the scientific study of the association
between stimulus and sensations. It focuses on deciphering or analyzing
the process of perception by trying to understand the effect that diff erent
properties of a stimulus have or can have on a subject's experience or
behaviour. In a nutshell, it tries to explain the association between the
sensations and perceptions that physical stimuli can produce .
Psychophysics has been very widely used in varied forms in experimental
psychology and has important practical applications.
Eye tracking:
Eye tracking typically refers to the process of measuring one's point of
gaze and the device that is used for tracking eye movements is what we
call an eye trac ker. These eye trackers are utilizedfor research in various
domains - psycholinguistics, marketing, psychology, product design, etc.
They are also being considered for their prospective utilization in
rehabilitation purposes or robotic applications that pro vide assistance.
There are different methods that can be used for measuring eye
movements. For example, using video images that enable us to extract eye
position, using different search coils, or using an electrooculogram.
Functional MRI:
fMRI is a method of investigating brain activity which detects changes in
our blood flow . Whenever any part of our brain is being used, it gets
activated and the blood flow to that area also increases. the fMRI test is
based on this idea that are cerebral blood flow is dir ectly proportional to
neuronal activation .
In 1990, Seiji Ogawa pioneered functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) by using a technique known as blood -oxygen level dependent
(BOLD) contrast. It's a specialist scan that can pick up on neural activity
in the brain or spinal cord by measuring a hemodynamic response that
tracks with the brain's cellular energy expenditure. Since the 1990s,
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has dominated the field of
brain mapping research due to the fact that it does not need any invasive
procedures or radiation.
It is also well -known to be contaminated by noise from a variety of
sources, therefore statistical approaches are required to recover the
original signal. The end result is colour coded by the strength of activation
across the brain regions studied and is graphically represented. This
technique enables us to localize brain activity up to millimetres but the
standard procedure gives us a window of only a few seconds .
FMRI is majorly used in research compare d to clinical diagnosis. It
compliments other methods of investigating the brain like Near Infrared
Spectroscopy (NIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG). munotes.in

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12 There are many scientists and researchers who are working towards
developing newer and better methods that not only provide higher spatial
and time resolution but also use biomarker s instead of the BOLD signal.
In fact, there are a few companies that have also developed lie detectors
based on fMRI techniques but more research is required before they can
be used for commercial purposes.
Electroencephalography:
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non -invasive method that involves the
use of multiple electrodes placed on the scalp which allow us to record the
spontaneous electrical activity of our brain over a p eriod of time . It allows
us to measure the voltage fluctuations that occur as a result of ionic
currents within the neurons of our brain.
There is another technique called as electrocorticography (ECoG) which
involves invasive electrodes unlike the ones u sed in EEG, and hence are
also sometimes referred to as intracranial EEG.
EEG is widely used for the diagnosis of epilepsy . In some cases, it is also
used to diagnose the depth of one's anesthesia, the presence of sleep
disorders, and encephalopathy , and s ince it allows us to see brain wave
activity, easy is also used to determine if somebody is brain dead. In the
event that someone has a stroke or any other brain disorder, EEG typically
is the first -line method used for diagnosis. However, since the
develo pment of more sophisticated techniques like MRI and CT scans
which provide better resolutions, the use of EEGs have reduced. Despite
these limitations, it is still extensively used for research and diagnosis.
One crucial derivative of the EEG is called as Evoked Potentials (EP)
which includes averaging the activity detected on the easy in
correspondence to the presentation of some kind of visual, somatosensory,
or auditory stimulus.
Magnetoencephalography:
Magnetoencephalography is a method that makes use o f very sensitive
magnetometers to map the activity in our brain. The process of MEG
typically records the magnetic fields that arise due to electrical currents
caused as a result of brain activity . The most commonly used
Magnetometers today are arrays of S QUIDs (superconducting quantum
interference devices) and the SERF (spin exchange relaxation -free)
Magnetometer is currently being researched for their utilization in
machines. As of today, MEG is used in multiple researches on cognition
and perception. It is also used in neurofeedback or locating regions of the
brain that are afflicted by some pathology before it is surgically removed.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation:
Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a non -invasive technique which uses
electromagnetic induction to cause electrical currents in specific brain
areas that in turn leads to changes in our brain's magnetic field. The munotes.in

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13 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception Stimulator which generates an electric pulse is connected to the magnetic
coil which is connected to the scalp. TMS has shown t remendous potential
as a diagnostic tool and is currently in the process of being evolved for its
therapeutic benefits while dealing with different disease states in the
domain of mental health and neurology.
1.2 VISUAL PERCEPTION: VISUAL OBJECT RECOGNITIO N, FACE PERCEPTION Visual perception refers to our capacity to make sense of things within our
visible spectrum that we see around using light. There are different terms
for vision as per the variability of light. Vision during the day is called
photopic vision , vision during the night is called scotopic vision , and the
vision during twilight is called mesopic vision .
Many people often get confused between visual perception and visual
acuity. Please note that both of them are different concepts! While visual
perception refers to our ability to interpret our surroundings, visual acuity
refers to the extent to which a person can see clearly. An individual could
have a "20 out of 20 vision" and still goof up while involved in the process
of visual perception.
There are multiple physiological components involved in the process of
vision and are collectively termed as the visual system. Our visual system
has been the center of attention for a lot of research in psychology,
cognitive science, molecular biology, ne uroscience, etc.
The Visual System:
In most mammals, including humans, the process of vision starts with
light entering our eyes through the cornea .
Once light passes through the cornea, it is focused on to our retina by the
lens in our eyes. A retina is si tuated at the back of our eye and is a
membrane that's extremely sensitive to light. The retina is a transducer
which is responsible for converting light into neuronal signals.
This kind of transduction is possible because of the existence of extremely
specialized cells in the retina called rods and cones . These rods and cones
are photoreceptive , which means that they have the capacity to detect
photons of light followed by the production of neural impulses.
These neural impulses are then transmitted from t he retina to the central
ganglia in the brain through the optic nerves . After this, the lateral
geniculate nucleus is responsible for transmitting the signals to the visual
cortex . However, this is not the only route which carries signals of sensory
inform ation, sometimes, signals from the retina directly travel to the
superior colliculi .
The primary visual cortex is also called the striate cortex and receives
signals from the lateral geniculate nucleus. There is a specialized part in
the visual system of o ur brain called the Extrastriate Cortex a.k.a. the munotes.in

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14 Visual Association Cortex. It consists of a set of cortical structures and not
only receive information from each other but also from the primary visual
cortex. Current descriptions have proposed that the extrastriate cortex is
further divided into two functional pathways namely a dorsal and a ventral
pathway . At present, this is a conjecture and is known as the Two Streams
Hypothesis .
It is typically believed that humans can visibly see in the range of 370 and
730 nanometres of the electromagnetic spectrum. Some researchers also
believe that the younger population can see light down to 340 nanometers.
1.2.1 Visual Object Recognition :
Visual object recognition can be defined as our ability to recognize the
objects that we see around us. A peculiar and essential feature involved
the in process is called as object invariance. Object invariance enables us
to identify various things that we see as well as the changes in them with
respect to various aspects such a s illumination, position, and background
to name a few.
Basic Stages of Object Recognition :
Many researches in the neuropsychological domain have found evidence
which indicates that there are four stages involved in the process of
recognizing objects.
Let's have a look at them :
 Processing basic aspects of the object like form, colour, and depth.
 Grouping the basic components based on their similarity creating
a visual form, and gathering information on distinct edges enabling
the figure -ground segregation.
 The visual representation is then searched for in our memory and
matched with existing structural descriptions .
 This leads to semantic attributions of our visual representation and
provides us with the required meaning that ultimately leads to the
successf ul recognition of an object.
It is also important to note that apart from this generic bottom -up
hierarchy, many researchers have also proposedintegrative hierarchies of
the top -down bottom -up processing, in addition to parallel processing.
1.2.2 Face Perc eption :
Face perception refers to our ability to identify and interpret a face. Our
consciousness is a crucial factor in this kind of perception, therefore it
excludes facial recognition systems that are automated.
The fact that our understanding and perce ption of the face is one of the
most essential aspects required for social cognition . We gather a lot of munotes.in

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15 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception information like their identity, their current thoughts or feelings, and even
somewhat predict their immediate actions by looking at their face.
Being able to recognize faces is not just important for perceiving
someone's identity, mood, gender, and ethnicity, but it is also necessary
for having healthy interactions with each other and understanding are
immediate surroundings.
The fact that facial percep tion occurs as a result of visual intake is
common sense, however, there have been a few studies which have found
that even people who are born blind could learn to perceive faces without
vision.
Early Development :
There have been multiple studies to ident ify the average age when human
beings typically develop face perception abilities, but unfortunately there
is no time -frame that is widely accepted on this matter.
Ability to Distinguish Faces From Other Objects :
Many studies done on infants have shown tha t they typically exhibit more
preferential attention to faces compared to other objects in their
environment, indicating their ability to distinguish between faces and
objects.
Newborns typically show a lot of interest in faces when they are around
the age of 3 months , but this preference tends to gradually disappear until
it emerges again during the end of their first year, and then again gradually
declines through the next 2 years of their life.
Many psychologists believe that the increasing motor abiliti es of infants
can be one of the primary reasons why their interest in faces re -emerges
around the age of 3 months.
Even though newborn children tend to show a preference for faces as they
grow up, especially between the age of 1 to 4 months, this preferenc e
seems to be particularly inconsistent .
The fact that infants peculiarly turn their heads towards faces indicate a
preferential attention for faces. This can be concluded as the presence of
some form of rudimentary facial processing ability.
Ability to De tect Emotion In The Face :
Even though the extent of an infant's development of their ability to
recognize emotions is unclear, it has been found that by the time they are
seven months old , infants can distinguish faces by emotions. They are able
to recogni ze the facial expressions of anger and fear , primarily due to
deeply ingrained evolutionary mechanisms.
A study involving two event -related potentials in the posterior part of the
brain showed different activations caused by different kinds of negative
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16 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
16 that infants can at least partially distinguish between threat and anger ,
especially when it is directed towards them. Another interesting finding
was that there was activation not just in the posterior parts of the brain but
also in the occipital areas .
A point of distinction noted in infants is that 5-month -olds exhibited
similar ERPs for happy as well as fearful faces, however, 7-month -olds
focused more on the fearful ones. The fact th at fear typically tends to
create heightened cognitive focus towards fear, peculiarly indicates that
the nature of emotion is threat salient . This also has deeply ingrained
evolutionary explanations that aid our survival.
By now it is established that infa nts by 7 months of age have the ability to
understand facial expressions to some extent at least. They typically use
facial cues to gauge the motives of other people, especially when the
situation is unclear or ambiguous. One study involved the experimente r
taking away a toy from a child with different expressions and found a
significant difference in the infants' reactions . In the condition where the
experimenters took away the infants' toys and maintained neutral facial
expressions, the infants typically watched their faces longer (trying to
make sense of the experimenter's face) compared to when the
experimenters maintained happy facial expressions.
As Psychology students, we all understand that emotions are an extremely
important part of the social inter actions that we have. The kind of facial
expressions a person exhibits will go a long way in determining how we
perceive them. Many studies in social psychology have found that faces
that are perceived as displaying positive emotions are evaluated as more
favourable as compared to those displaying negative emotions.
The fact that 7 -month -olds tend to focus more on fearful faces is well
established, but in another study when infants were exposed to faces with
happy expressions, it aroused more enhanced sympa thetic reactions in
them; What is more interesting to know is that this reaction was similar
when the facial expressions were presented subliminally as well as in
ways that warranted the infants' conscious awareness. This interesting
finding enables us to conclude that conscious awareness of stimuli is not a
prerequisite to getting an infant's reaction .
Many developmental psychologists and researchers have proven
innumerable times that exposure to different kinds of stimuli in the first
five years of a chil d's life and early perceptual experiences are
undoubtedly vital for the development of a person's perceptual abilities as
an adult. The same is applicable to the development of visual perception
as well.
The amygdala and the fusiform gyrus have shown heigh tened activation
when one is involved in the process of face perception.
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17 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception Ability to Mimic Faces :
At what age we learn to mimic facial expressions is a very controversial
and disputed topic.
A few researchers are of the opinion that infants as young as 2 days have
the capacity to mimic an adult, but many developmental psychologists
advocate that the faces of babies exhibit smiles or rounds because they are
not in full control of their facial muscles yet.
Susan Jones also disputed the idea that children youn ger than two years of
age could mimic facial expressions. She advocated that infants are
typically not aware of the emotional content underlining facial expressions
and therefore, cannot imitate them until they are 2 years old. She also
reported that the a bility to mimic could emerge at different ages in
children.
1.3 ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS: ATTENTION PROCESSES, THEORIES OF ATTENTION,
CONSCIOUSNESS OF MENTAL PROCESSES;
PRECONSCIOUS PROCESSING Our ability to selectively focus or concentrate on a partic ular aspect of
information while blocking out other bits of information can be termed as
Attention.
William James defined attention as the act of directing one's mental
energies toward a certain target. It suggests stepping away from some
activities so as to concentrate on others more productively. It's the mental
act of seizing control of one item or line of thought among numerous that
are present at once.
The fact that our cognitive resources for the processing of information are
limited is well documente d in many studies. Our attention is not just
afflicted by a limited amount of cognitive processing resources but also by
an attentional bottleneck . An attentional bottleneck refers to the actual
amount of information that our brain can process per second. Many
researchers believe that an attentional bottleneck could be a primary cause
of inattentional blindness . Inattentional blindness refers to our failure to
notice something when we are focusing elsewhere.
Attention is a research area which intrigues mult iple domains right from
psychology and neuroscience to education and marketing. The current
researches on attention are aimed at trying to find the source and effects of
all the sensory cues and signals that grab our attention, and understanding
the correl ation between attention and other executive functions like
working memory.
Consciousness :
Even though the terms - attention and consciousness are sometimes used
interchangeably by a few people, they are different constructs. While munotes.in

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18 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
18 attention refers to our ab ility to focus on something, consciousness refers
to our awareness of things happening internally and/or externally.
Consciousness typically includes any form of thought, experience, or
feeling that we may be aware of. Many things about consciousness are s till
highly disputed - to name a few - questions like whether there are different
types of consciousness or different levels of consciousness, are humans
and animals alike in the possession of consciousness.
1.3.1 Processes of Attention :
According to cogniti ve psychologists, there isn't any aspect of our life
where attention does not play an important role. Our ability to pay
attention to something is often taken for granted by most of us. Right now,
while you are reading these lines, you are exercising your ability to pay
attention.
Broadly speaking there are four different forms of attention. Let's have a
look at them :
Selective attention :
In a world where we are constantly bombarded with a lot of
information/stimuli from our environment, the phenomenon wher e our
brain consciously blocks out other stimuli and focuses on something in
particular, is termed as selective attention.
Divided attention :
Our ability to focus on two or more things at the same time is termed as
divided attention. One of the best exampl es of divided attention could be
when we are chatting with someone on WhatsApp while talking to
someone in person. One thing to keep in mind over here is that we will be
able to engage in two things at the same time only if one of them is highly
practiced and habituated.
Executive attention :
This is a form of attention that enables us to block irrelevant bits of
information from the environment and helps us to attend to those bits of
information that are important or relevant to us.
Sustained attention :
This is a form of attention that helps us to concentrate on a particular task
and maintain that focus for a prolonged period of time.
1.3.2 Theories of Attention :
A famous researcher named Chun and his colleagues differentiated
attention on the basis of the t ype of information that we pay attention to.
According to them, catering to sensory information picked up from the
environment and its subsequent perception refers to external attention ,
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19 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception memory, long -term memory, or response selection are referred to as
internal attention .
We possess a specialized mechanism that cognitively controls which bits
of information we encode and hold on to in our working memory while
blocking out distractions .
Advocates of early selection theory of attention believe that the locus of
selection while processing any kind of information is at the early/initial
stages, therefore the stimuli that were not paid attention to in the
beginning are not processed fully.
When involved in a primarily difficult task, all of our attention is directed
toward the target. This indicates early selection patterns.
Contradicting early selection theory of attention, advocates of late
selection theory have argued that our attention t ypically operates after we
have fully processed the stimuli.
When involved in a task that is relatively easy, objects or events that are
unattended can be processed too. This indicates late selection patterns.
The debate about whether the early selection t heory of attention is more
accurate or late selection has been ongoing for a very long time and there
is enough evidence supporting both sides leaving us with little resolution
on this matter.
As of now, the best possible intermediate solution has been bro ught on by
the perceptual load theory which advocates that task requirements will
determine the locus of our selective attention . Therefore, when the task is
difficult, meaning the cognitive load is higher, the locus of selection is
early, and when the cog nitive load is lower, the locus of selection is late. It
is imperative to note that initially the perceptual load theory was widely
accepted, however in recent times it has been challenged on the merits of
its theoretical foundations and methodology.
Kerr and colleagues have proposed a neural framework which tries to
account for how body -focused attention can have an "upward" influence
all the regulation of our cognition and emotion.
The range of 7 to 14 hertz is also known as the Alpha rhythm and is
believ ed to play an important part not only in modulating the sensory
inputs received by our neocortex but also by enhancing its signal -to-noise
properties throughout the neocortex.
This notion of top -down modulation of the attentional alpha rhythm can be
genera lized to our thalamocortical circuits and is also believed to
accentuate our capacity for filtering and prioritizing the input of
information received by our brain.
Somatic attentional modulation has also shown enhancement in our
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20 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
20 and hearing. Many recent researches have also concluded that increased
Alpha power enhances our working memory capacity.
Many people including ancient philosophers as well as modern researchers
have advoca ted and proven how mindfulness of our mind and body can
lead to greater attentional flexibility and allows us to be present in the here
and now and with time learn to be non -reactive towards internal and
external experiences, especially those invoking nega tive thoughts and
emotions.
Tsuchiya and colleagues conducted a research to study the relation
between consciousness and attention . The idea that consciousness in
different senses, originating from the Prefrontal Parietal Network (PPN)
interrelates with a type of attention - has always been a common belief.
The PPN is also known to have an association with not just working
memory, and executive control, but also chunking. Hence, many
researchers believe that the core psychological components of
consciousness are complemented by attention.
On the contrary, there are many others who believe that both, attention and
consciousness typically follow an independent path while engaged in a
decision -making process, however, they also agree that attention has
intermoda l effects on consciousness. For instance, conscious perception of
auditory, olfactory, or visual stimuli, or conscious retrieval of memories -
are influenced by attention.
Unfortunately, empirical research into the impact of top -down attention on
conscious perception of an isolated stimulus that was either dominant
(visual input in the current moment) or non -dominant (olfactory input and
past memory/future planning) have failed. This has led many researchers
to conclude that any kind of unexpected strong olf actory stimuli or
peripheral vision, or any kind of sensed familiarity - has the capacity to
create interference in our top -down attention and its interdependence with
conscious experience.
1.3.3 Consciousness of Mental Processes :
Consciousness can be simpl y defined as our awareness of internal and
external existence . Philosophers and scientists alike, have always been
intrigued by trying to understand the experience of consciousness in
totality. Studying consciousness can be controversial because it not onl y
feels most familiar (since we are always aware of it) but also the most
mysterious aspect of our life (since we don't know how or where it comes
from). As mentioned earlier in the chapter, one thing that everyone agrees
about is that consciousness exists , but there is still a lot of debate on how
to go about studying it.
In the initial days of psychology, people believed consciousness to be our
"inner life" that could only be accessed through introspection of private
thought. Today, our understanding and explanations of consciousness have
evolved with time, and include any kind of conscious experience, feeling,
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21 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception Consciousness can be looked at as anything that we are aware of, it can
also be viewed as awareness of awareness. It includ es a range of
descriptions beginning from simple wakefulness to an individual's sense of
selfhood .
The disparity in speculations of research done on consciousness arises
many doubts - whether we are asking the right questions in our quest for
understanding consciousness - being the biggest one.
Mental Processes :
Mental processes can include everything that our mind does naturally.
Information processing, memory, emotion, attention, perception,
imagination, thinking, decision -making, language use, logical reas oning,
etc. are some of the most common mental processes that our brain is
capable of.
There isn't a single aspect where we can say that our mind is not active -
even when we are sleeping, there is some amount of activity going on!
That is why, cognitive p sychologists focus so much on studying mental
processes because they are not just a "constant" in our life but also affect
every conscious as well as unconscious aspect of it.
1.3.4 Preconscious Processing :
Preconscious processing is a term that we use for information that is
available to us for cognitive processing but typically exists beyond our
conscious awareness.
Many researchers have been intrigued by how priming can influence a
particular response. Priming refers to a technique where we are exposed t o
a particular kind of stimulus without conscious intent and still it has the
power to stimulate a particular type of response. For example, when
buying furniture, the word "chair" is recognized more quickly following
"table" rather than an apple!
The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon refers to a condition where we know
we know something, we can even describe it, but cannot retrieve the
name/word. Most of us have experienced the tip -of-the-tongue
phenomenon at least at some point in life. Many experiments have f ound
that such instances are proof of preconscious information because that
piece of information is not fully accessible but still available for cognitive
processing.
Hypnosis :
Since, hypnosis and creativity, both involve some aspect of preconscious
proce ssing , many people believe that there could be a connection between
the two. Krippner (1965) believed that since creative inspiration has its
origin in the preverbal realm, hypnosis could help us to gain access to it.
The preverbal realm is majorly precons cious in nature. Many researchers
like Rothenberg (1990), Smith and Amner (1997) believe that there is a munotes.in

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22 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
22 strong association between creative people and creative processes because
both of them draw from our preconscious mind. McCrae (1987) further
added tha t our openness to experience could also be an essential factor
because our openness may enable us to explore ideas from our
preconscious mind. It is also important to know that, even though some
creative accomplishments may be drawn from our preconscious, that
doesn't mean all creative acts stem from it; there could be some creative
accomplishments that are intentional and tactical. This is indicative of the
existence of differences in preconscious and conscious sources of
inspiration for creative people.
In an interesting study by Bowers in 1979, it was found that creativity
shares a moderately significant correlation with absorption and effortless
experience . By effortless experience, she meant something similar to
Langer's (1989) concept of mindfulness an d Csikszentmihalyi's (1999)
concept of flow.
1.4 NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF ATTENTION AND VISUAL PERCEPTION Attention As Arousal, Alertness, Or Vigilance :
While attention can be defined as overall alertness about our surroundings,
it can also be interlin ked with or influenced by our arousal and sleep -wake
cycle. Vigilance , on the other hand, can be defined as the ability to focus
sustained attention on something. Therefore, even though all these terms -
attention, arousal, alertness, and vigilance have a s imilar meaning they are
used more specifically in different contexts. For example, attention would
be more specifically suited when someone is studying, alertness when one
is attending an important lecture, and vigilance when one is working as a
lifeguard on a beach or a swimming pool.
In an interesting study by Makeig and colleagues done in 2000,
participants were made to study subjects in different phases of sleep, under
conditions deprived of sleep, and on sedatives. The participants were
subjected to re petitive tasks such as maintaining a ball within a certain
region on the screen, which warranted sustained attention levels. As
initially predicted, the researchers found that those participants who were
sleep deprived had a more consistent poor performanc e which also
correlated with their corresponding EEG signals.
On the other hand, sleep deprivation isn't always associated with poor
performance. Tasks may be made more interesting in order to increase
motivation and productivity even when we are drowsy. F or example,
adding some novelty, adding an element of stress, and my personal
favourite - adding a reward for performing the task.
It is also interesting to note that more arousal is not always helpful for task
performance. The Yerkes -Dodson curve is proof of that. The Yerkes -
Dodson curve is an inverted -U that depicts performance based on level of
task challenge and our alertness . When a task is not challenging enough, munotes.in

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23 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception our levels of alertness are low, and when the task is two challenging, our
stress levels a re too high. Both of these conditions can lead to poor
performance . It is only those tasks which are moderately challenging
(neither too difficult, nor too easy) for an individual that lead to optimal
performance . Please note what one considered as challen ging can be
highly subjective. This subjectivity is also found in the effects of
psychostimulants like caffeine and adderall, since it works by increasing
focus only in some people and not in others.
Attention and visual perception :
Small and fast eye move ments that we make several times per second are
termed as saccades . The highest visual resolution on the retina is offered
by the fovea . Choosing where to direct the fovea is a crucial choice about
allocating our limited computational resources. This is ho w our eye
movements depict the location of our attentional processes.
Researchers have been able to identify many patterns in a visual stimulus
that automatically captures our attention by using technology to track the
eye movements of participants as they are exposed to different images. It
has been found that these patterns are defined by edges, frequency,
intensity, a contrast of colours, and motion.
The features of an image that attract our attention are considered "salient"
and typically occur in a "bottom-up" fashion , meaning they don't need
much effortful processing and are most likely to be the result of feature
detectors that are ingrained in our visual system. According to Tatler and
colleagues , different participants generally tend to agree on whi ch aspects
of the image are considered as salient.
One of the best ways to study the salient regions in our visual perception is
by employing "free -viewing" situations , even when the participants are not
given specifications about how and what to view in the image. This is
when the interplay between top -down and bottom -up approaches to
attention could become clear. In a 2005 study by van Zoest and Donk , it
has been found that participants may incorrectly saccade on salient
distractors instead of specific visual targets out of an array of visual
stimuli.
When people are viewing a complex natural image and are given high-
level tasks , like assessing their age or evaluating their social economic
status, task instructions have a considerable amount of effect on the
generated pattern of saccades.
Researchers Itti and Koch discovered in 2001 that people's reaction times
were slower and they were less likely to return to locations they had just
attended if they were obliged to make multiple saccades in a row. The
term "inhibition of return" describes this behaviour. Our eyes are forced to
look further afield than just at the most obvious parts of an image. All of
these may suggest that the mechanism responsible for creating our
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24 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
24 It is true that eye movements are effective methods of controlling visual
attention, but they are not the only ones. "Covert" spatial attention
processes different spatial locations without overtly shifting the fovea. In
general, subjects must fixate on a central po int during a covert spatial
attention study. To perform their visual task, they are encouraged to
covertly attend to the location in their peripheral vision where task -
relevant stimuli are most likely to appear. For example, in an orientation
discriminatio n task, an oriented grating will flash at the stimulus location
after a spatial cue is provided, and the subject should report the orientation
of the grating after it has flashed. Anton -Erxleben and Carrasco (2013)
found that subjects performed worse on va lid-cue trials (in which the
stimulus appeared in a nonrelevant location) than on invalid -cue trials. A
limited resource, covert spatial attention, contributes to the processing of
visual information and can be used flexibly. There are certain areas
select ed for further processing at the expense of others when covert spatial
attention is engaged. This has historically been called the "spotlight" of
attention. A fundamental difference between covert and overt attention is
that the input to the visual system is identical, but the processing is
flexible.
Bottom -up saliency could also influence subliminal spatial focus. An
increase in performance may occur if external spatial attention is directed
from an irrelevant but salient item that suddenly illuminates at the position
of a task -relevant input. It is counterproductive to direct your flashing
lights in an unrelated direction (Berger et al., 2005).
Some theories of attention suggest that covert spatial attention is a
valuable tool for guiding overt attention. According to the premotor theory
of attention , the same neural circuit controls both covert spatial attention
and saccades (Rizzolatti et al., 1987). There is evidence that the frontal
eye field (FEF) plays a role in the control of eye movements. A study
showed that stimulating neurons in the FEF at levels too low to elicit eye
movements could produce effects similar to covert attention (Moore et al.,
2003). Consequently, covert attention can be used to determine where
overt attention should be directed.
Furthermore, our ability to covertly participate may be useful in social
settings because eye movements convey information about knowledge and
intentions that can be crucial. (Klein et al., 2009).
Researchers looking into the neurological correlates of cover t spatial
attention are specifically interested in discovering what parts of the brain's
activity vary in response to changes in the attentional signals themselves
(rather than differences in bottom -up stimulus properties). Many
variations in brain activit y have been seen in investigations where the
receptive field of the recorded cell has been the primary focus (Noudoost
et al., 2010; Maunsell, 2015). Typically, people will notice a 20 -30%
increase in their firing rate (Mitchell et al., 2007). The exact ex tent of the
shift, however, varies from cortical area to cortical region, with bigger
modifications observed in later regions (Luck et al., 1997; Noudoost et al.,
2010). It is well established that attention affects the degree of variation in munotes.in

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25 Cognitive Neuroscience, Attention and Perception neuronal acti vity. In particular, it decreases noise correlations between
pairs of neurons and decreases trial -to-trial variability, as assessed by the
Fano factor. Furthermore, it has been discovered that paying attention
alters the electrical characteristics of neuro ns, lowering the likelihood of
their firing and the height of individual action potentials (Anderson et al.,
2013).
Aside from investigating how attention impacts neurons in the visual
pathway, studies have also explored the origin of top -down attention
(Noudoost et al., 2010; Miller and Buschman, 2014).
A saliency map is produced as a result of the bottom -up attention
processing in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP)
In this area, cells respond to salient stimuli, including task -irrelevant and
salient dis tractions, when they are located in their receptive fields. The
prefrontal areas , on the other hand, are thought to contain the signals that
enable the top -down control of spatial attention and are less susceptible to
distractions.
Despite the fact that mo st of the research on the neural correlates of
sensory attention has focused on the cortex, subcortical areas also appear
to play an important role in the control and performance benefits of
attention. Particularly, the superior colliculus plays a key role in both
covert and overt spatial attention, and its inactivation may impair attention
(Krauzlis et al., 2013).
1.5 QUESTIONS 1. Write a detail note on Cognitive Neuroscience
2. Discuss Visual Perception in detail
3. Write Short note
a) Attention Proc esses
b) Theories of Attention
c) Consciousness of Mental Processes
d) Preconscious Processing
1.6 REFERENCES  Sternberg, R. J.; Sternberg, K, Mio, J. (2012). Cognitive Psychology.
Wadsworth: Belmont, CA.
 Matlin, M. W. (2009). Cognition. John Wiley & Sons: NJ.
 Bly, B.M. &Rumelhart, D. E. (1999). Cognitive Science. Academic
Press: San Diego. munotes.in

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26 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
26  Lewis, M., Haviland -Jones, J. M., & Barrett, L. F. (Eds.). (2010).
Handbook ofemotions (3rd edition). New York, NY: Guilford.
 Dalgleish, T. & Power, MJ. (2000). Handb ook of Cognition and
Emotion. John Wiely: Sussex.
 Zilmer, E. A. & Spears, M. V. (2001). Principals of neuropsychology.
Canada: Wadsworth

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27 2
MEMORY AND LANGUAGE
Unit Structure
2.1 Memory
2.1.1 Models and Research Methods
2.1.2 Metacognition
2.2 Memory Processes; Mental Images, Maps, and Propositions
2.2.1 Memory Processes
2.2.2 Mental Images, Maps, and Propositions
2.3 Language and language in context
2.3.1 Language
2.3.2 Language in context
2.4 Neuropsychological basis of Memory and language
2.4.1 Neuropsychological basis of Memory
2.4.2 Neuropsychological basis language
2.5 Questions
2.6 References
2.1 MEMORY Memory is the ability of the mind through which data or information can
be encoded, stored, and retrieved when required. Information is retained
over time so that it could be used for the purpose of influencing future
actions. If we lose our ability to remember, it will become extremely
impossible for us to develop an y personal identity or remember
relationship experiences. Loss of memories is typically termed as amnesia
or forgetfulness.
Memory is often viewed a s an information processing instrument,
comprised of a sensory processor, a short -term (or working) memory, and
a long -term memory, each of which performs both explicit and implicit
functions. This is commonly associated with how neurons function. All
the world's data, in the form of chemical and physical impulses, is
received by the sensory processor, where it is paid to with varying degrees
of focus and purpose.
Working memory functions as a processor of encoding and retrieval.
Various forms of stimuli ca n be encoded in adherence to the explicit or
implicit functions that are undertaken by our working memory processor.
The working memory is responsible for retrieving information from
material that was previously stored. Finally, long-term memory performs a
crucial function - it enables us to store data through various categorical
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28 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
28 Declarative aka explicit memory can be defined as a deliberate conscious
storage and recollection of information. It can be further divided into
semantic and epis odic memory. Semantic memory can be defined as a
type of memory that is typically encoded with specific meaning, and
episodic memory can be defined as information of events and things we
have experienced and is encoded with reference to its spatial and tem poral
plane.
Non-declarative aka implicit memory can be defined the automatic,
unconscious storage and retrieval of information. It can be further divided
into procedural memory, and priming. Priming can be defined as the
process of specific responses bein g subliminally aroused from memory
without us being fully aware of its conscious activation. Procedural
memory on the other hand is the slow and steady inculcation or learning of
skills that typically happens without us paying conscious attention to
learni ng it
Memory is not an extremely perfect processing system and is influenced
by many factors. The way in which any piece of information was initially
encoded, stored, and retrieved is fallible.
The degree of attention received by new stimuli can reduce the amount of
information that we encode for storage. Furthermore, perfect encoding
doesn't guarantee perfect retrieval , and any kind of physiological damage
to the hippocampus (part of the brain mainly associated with the storage of
memory) can severely hampe r our memory. Last but not the least, it is
imperative to know that when any piece of information is not used for a
long time by our brain, it could become prone to disruptions because of
decay within our LTM. All these things have the potential to hamper the
accuracy of our memory and its capacity.
2.1.1 Models and Research Methods :
To Assess Infants :
Infants do not yet possess the linguistic ability to report their memories
and so verbal tests can't possibly be used to test the memory of young
children. Over the last few years , many researchers have worked towards
developing a number of psychometric measures to test recognition and
recall in infants. Techniques used for testing recognition memory in
infants are based on operant conditioning and habituation , whereas those
used to measure recall were based on deferred and elicited imitation
techniques
Let's take a detailed look at the techniques used to assess an infants'
recognition memory :
Comparison procedure based on visual pairing:
The principle of habit uation is usually applied throughout this process.
Pairs of visual stimuli, such as two black -and-white photographs of human
faces, are the first to be presented to infants. They will see this for a set munotes.in

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29 Memory and Language period of time. After the youngsters have seen both p ictures, they are
shown a fresh one and the one they already "know." The babies' exposure
times to each image were also recorded. As expected, the infants looked at
the new photo for a longer time compared to the familiar one, this hints at
the fact that t hey remembered it. Other studies that used a similar
procedure found that infants who are about 6 months old can remember
information for a maximum of 14 days.
Operant conditioning technique:
In this technique, infants were carefully placed in a crib. Ther e also was a
ribbon which was connected to a mobile over the infants' heads. This
ribbon was then tied to one of their feet.
Soon the infants began to notice that when they kick their foot, the mobile
moves. The rate at which the infants ki ck also increase d drastically within
minutes. Studies based on this technique have found that the memory
capacity of an infant, greatly improves over the first 18 months. Age of the Infants Duration of Operation Response
being Retained 2- to 3-month-olds a week . 6-month-olds two weeks . 18-month-olds as long as 13 weeks.
Let's take a detailed look at the techniques used to assess an infants'
recall memory:
Deferred imitation technique:
In this technique, the infants are shown a unique sequence of actions like
pushing the button on a box using a stick. After some passage of time, the
experimenter then asks the infant to replicate the actions. These studies
have found that the 14 -month -old infants can remember the sequence of
actions for a maximum duration of four months.
Elicited imitation technique:
This method is identical to the last one, with the exception that newborns
are not prevented from imitating the behaviours during the wait. Using this
approach, researchers discovered that 20 -month -olds can remember ac tion
sequences even after a year. Such is the power of practice.
Let's take a detailed look at the techniques used to assess the memory
in older children and adults :
Paired associate learning :
This technique follows a typical pattern of stimulus and response, wherein
we learn to associate one specific word with another. For instance, when munotes.in

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30 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
30 shown a word like "lake", one must learn to say another specific word,
like "boat".
Free recall :
This is a task where a subject is given a list of words to study. After that,
they are typically told to recall words from the list or write them down in
any order.
This task is prone to a lot of interference. When items that are previously
learned in the list interfere with the recall of the later ones, we call it the
Proactive Interference. On the contrary , when the words learned later in
the list interfere with the recall of previous ones, we call it Retroactive
Interference.
Cued recall :
In this task, participants are given strong cues to assist them in retrieving
information that was already encoded into the person's memory. This is
frequently done using a term related to the information that needs to be
recalled. This is similar to "Match the Columns" that we used to have in
school and junior college.
Recognition :
In this task, the participants are first given a list of words to study. After
that, they are given a random list of words which consists of the words
from the original list and some new words that were not in the list they
learned . The Participants are to ld to identify the words that were
previously presented to them in the list they studied. This is similar to the
"MCQ" tests we usually have during internal examinations.
Savings method :
This is an interesting technique that typically compares the time ta ken to
originally learn something with the time taken to learn it for the second
time (after some interval). Studies based on these techniques have always
found that re -learning something takes lesser duration than we took when
we were doing it for the first time.
Implicit -memory tasks :
Cognitive psychologists have always been intrigued about how certain bits
of information can be drawn from our memory without us being
consciously aware of it. Therefore, while assessing the memory of older
children and adu lts, a lot of tests are based on implicit memory.
2.1.2 Metacognition :
Metacognition is formally defined as us thinking about our own thinking.
Metacognition of memory is therefore called metamemory. The term
metamemory is used to refer to the idea that we monitor and control our
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31 Memory and Language Compared to others, this is a considerably new topic and hasn’t been
studied by psychologists for more than forty years. Before this, researchers
believed learners to be passive, blank slates on which new ideas were
engraved as a result of repetition.
It was only much later that cognitive researchers realized and started
viewing the learner as an active controller of what he or she learns,
regardless of whether invo lved in acquiring new information or retrieving
something old.
Researchers now understand that individuals may track their progress
while learning and retrieving information. Consider a student preparing for
a French test tomorrow and studying French to E nglish terminology such
as "chateau/castle" and "rouge/red." Remember that the student has the
ability to actively monitor and manage what he or she is learning as well
as his or her efforts to recover answers when writing the exam the
following day.
A sou nd theoretical framework that integrates all of these processes into
one overall system was proposed by Nelson and Narens in 1990. They
distinguished between different types of monitoring processes. They used
the term “ prospective monitoring ” to refer to the learning/retrieval
sequence pertaining to an individual’s future performance, and the term
“retrospective monitoring ” while referring to an individual’s past
performance.
2.2 MEMORY PROCESSES; MENTAL IMAGES, MAPS, AND PROPOSITIONS 2.2.1 Memory Proces ses:
Memory is a crucial component of our everyday life and most of us cannot
even imagine our life without memories. Remembering who we are, what
good and bad others did to us, all the skills we’ve inculcated with time,
our memory of safe and lethal things , etc. all play a very important part
that aids in our survival.
We use our memory all the time, sometimes with a conscious effort and
unconsciously at other times. At this moment, while you are reading this
textbook, you are using your memory of words and their meanings that
you had learnt when you were in school. Your brain is consciously
focused on trying to comprehend what you are reading, but you are not
trying to consciously recall “how” to read. Ain’t that , right?
So, let us explore this fascinatin g topic further.
David Myers (2013) defined memory as the persistence of learning over
time through the storage of information and its retrieval.
Robert Baron defined memory as the ability of one’s brain to retain and
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32 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
32 According to Ciccarelli & Meyer (2008), our memory is an active system
that first receives information from our senses, then organizes and alters
that information as it stores the information away, and retrieves it later as
required.
Psychologists typically use thr ee ways to investigate whether learning has
taken using three obvious ways - Recall, Recognition, and Relearning .
We’ve discussed these concepts earlier in the chapter.
Psychologists have been conducting many important studies to understand
memory better. For example, they have been curious to find out how
memory gets affected by biological and environmental occurrences such
as stroke, accidents, traumas, etc. Along similar lines, Myers (2013)
noticed that people who have suffered from a stroke, may continu e to have
a warm personality as before and may be able to successfully complete
their routine work, they may even remember past events exceptionally
well, but they may not remember any new information after the
surgery/stroke! Such a patient may not be abl e to remember what he had
for lunch or if they even had one. A vice -versa situation is possible too.
Another noteworthy finding from empirical study is that, although most of
us have to put in significant effort to learn a chapter, there are few
individuals who can recall it by just hearing or seeing it once
(photographic memory). Furthermore, some individuals can remember
taught information both forward and backward, but many others cannot.
However, while studying people with a regular/ordinary memory, Konkle
et.al. (2010) found that people who were exposed to 2800 images for just
3 seconds each, could spot the repeats with 82% accuracy.
In another experiment, Mitchell (2006) found that people who had seen a
picture, 17 years ago, could still re cognize that picture correctly even
when they were shown that picture in fragmented form.
Every day, we are surrounded with sights, voices, sounds, tastes, scents,
textures, locations, people, and so on. The concept of how our brain
selects information fr om a wide expanse of knowledge and stores it for
later use is interesting. How can we recall something we haven't thought
about in years with such precision?
That leads us to a very important question - How exactly memories are
formed and stored?
Let us tr y to understand this further :
Computer functioning and human memory:
This information processing model is based on the metaphorical
applications of a computer’s operations on human memory. Like the
computer, the human mind also takes in information, per forms cognitive
operations on it to change its form and content, stores the information , and
retrieves it as and when required. This entire operation is done in three -
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33 Memory and Language 1. Encoding: The information enters our brain in a way that it can be
stored.
2. Storage: The information is held on to so that it can be retrieved later.
3. Retrieval: This refers to recalling the information at a later stage.
There is a significant difference between the way or computer functions
and the way human memory wor ks:
A computer stores information that is very literal in nature and is
impervious to distortions, whereas human memories typically tend to be
prone to errors, can get fragile with time, and are obviously less literal in
nature. A computer saves the information as it is without assigning any
additional meaning to it or linking it with previously learned information ,
unlike humans.
The processing of information in computers happens in a highly sequential
manner, even while alternating between two softw ares, applications, or
tasks. The human brain on the contrary is blessed with the ability to
simultaneously process a lot of information from different sources
together. It is formally termed as parallel processing .
As discussed in the first point, human m emories tend to be fragile in
nature, and the information stored in our memory systems are constantly
reconstructed and/or distorted as a result of conscious and unconscious
cognitive processes. No matter how vulnerable, the potential of our
memory capacit y is still relatively unlimited. However, that is not the case
in a computer. The biggest advantage of storing information in the
computer would be that whatever is stored will remain in the same
condition and will not change (unless the file is corrupted or your
computer crashes and data cannot be retrieved), and it comes with a hard,
physical limit of how much information can be stored in the computer.
Encoding and Effortful Processing :
Automatic processing typically takes place without much effort and it is
nearly impossible to shut it off. Let's take a simple example, suppose there
is one person who has been habituated to waking up at 5:00 a.m. in the
morning to go to work, the probability of him waking up around 5 o'clock
in the morning even if he forget s to set the alarm is very high. One of the
reasons for this is that these things happen at a subconscious level and
does not typically require our attention.
Effortful processing , on the contrary , does require our conscious
awareness and a lot of effort, so that it can be encoded and stored properly.
This type of processing is utilized when we are trying to inculcate a new
or complex task that we are not familiar with, and requires our undivided
attention. After the task has been successfully learned and becomes
habituated, it then comes under the category of automatic processing . For
example , when one is newly learning to drive a car, all of their undivided
attention is focused entirely on the road ahead, they also tend to hold the munotes.in

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34 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
34 steering wheel very tig htly, and simultaneously also in the process of
mentally rehearsing different gears, placement of the brake and the
accelerator. A similar pattern can be noticed when someone is learning to
speak a new language , play a new instrument or sport.
Strategies for Effortful Processing :
Getting new information to be etched into our memory system typically
tends to require strenuous efforts. Research by cognitive psychologists,
however, has shown that we can always employ many strategies that can
enhance our ability to form new memories. We'll know the extent of its
success on how well we are able to recall the new information from our
LTM. When used efficiently and effectively , strategies can be extremely
beneficial and lead to better memories.
Let's take a look at few of the most common strategies :
1. Chunking :
The process of chunking is a fabulous strategy that works by clubbing or
grouping familiar items into smaller chunks.
We all know that our short -term memory has a limited capacity of 7 plus
or minus 2 items a t a point of time. So even though we cannot technically
increase our STM capacity, the process of chunking would allow us to
shorten larger individual bits of information into smaller and meaningful
chunks, enabling us to hold more units of information in our short -term
memory.
This phenomenon was first identified by George Miller but people have
been chunking information from long before. It's just that it happens so
naturally that we don't even realise when we've used it. The process of
chunking works bes t when the information is divided on the basis of
personally meaningful chunks.
Chunking can be based either on language patterns or personally relevant
numerical patterns . For example, BRAINISAMARVELOUSORGAN, can
be chunked as "brain is a marvelous organ" - imagine trying to remember
so many letters at once! The latter is easier to process and remember than
the former. Let's take another example, now imagine trying to learn a
mobile number - 8820987225, we don't tend to remember 10 digits
individually, rather, we would usually club them as - 88 209 87 225.
2. Mnemonics :
Mnemonics are another amazing set of memory AIDS that makes the use
of images or maps or peg words to enable a good encoding of information.
It is a well-known fact that scholars and orato rs in ancient Greece used
them to encode their lengthy speeches.
A lot of research in cognitive psychology has found that humans are very
good at remembering pictures even if they are mental in nature.
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35 Memory and Language Acronyms or rhymes are some of the most commonly used mnemonics.
An acronym can be defined as a word that is formed using the first letter
in a phrase. For example, UNICEF is the acronym for the United Nations
Children's Fund or VIBGYOR is the acronym fo r colours of a rainbow
(violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red).
One can say something rhymes when words sound similar. They are easier
to remember because our brain is fairly decent at encoding and retrieving
acoustic information. An example of using rhyme to remember stuff by
would be - 20th of May is my wedding day, or in two thousand three, we
got married under the tree.
Compared to the other two, the peg word system can be a little challenging
and requires us to memorize a list thoroughly. It works in such a way that
we associate new words with the previously learnt list using mental
imagery. Many cognitive psychologists believe that the pegs function in a
manner similar to that mental hook that allows you to hang any piece of
information on to it. The most typical pegword system includes the
following format - one is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree, four is a door,
five is a hive, etc.
3. Hierarchies :
A hierarchy in this context is nothing but a formal way of organizing
information for bett er in coding there in it is broken down and s ubdivided
into various categories. Hence it is called a hierarchy.
Diagram of nervous system

An experiment was conducted by Gordon Bower and his colleagues in
1969 wherein there were two groups of participants . One of them were
shown words in an extremely random order , while the other group was
shown information that was grouped into various categories like that of
minerals, animals, medium of transportation, etc. Surprisingly the
experiments found that when pa rticipants were presented with categorized
information in an organized manner, their recall was significantly better
than the other group who was presented with the words in a random
manner.
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36 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
36 4. Distributed practice :
Human memory is one of the most intriguin g and frequently studied
cognitive phenomena . There have been over 300 experiments in the last
100 years which have shown that we tend to remember and recall things
better when the encoding is generally distributed over a span of time. This
is called the spacing effect and was first noted by a pioneer in memory
research, Herman Ebbinghaus .
One of the biggest sad realities is that despite knowing this information,
students of psychology would still procrastinate in studying and learning
until the last minute and try to grasp/study as much as information
possible of few days before the exam. Such a crammed way of studying is
termed as massed practice . Research by Ebbinghaus in the 1880s and
many other subsequent studies have found that information that is lear nt
quickly has a higher probability of being forgotten quickly as well.
A distributed practice is a very organized schedule in which there are
proper breaks and resting periods between practice sessions. Of course,
studying using this kind of method will t ake a lot longer and may also
make a student feel like they may not be operating at their full efficiency,
but in the long run, distributed practice definitely shows more successful
results than massed practice.
Harry Bahrick , most noted for his memory research found that the greater
the time between study sessions, the better is the retention of that
information. Not just this, hw also found that when people employ such
techniques, the number of re -learning sessions they need are also lesser.
Another interesting finding was that once an individual has entirely
mastered any information, overlearning or over-memorizing it will not add
any significant value . If you need to retain the information for a later
exam, results are best when we try and recall the master information once
every 10 -15 days or a month.
Harry Bahrick conducted a long-term study of 9 years along with 3 of his
family members and concluded that if learning something is spread across
several months, it can be ret ained for a lifetime .
Therefore , we can definitely conclude that it is more advisable to
consistently study the syllabus for an annual exam across several months
rather than cramming it all up just a few weeks before the exam.
Testing effect :
In 2006 ,Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke advocated repeated self -
testing as an effective way to follow distributed practice. They said that
instead of nearly re -reading material, one will get better results in practice
retrieval by answering the questions as if they were actually writing an
exam.
The basic premise here being that if you write an answer as if you were in
an exam during practice, you would be using the cognitive faculty of munotes.in

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37 Memory and Language recall , as opposed to just re -reading material - which justuses the cognitive
faculty of recognition , putting us into an illusion of having mastered the
content which may not be the case all the time.
Levels of Processing :
Cognitive psychologists have always believed that the depth at which we
process information exerts a great deal of i nfluence on the extent of long -
term retention for that information. There are different levels of processing
and they can be classified as shallow and deep.
Let's take a look at each of them
Shallow processing :
This type of processing encodes information me rely by memorizing words
based on their appearance or sound. Information processed in such a
manner is not deep and is at a very basic level.
Deep processing :
This kind of processing typically encodes information at a deeper semantic
level not only by understanding the meaning of what they are reading but
also by linking it to something previously learned . Many psychologist s
believe that the self-reference effect is high when encoding information at
a deep er level. We shall t alk about the self-reference effect later in the
chapter.
In the year 1975, Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving conducted a series of
experiments to study the effect of different levels of processing on the
recall of information. In these experiments , participants were presented
with three categories of words -
 Physical (based on appearance, like written in capital letters)
 Acoustic (based on sound, like rhyming words)
 Semantic (based on meaning, like a meaningful sentence)
Results of this experiment in dicated that the words that were processed at
deeper level s based on their semantic meaning , were recognized better
when tested at a later time compared to the words that used shallow
processing. Thus , we can conclude that rote learning something without
really understanding what it actually means would not be very useful in
light of long-term retention.
The self -reference effect :
We always find it difficult to remember information that does not seem to
be too meaningful to us. For example, when your mother told you that
guests are going to come tomorrow so you need to clean the house -
chances of us forgetting this are higher, as opposed to her telling you that
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38 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
38 The self-reference effect si mply means that we generally tend to
remember things better when they are personally relevant to us.
Wayne Wickelgren (1977) said , “The time you spend thinking about
material you are reading and relating it to previously stored material is
about the most u seful thing you can do in learning any new subject
matter”.
In a study conducted by Symons and Johnson in 1997, it was found that
the self-references effect was more profound forpeople belonging to
individualistic cultures.
Now let's take a look at a few possible explanations for self-reference
effect :
 We tend to process information relevant to us more deeply and may
also rehearse it more often. Therefore, better elaboration causes the
information to be more accessible and readily available in mind.
 Inform ation that is relevant to us causes a higher level of arousal
which could have positive effect on our memory.
 Another explanation being that we have specialised mechanisms
enable us to encode subjectively relevant information better.
2.2.2 Mental Images, Maps, and Propositions :
Communicating Knowledge: Pictures versus Words :
Knowledge may be stored in your memory in a variety of forms, such as
an image, words, or some type of abstract statement. This chapter focuses
on the distinctions between these types of knowledge representation. Of
course, cognitive psychologists are primarily concerned with our internal
mental representations of what we know.
However, prior to diving into our internal representations, let's look at
external representations, such as b ooks. A book has the ability to convey
ideas via words and images. What distinguishes external representations in
words from representations in pictures? Some concepts seem to be better
comprehended and portrayed in images, but others appear to be better
stated in words. When asked to describe something physical, such as a
duck egg, you may find it more convenient to draw it rather than describe
it; nevertheless, when asked to describe an abstract notion, such as justice
or freedom, you may find it more con venient to explain it in words rather
than drawing it.
Pictures in Your Mind: Mental Imagery :
Imagery is the mental representation of things which cannot be seen or
sensed by the sense organs at a particular time (Moulton & Kosslyn, 2009;
Thomas, 2003). We frequently picturize various objects, events, and
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39 Memory and Language For instance, try to recall one of your first visits to the college campus.
What are the views, sounds, and smells that come to mind? The most
common answers to this question would be the sight of tall buildings,
roads with beautifully lined lush green trees on both sides, the refreshing
smell of moist mud in the rainy season, or the sound of cars honking - if
your college was on the main road.
Mental imagery can also allow you to view things from places you've
never been to. For example, you can imagine how it would feel like to be
in one of the pyramids in Egypt, or to be on the top floor of Burj Khalifa.
It can also be applied to create or imagine things that actually do not exist.
For example, imagining how you would look like if you had three hands
and three eyes.
Visual imagery is one of the most researched topics in cognitive
psychology, but that doesn't mean that mental representation d oesn’t
involve other sensory modalities. Imagery occurs in other sensory
modalities as well . For instance, we can imagine the sound of a ringtone ,
your favorite song; we can imagine the fragrance of our favourite perfume
or the aroma of butter chicken; we can also imagine the taste of our
favourite cake or ice cream.
In 1999, Kosslyn and Rabin hypothesized that we make use of visual
imagery in order to solve certain problems. For example, answering
questions like how many cabinets your kitchen has, or how many mirrors
are there in your house. Kosslyn advocated t hat we use mental imagery to
visualize the objects in question, in order to calculate the correct answer.
Psychologists from the other domains are also exploring applications of
visualization to other fields like promoting health, pain management,
immunity strengthening, overcoming phobias, etc.
Dual -Code Theory: Images and Symbols :
According to dual -code theory, we use visual and verbal codes in our
thoughts to represent information (Paivio, 1969, 1971). These two codes
organise information into knowledge that may be acted on and saved for
later use. Mental pictures, according to Paivio, are analogue codes that
resemble the things they represent. Plants and lakes, for example, may be
represented by analogue codes in the same way as the movements of the
hands on an analogue clock express the passage of time.
In contrast to analog code, a symbolic code is a type of representation that
was arbitrarily chosen to resemble something that it doesn't naturally
signify. The numbers on a di gital clock don't naturally represent of the
passage of time, but we arbitrarily assigned a representation of time to it.
This is how symbolic codes work.
Symbolic representations are useful in depicting abstract concepts like
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40 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
40 Paivio w anted to prove that dual code theory and gather evidence to show
that verbal information and pictorial information are processed in different
ways . He conducted an experiment where the participants were rapidly
exposed to a sequence of pictures and words, and then asked to recall them
in 2 variations. One group of participants randomly recalled as many items
as possible, irrespective of the order in which it was presented to them.
The other group was told to recall items in the correct order of
presentation . The results indicated that when participants were allowed
recall in any order, their performance was better for pictures than for
words. The opposite was true when participants were told to recall
information in the sequence in which it was presented to them - here, recall
for words was better than pictures. This difference in recall performance
suggests that there is a strong possibility of the existence of two different
systems handling the recall for pictures and the recall for words
Storing Knowledge a s Abstract Concepts: Propositional Theory :
There still are many researchers who do not agree to the dual -code theory,
and have deviced something called as the propositional theory aka
conceptual -propositional theory as an alternative explanation. Anderson &
Bower, and Pylyshyn are few of them.
The propositional theory advocates that even though we could experience
are mental representations through image or word forms, we do not
"Store" the mental representations in that form, they are rather an
"epiphenome na". An epiphenomena basically is nothing but a mere
secondary derivative of more basic cognitive processes.
A proposition can be typically defined as an underlying meaning behind a
particular relationship among stimuli. Advocates of the propositional
theory insist that our mental representations (sometimes referred to as
"mentalese") reflect the abstract form of a proposition.
Current scenario of their proposed beliefs is that Anderson and Bower
have moved on from there original ideation to a model that is more
complex and encompasses not one but multiple forms of our mental
representation. However, Pylyshyn and many others still hold on to the
propositional theory.
Now, let's take a more detailed view on unders tanding how we use
propositions :
Even though the concept of propositions is hypothetical in nature, it is
widely endorsed by a lot of cognitive psychologists. Propositions same to
be like the magical answer which can be used to describe any type of
relationship whether talking about things in general , or attributes of that
thing, directions of that thing, etc. Along with this insane capacity to
represent numerous things at one time, a lot of propositions can also be
combined in order to represent something larger and more complex.
Let's consider the e xample - "the Fury cat bit the dog and is now hiding
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41 Memory and Language The main idea behind the theory of propositions is that mental phenomena
are not represented in the form of words or images, but rather, in some
abstract form representing its underlying m eanings . According to Clark
and Chase (1972), when we read/hear a sentence or see a picture, we don't
generally retain its auditory or visual properties; we retain its "deeper
meanings" as representations, not as words or images.
Proponents of the proposit ional theory have concluded that verbal and
pictorial information are typically encoded and stored as propositions, and
when the time comes to retrieve this information from storage, the
prepositional representation gets retrieved. Once the prepositional
representation is retrieved, our mind recreates them in verbal or pictorial
codes. This entire process ma y sound very cumbersome but is relatively
faster and decently accurate.
2.3 LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT 2.3.1 Language :
Language Development Stag es:
Language development is divided into five phases. Let us go over each
stage in depth :
1) Babbling stage:
Beginning about the age of four months, it is made up of babbles and
various speaking sounds. Nonetheless, babies can distinguish speech
sounds by 4 months of age (Stager & Werker, 1997). It's possible to make
many of these sounds by simply bunching the to ngue in front of the
mouth, or by opening and closing the lips, to make combinations of
consonants and vowels. By the time they're 10 months old, babies' babble
has evolved to the point that a native speaker can pick out numerous
sounds from the family's n ative tongue. If infants are not exposed to
languages other than their own, they will not develop the capacity to hear
and create sounds and tones that are not part of their own language.
Babbling is not an imitation of adult speech; rather, it contains so unds
from several languages, some of which may not even be spoken at home.
Babies who are deaf and born to parents who are also deaf are more likely
to babble with their hands and show interest in sign language.
2) One -word stage:
Beginning around the age of 12 months, t his is the stage of speech
development in which the child usually communicates in single words.
They are already aware that sounds have meaning. They now start using
sounds, usually only one identifiable syllable like ma or da. Family
membe rs, on the other hand, rapidly learn to comprehend this. Throughout
the world, babies' first words are frequently nouns that label objects or
people. This one -word stage may be equivalent to a sentence.
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42 1. Telegraphic two -word speech:
Around the age of 18 months, children's word learning accelerates from
about one word per week to one word per day. Most children have reached
the two -word stage by the age of two. In telegraphic speech, they begin
with two -word sentences: This early form of speech, like old -fashioned
telegrams is largely made up of nouns and verbs, for e.g.. Want juice.
Like telegrams, it follows syntactic rules; the words are in a logical order.
Adjectives are usually placed before nouns in English, therefore, the
sente nce formed would be like: big doggie rather than doggy big.
2. Language quickly develops into whole sentences:
The two -word stage of language development is swiftly followed by the
development of lengthier sentences in children (Fromkin & Rodman,
1983). The same stages of language development apply to those who start
learning a language later in life, whether because of a cochlear implant or
international adoption. (Ertmer et al., 2007; Snedeker et al., 2007).
Children understand complex sentences and begin t o appreciate the
comedy imparted by double meanings: "You never starve in the desert
because of all the sand -which -is-there."
Table 10.1.: Summary of Language development Sr. No. Month
(Approximate) Stage 1 4 Babbles many speech sounds 2 10 Babbling resembles household language. 3 12 One-word stage. 4 24 Two-word, telegraphic speech. 5 24+ Language develops rapidly into complete sentences.
Explaining Language Development:
Noam Chomsky believed that all languages have some underlying
components, which he called universal grammar. Grammatical building
elements in all human languages include nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
Chomsky believed that humans are born with an intrinsic predisposition to
absorb grammatical principles, which explains why preschoolers learn and
apply grammar so quickly. It happens naturally. Regardless of the
language we learn, we start speaking with nouns rather than verbs and
adjectives. Furthermore, rese arch shows that 7 -month -olds may learn basic
phrase forms. After regularly hearing syllable sequences that followed one
rule, babies listened to syllable sequences that followed a different pattern
in one experiment. They were afterwards able to distinguis h between two
patterns. This suggested that babies are susceptible to picking up on
grammatical rules. Before the window of language learning closes,
childhood appears to be a vital (sensitive) phase for understanding specific
components of language. Adult s who study a second language often talk
with the accent of their native tongue and struggle to master the second munotes.in

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43 Memory and Language language. The window for language learning gradually closes in
childhood. Those who have not been exposed to a spoken or signed
language by th e age of seven lose their capacity to master any language
quickly.
Language Communication :
When both parties to a conversation comprehend each other's words and
phrases, we may say that we have successfully communicated in that
language. And it's not only a linguistic thing. Through body language, we
convey a wealth of information to others around us. We depend on our
rudimentary knowledge of the rules governing language usage whenever
we utilise any of the thousands of languages in use today. This linguisti c
experience, also known as linguistic competence, is used automatically
and almost effortlessly to create and interpret meaningful communication.
In all appearances, the capacity to communicate effectively via language is
unique to the human species.
2.3.2 Language in Context :
Living in a silent world :
The use of audible speech symbols, or verbal language, in mind has so far
been the primary topic of discussion. Can languages other from one's
native tongue be used as mental tools? Studies involving the deaf have
shed light on this topic. Standardized mea surements of cognitive function
have shown that even deaf children with little linguistic proficiency
perform within the average range (Vernon, 1967), and that their cognitive
and logical growth is quite typical (Furth, 1971). These results have been
interpreted as showing that the deaf's lack of access to spoken language
has no impact on their ability to think critically or advance their level of
cognition. Many deaf individuals, however, are taught sign language, and
it has been shown that deaf children w ill create their own sign language
even if they are not explicitly taught it (Goldin & Feldman, 1977). This
may suggest that humans are hardwired to communicate with one another
in some fundamental way, whether via words or body language.
The conventional visual -gestural sign languages acquired by the deaf
share many characteristics with auditory languages. For example, just as
auditory -vocal languages develop meaningful language by combining a
small number of basic sounds, or phonemes, so do deaf visual -gestural
languages. Thus, the visual -gestural languages can represent an infinite
number of thoughts by combining simple motions. According to some
research, deaf children who know sign language perform better on a
number of cognitive and thinking activities than those who do not (Vornon
& Koh, 1971; Stuckless & Birch, 1966). Thus, deaf people with limited
verbal language skills appear to have a nonverbal language tool of
thought.
The burden of living without hearing may be greater for children. Signing
playm ates find it challenging to coordinate their play with speaking
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44 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
44 Because academic courses are based on spoken languages, their academic
achievement may significantly decrease. Adolesce nts may feel socially
alienated, resulting in low self -confidence.
Do other species have language? :
Language is said to be the most complicated method of communication
that exists among humans. It is a system of verbal and nonverbal norms
used by humans to convey their thoughts and desires. Humans utilise
language to express their needs and desires, and they cry, slouch, and
make faces to show their sentiments. Animals, or non -humans, exhibit
signals of communication as well, such as a dog wagging its tail w hen
excited or a bird singing a song to attract the opposite sex. Do animals, on
the other hand, speak? According to researchers, animals and non -humans
do not have real languages like humans. They do, however, interact with
one another through sounds and gestures. Animals have a lot of inborn
attributes that they employ to communicate their emotions, but they are
not the constructed words we find in human language. When wailing and
gesturing, human children exhibit the same modes of communication as
babies . However, they gradually learn the language words and use them as
a method of communication.
Human children that are removed from humans at birth will not acquire
the language and will be unable to communicate with other people. They
would mostly communic ate through sounds and gestures. In the animal
kingdom, however, if they are nurtured alone from birth, they can behave
and communicate like other species of their sort.
So, what about creatures that understand commands, such as dogs or
"talking" birds? Do gs may be trained to obey commands such as "sit,"
"come," and "turn over," but does this mean they understand and can use
language as well? Dogs are recognised for being expert interpreters of
their owners' intentions, and they respond not to actual words but to the
tone in which they are given. As a result, if you say "bad dog" in a happy
tone, the dog will wag its tail. The dog will place his tail between his
knees if you say "great dog" in a serious tone. Although captive birds are
known to "talk," it is considered that this means nothing to them and that
they are merely mimicking sounds they hear. There is no doubt that
animals communicate with one another in reaction to various stimuli such
as hunger or fear. Human language is unusual in that it allows us to
interact in abstract and analytical ways.
Thinking and Language :
While Philip Dale was true in saying that "thinking is more than language"
and "language is more than thinking," there are linkages between the two
that will be discussed.
Every day, we rely on language to think. The use of grammatical rules and
word symbols in the formation of phrases and sentences is an integral part
of many people's mental processes. Words, their definitions, and the rules
for making associations between them are all s tored in our semantic long -munotes.in

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45 Memory and Language term memory. As humans, we depend on this body of information
whenever we use language as a mode of reasoning.
Some ideas go to the other extreme, claiming that language determines
what kinds of thoughts we are even capable of ha ving. However, the idea
of linguistic relativity has been subject to increasing examination in recent
years.
Because so much of thinking involves language, psychology developed
the notion that thinking was fundamentally a type of inner communication,
a kin d of "under your breath talking to yourself." When humans think,
they produce small movements with their vocal apparatus and continue to
think by talking to themselves, according to this notion. A number of
studies have demonstrated that vocal apparatus mo tions can follow
thought, whereas other experiments have shown that such movements are
not required for thinking (Smith et al., 1947). In one bold study, a drug
completely immobilised a physician. He couldn't move a muscle and had
to rely on an iron lung t o breathe for him. The paralysing medication, on
the other hand, had no effect on how his brain functioned; it just acted on
the drug. The patient was given specific language problems to address; of
course, he couldn't answer because the muscles essential for speaking
were paralysed. There is no way to know whether he was thinking whilst
being under drug intoxication, but all indications are that he was unable to
do so because, after the paralysis was removed by a counteracting drug, he
clearly remembered w hat happened while he was drugged and promptly
provided solutions to problems.
Language influences thinking:
There are at least 5,000 living languages on the planet, 140 of which are
spoken by a million or more people. Is language simply a useful set of
symbols for expressing our thoughts? The answer, according to linguist
Benjamin L. Whorf, is no. Whorf claimed that higher levels of thought
necessitate language and that the quirks of a particular language can
influence how its users think about things. The re are two concepts here.
The linguistic relativity theory asserts that thinking requires language,
while the other asserts that thinking does not require language. This is the
hypothesis that has gotten the most attention. In its most extreme form, it
contends that people's perceptions of the world are determined by the
language they use.
Whorf founded his theory on research into North American Indian
languages, although it is said to be applicable to all languages. He
observed significant differences betw een these languages and European
languages and argued that these differences cause their speakers to think
differently. Language grammar, for example, influences how people
describe environmental changes. Because nouns and verbs are the
essential elements of English grammar, English speakers typically think in
terms of "things" and "activities." Whorf discovered that people who
speak a different language do not always divide circumstances in this
manner. Furthermore, every language has terms that do not hav e an munotes.in

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46 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
46 equivalent in any other language. An example of a term that may be
translated to mean "world perspective" is the German word
weltanschauungs. No English word comes close to capturing this sense.
Furthermore, languages vary in the categories they use t o describe events.
It's snowing, yet there's only one name for it in English whereas the
Eskimo have four. According to the notion of linguistic relativity, e
skimos have a more refined ability to visualise snow than other people.
While many English speake rs may have varied understandings of what
snow is, the Hopi language has a unified term for all other types of flying
items. The hypothesis proposes that speakers of the Hopi language have a
unique perspective on aerial things compared to others who speak
languages that do not organise the world in this manner. According to
legend, the Hanno people of the Philippine islands have names for 92
different types of rice (Con, 1954 cited in brown, 1965). Language
relativity is a contentious idea. Many experts in the field of linguistics
dismiss the notion as circular. Since Whorf discovered that different
languages have different grammatical rules and different ranges of
thoughts they can convey, he reasoned that different people must have
different ways of thinki ng. Language, on the other hand, is a gauge of
thought differences via its assessment of how it is employed. Techniques
for analysing word ideas outside of a particular language are lost. Results
from the few available experiments have been mixed. Perhaps the real
issue is not the breadth of thought that a language allows, but the ease with
which its speakers can dwell on certain topics.
Even though there is no easy way to express it, English -speaking
intellectuals can consider the concept of "global persp ective." English
speakers may envisage a wide range of snow conditions and may need to
use additional words to describe them. Recently, the emphasis in thinking
has shifted away from relativity and toward universals, implying that the
core cognitive proces ses in thinking are comparable even when languages
differ substantially. Color perception reveals the potential universality of
mind, despite disparities in how different languages define colours. It has
been revealed that speakers of quite different langu ages choose certain
"focal" colors —a maximum of 11 —from a colour chart. Furthermore, it
has been established that even when these focal colours are not mentioned
in the language, they can influence thinking. This defies the idea of
linguistic relativity. E leanor Rrosch, for example, has carried out research
with the Dani people of New Guinea. For "white," the Dani only have the
words "black" and "mola." In these trials, Dani subjects looked at a colour
graphic with arbitrary labels assigned to eight of the focus colours and
eight of the non -focal colours on the chart. The names assigned to the
focal colours were learnt and recalled by the Dani faster and better than
the names assigned to the other colours. Despite the fact that the Dani do
not have terms for the main colours in their language, they have an impact
on their thinking.
Thinking in images:
Because the availability of the symbols that we employ in thinking is often
words and language, thinking and language are tightly intertwined. The munotes.in

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47 Memory and Language fact that a l anguage makes hundreds of thousands of possible language
symbols available is what distinguishes human thinking from that of other
animals. Although language is a powerful tool in human mind, such as
when we "speak to ourselves," visuals are another form o f symbol
employed in thinking. People's usage of images in their thinking varies
greatly. Some people indicate that they practically never utilise mental
pictures, therefore they must be thinking with words or orally; others
report that the majority of the ir thinking is done in image form. When we
think with images, they are not always entire "pictures in our heads." They
are frequently incomplete. Consider the images you use, if any, to solve
the following problems. (1973, Huttenlocher). Assume you're stan ding on
a street corner in a neighbourhood of a city you're familiar with. How
would you go from this spot to another part of town by walking or
driving? Another scenario where photography could be useful: where on
earth could you go 1 mile south, 1 mile e ast, 1 mile north, and wind up
precisely where you started? Did you try to tackle this problem with
imagery? If so, how did you depict it? Most people indicate that their
images are incomplete while handling situations like this. People normally
create a v isual map to tackle the first difficulty, but this one is unusual.
Although it depicts turns, the lines linking the turns are of varying lengths.
In order to solve the second problem (the answer being the north pole),
individuals picture a globe —but only t he polar area of the planet.
Although some individuals see snow when they think of the north pole,
such problem -solving images contain only a few characteristics, such as
sidewalks, roads, buildings, or colour. In general, the visuals are
abstractions of p reviously experienced aspects. The imperfect, abstract
representations we employ to think appear to be built from elements
retained in long term memory. The creative process of imaging has been
explored through an experiment in which people were instructed to
produce images of varying sizes. An elephant, for example, could be
imagined as the size of a mouse, or a mouse as the size of an elephant.
Variations in image sizes of this type suggest that images are constructed.
However, studies show that the ease with which information is found in an
image relies on the size (and other features) of the image generated
(Kosslyn, 1983).
Differences among Languages :
Why are there so many languages on the planet? And how does the use of
any language in general, as well as the use of a specific language,
influence human thought? Various languages, as you know, have different
lexicons. They also employ a variety of syntactical constructs. These
distinctions frequently reflect disparities in the physical and cultural
contex ts in which the languages evolved. For example, the Garo of Burma
distinguish between many different types of rice, which is understandable
given that they are a rice -growing civilization. Camel has more than 20
different names among nomadic Arabs. These p eople definitely have a
more specialised and comprehensive understanding of rice and camels
than anyone outside their cultural groups. Do the Garo think about rice
differently than we do as a result of these linguistic differences? And do
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48 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
48 how we talk about computers. Many elements of computers are
differentiated, including whether the computer is a desktop or a laptop, a
PC or a Mac, and if the operating system is Linux or Windows.
A perso n from a non -computer culture would not need as many terms or
distinctions to explain these technologies. However, based on these
distinctions, we anticipate unique performance and features for a given
machine. Obviously, we think about computers different ly than folks who
have never used one. Languages' syntactical structures also differ. Almost
every language allows some form of communication between actions,
agents of actions, and objects of actions (Gerrig & Banaji, 1994). The
order of the subject, verb , and object in a typical declarative sentence
varies by language. The range of grammatical inflections and other
markers that speakers must include as significant aspects of a sentence
also varies. In English, for example, we change (inflect) the verb for m to
indicate whether an action occurred in the past. For example, in the past
tense, walk becomes walked. In Spanish and German, the verb must also
specify whether the agent of action was singular or plural, as well as
whether it was referred to in the fi rst, second, or third person. In Turkish,
the verb form must also express whether the speaker saw or experienced
the action directly or indirectly. Do these and other distinctions in required
syntactical features influence —or perhaps even constrain —the use rs of
these languages to think about things differently as a result of the language
they use to think? In the following two parts, we shall investigate the
notions of linguistic relativity and linguistic universals in greater depth.
Bilingualism: An Advantage or a Disadvantage? :
Is bilingualism more difficult to think in one language than in another?
The information is fairly inconsistent. Different participant populations,
techniques, linguistic groups, and researcher biases could all have
contributed to the literature's inconsistencies. Consider what occurs when
bilinguals are balanced bilinguals, meaning they are nearly equally fluent
in both languages and come from middle -class families. Bilingualism has
a favourable influence in these cases. Biling ual people had stronger
executive functions, which include talents like switching between tasks
and ignoring distractions. In bilinguals, the development of dementia may
be postponed by up to four years (Andreou & Karapetsas, 2004; Bialystok
& Craik, 2010; Bialystok et al., 2007). However, negative consequences
may occur as well. Bilingual speakers' vocabularies are often smaller, and
their access to lexical objects in memory is slower (Bialystok, 2001b;
Bialystok & Craik, 2010).
What could be causing this disparity? Let us differentiate between additive
and subtractive bilingualism (Cummins, 1976). A second language is
acquired in addition to a relatively well -developed first language in
additive bilingualism. Aspects of a second language replace elements o f
the native language in subtractive bilingualism. The additive form appears
to result in greater cognitive capacity. The subtractive version, on the
other hand, leads in diminished reasoning abilities (Cummins, 1976).
There may be a threshold impact in pa rticular. Individuals may need to munotes.in

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49 Memory and Language have a reasonably high degree of ability in both languages for bilingualism
to be beneficial. Bilingualism in youngsters is frequently discouraged by
teachers (Sook Lee & Oxelson, 2006). Many teachers actively support
subtractive bilingualism, whether through letters urging that only English
be spoken at home or through subtle attitudes and approaches (Sook Lee
& Oxelson, 2006). Furthermore, children from lower socioeconomic status
(SES) families may be more likely to be su btractive bilinguals than
children from medium SES families. Their socioeconomic status may play
a role in them being harmed rather than aided by their bilingualism.
Researchers also distinguish between simultaneous bilingualism, which
occurs when a kid le arns two languages from birth, and sequential
bilingualism, which occurs when a person learns one language first and
subsequently another (Bhatia & Ritchie, 1999). Fluency can be achieved
through either type of language learning. It is determined by the
circumstances under which the languages are taught (Pearson et al., 1997).
However, it is known that neonates start babbling about the same age. This
occurs whether kids are routinely exposed to one or two languages (Oller
et al., 1997). Many individuals in the United States make a great issue of
bilingualism, possibly because so few Americans born in the United States
to non -immigrant parents acquire a second language fluently. Other
cultures, on the other hand, take knowing numerous languages for granted.
In some parts of India, for example, people commonly learn up to four
languages (Khubchandani, 1997). Many people in Flemish -speaking
Belgium learn French, English, and/or German. They frequently master
one or more of these additional languages.
Language in a Social Context :
The study of language in its social context is a relatively new topic of
linguistic inquiry. One component of the context is the study of
pragmatics, or how humans use words. It encompasses sociolinguistics as
well as other aspects of lan guage's social environment. In most cases, you
adjust your language use in response to contextual cues without much
thought. Similarly, you frequently adapt your linguistic patterns
unconsciously to meet different situations. For example, when conversing
with a conversational partner, you aim to establish common ground, or a
shared premise for engaging in a discourse (Clark & Brennan, 1991).
When we are around people who have similar backgrounds, knowledge,
objectives, or aspirations, finding common ground is likely to be simple
and barely apparent. When there is little in common, however, such
common ground may be difficult to identify. Nonverbal communication
techniques such as gestures and vocal inflections can aid in the
establishment of common ground. P ersonal space is one facet of nonverbal
communication —the distance between persons in a conversation or other
encounter that is deemed comfortable for members of a certain culture.
Proxemics is the study of interpersonal distance or its inverse, proximity.
It is concerned with the relative distance and location of you and your
fellow conversants. In the United States, 2.45 feet to 2.72 feet is
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50 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
50 The appropriate distance in Mexico spans from 1.65 to 2.14 feet, while in
Costa Rica it ran ges from 1.22 and 1.32 feet (Baxter, 1970).
Scandinavians anticipate further separation. Middle Easterners, southern
Europeans, and South Americans anticipate less (Sommer, 1969; Watson,
1970). When we are in our own familiar territory, we take our cultura l
beliefs of personal space for granted. Only when we interact with
individuals from other cultures do we notice these disparities. For
example, while visiting Venezuela, the author found that his cultural
expectations clashed with the expectations of othe rs around him. He
frequently found himself in a hilarious dance: he would back away from
the person with whom he was chatting, while that other attempted to get
closer. The closer two people are within the same culture, the more likely
they are to share at least one of three qualities. Before everything else, the
people believe themselves to be extremely connected. Second, they are
participating in a social activity, like close dancing, that encourages a
diminished sense of personal space. Third, the bubble 's "violator" has the
upper hand in the interaction. Discrepancies in the degree of privacy one is
afforded exist even in our own culture. For example, when two colleagues
interact, the personal space is substantially smaller compared to when an
employee a nd supervisor engage in a conversation. When two women
converse, they stand closer together than when two males talk (Dean,
Willis, & Hewitt, 1975; Hall, 1966). Is interpersonal distance a factor in
virtual -reality environments?
Many elements influence how believable virtual environments are when
they are developed. People's clothing, the appearance of the streets, and
the sounds in the background all help or hinder their ability to submerge
themselves in that setting. For example, when you visit a virtual location
in Latin America, you expect to see individuals who seem Latin
American. It is equally important to consider how people react in
interpersonal interactions while creating lifelike simulations. How close
do they stand, how often do they stare at on e other, and how long do they
hold that gaze? Computational models are being created to simulate the
behaviour of humans from various cultures (Jan et al., 2007). Personal
space violations, especially in virtual situations, induce pain (Wilcox et al.,
2006 ). People whose personal space is infringed in a virtual setting will
leave if given the option (Bailenson et al., 2003). In video conferencing,
physical space is also preserved (Grayson & Coventry, 1998). These
proxemics findings highlight the relevance o f interpersonal space in all
interactions. They also show that proxemics is crucial even when one or
more of the participants are not physically present.
Gender and Language :
Do men and women speak distinct languages in our own culture? Gender
inequalities in what we say have been discovered. Young girls are more
likely than young boys to seek assistance (Thompson, 1999). Older
adolescent and young adult males like to discuss political opinions,
personal sources of pride, and what they admire about the other person.
Females in this age range, on the other hand, prefer to discuss their
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51 Memory and Language (Rubin et al., 1980). In addition, women appear to reveal more
information concerning themselves than males (Morton, 1978).
Conversations between men and women are occasionally considered
cross -cultural communication (Tannen, 1986, 1990, 1994). Through their
same -sex friendships, young girls and boys acquire conversational
communication in essentially sepa rate cultural situations. As men and
women, we then take our childhood conversational styles into our adult
conversations.
Tannen proposes that male -female disparities in conversational style stem
primarily from different understandings of conversational g oals. Cultural
variations result in contrasting communication approaches. As one partner
attempts, somewhat unsuccessfully, to comprehend the other, this can
result in miscommunications and even break -ups. Men see society as a
hierarchy, with the primary g oals of conversation being the advancement
of one's position, the preservation of one's individuality, and the
prevention of defeat (Tannen, 1990, 1994). The goal of each guy is to
"win" the contest by coming out on top. Women, on the other hand, use
commu nication to serve as a bridge between the two parties, to encourage
and uplift others around them, and to foster agreement. To accomplish
their aims in discussion, women often resort to strategies that level the
playing field and prevent any one party from coming out as dominant. The
importance of women's commitment to their partnerships has been
emphasised as well. When there are differences of opinion, they negotiate
to come to an arrangement that benefits the connection and makes sure
each person feels t heir needs were taken into account. They do this
regardless of how they feel about the final consensus conclusion. Males
place a premium on having a good connection with others. Due to their
upbringing in a gendered culture that places a premium on masculi ne
status, however, men's conversations tend to be driven by different
motives.
According to Tannen, men attempt to assert their independence from their
conversational partners. In this way, they demonstrate their unwillingness
to yield to the demands of o thers, which would imply a lack of power.
Men also prefer to inform (implying a greater status granted by authority)
rather than consult (implying a lower status) with their conversational
companions. In a tight relationship, the male partner may wind up
notifying his partner of their plans. The female spouse, on the other hand,
expects to be consulted on their intentions. Cross -gender communication
between men and women frequently results in misinterpretation because
each partner misinterprets the intentio ns of the other. Tannen suggests that
men and women become more conscious of their cross -cultural customs
and traditions. They may be less likely to misread one another's
conversational interactions this way. They are also more likely to attain
their indiv idual goals, as well as the goals of the relationship and the other
people and institutions influenced by their relationship. Such awareness is
essential not only in male -female dialogues. It is also significant in general
conversations among family member s (Tannen, 2001). Tannen could be
correct. However, converging operations are currently required, in
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52 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
52 validity and generality of her intriguing findings. Gender variations in
written language use have also been identified (Argamon et al., 2003). For
example, a study that evaluated over 14,000 text files from 70 different
studies discovered that women used more words connected to
psychological and social processes, whereas men used mor e words
relating to object properties and impersonal issues (Newman et al., 2008).
These results are not conclusive. A blog study discovered that the type of
blog, rather than the author's gender, predicted the writing style (Herring
& Paolillo, 2006). So far, we've covered the social and cognitive contexts
of language. Language use influences, but does not entirely determine, the
form of thought.
2.4 NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF MEMORY AND LANGUAGE 2.4.1 Neuropsychological basis of Memory :
Retaining Information in the brain :
In the beginning, many people advocated that our long-term memory has a
limited capacity, is inelastic, and can be symbolically explained as an
empty box or room that we could feel to store our memories. Eventually ,
psychologists were able to prove that our LTM storage is indeed elastic
and its capacity to hold information is infinite.
The information stored in our brain is not at all similar to the way books
are organized in libraries. There is a lot of interaction happening wit hin
our brain as we encode, store, or retrieve any piece of information from
memory. Therefore , one could say that all our memories are stored in such
a way that they are scattered across the brain and not in any single
location.
In order to prove this, Karl Lashley devise d an experiment where rats were
trained to locate their path out of a maze. Once the rats had learned their
way out , he performed surgery on the rats ’ brain to remove pieces of their
brains ’ cortex and, then tested their memories again. Surprisingly, they
noticed that whichever small section of the brain was removed, the rats
would always succeed in finding the ir way out because the rats had
partially retained bits of their memory.
This hint ed to the idea that different parts of our brain interact when
memories are encoded and stored. As a matter of fact, the encoding of
different types of memories have shown to activate different parts of the
brain .
Let's have a look at each of them.
Long -term memory can be broadly classified into two types - explicit and
implicit memory.
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53 Memory and Language Explicit Memory :
The explicit memory also known as declarative memory, is responsible for
the storage of facts, previous experiences, vocabulary, or any piece of
know ledge that can be retrieved consciously.
The explicit memory network majorly includes the frontal lobes and the
hippocampus.
The frontal lobes :
The frontal lobes play a very essential role in working memory . Recent
developments in technology have found e vidence suggesting that while
processing or learning any kind of verbal material, like recollecting your
Facebook or Gmail password, the left frontal lobe shows higher activation.
On the contrary, while being involved in the recall of any non-verbal
materi al, like trying to recall the decorations done for your birthday party
last year, the right frontal lobe shows higher activation.
The hippocampus :
The hippocampus is a part of the limbic system which can be found within
each temporal lobe . It is majorly r esponsible for the creation of new
memories . A lot of studies have found that different categories of explicit
memories like images, events, names, etc . are stored throughout the
hippocampus, and obviously , any kind of damage to it will impair its
recall.
In an interesting study done by Kaamil and Chang in 2001, it was noted
that birds who have an intact, well-functioning hippocampus in their brain
have the ability to remember the hidden places where they stored food.
What's most astonishing is that they could remember even those places
that were not marked. But in the event that their hippocampus was
damaged, they couldn't remember th ings so well.
In another interesting study on human brains, it was noticed that if an
individual's left hippocampus has been damaged, their ability to recall
verbal information is severely hampered, however they showed no
impairment in recalling visual de signs and locations. On the contrary, if
their right hippocampus has been damaged, their ability to recall visual
designs and locations will be severely impaired, but their verbal abilities
remain unaffected.
In a 2003 study by Maguire et. al on cab drive rs in London, it was found
that their excellence in navigational skills of deciphering the complex
mazes that London Streets can be, is linked to the growth of the rear area
in their hippocampus . It has also been found that when it comes to factual
memory, vocabulary, or episodic memory, the left hippocampus seems to
be more involved, whereas when involved in spatial memory, the right
hippocampus seems to be more activated.
By now this is common knowledge that most parts of memory
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54 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
54 and significantly shown that getting a good sleep of 8 hours after learning
something new, can actually boost our recall for it the next day.
In a fascinating study by Euston et. al . in 2007, it was observe d that during
sleep, our hippocampus and the cortex sho wed simultaneous activity
rhythms. After we fall asleep, what typically happens is - our brain replays
the entire day’s events in a descending order.
Many cognitive psychologists are of the opinion tha t the hippocampus and
the new cortex seem to have some kind of communication with each other ,
which aids in transferring everything that happened throughout the day to
the cortex for storing it in our long-term memory.
Along with the consolidation and streng thening of our memory, sleep is
also known to enable integration of new information . This could probably
explain how one could suddenly get creative inside after a good night's
sleep. This is probably why people are recommended to sleep over a
proble m when they can't think of solutions at the moment.
Implicit Memory :
Implicit memories also known as automatic or nondeclarative memory. It
typically consists of classically conditioned responses, primes responses,
or skills, procedures, and habits that w e have grown habituated to.
Declarative memory typically expresses itself through recollections ,
however, non-declarative memory does not operate in that way and
typically expresses itself through performance .
The beauty of implicit memory is such that even if we cannot consciously
access the recollection of something, it will still find its way to influence
our current behaviour. LeDoux (1996) spoke about an interesting case of a
patient who was suffering from Amnesia as a result of brain dama ge. This
patient was unable to form new memories . However, the knowledge of
those memories could have been saved implicitly or unconsciously,
because even when she was not aware of things, they were majorly
guiding her behaviour.
Let's see what actually h appened - she and her doctor had a shake hand
everyday when he introduced himself. He had to introduce himself
everyday because as discussed before, she could not form new memories.
The catch here is that the doctor had a drawing board pin in his hand
which had pricked her on several occasions before. On a particular day, as
the doctor routinely shook hands with her, suddenly she jerked and pulled
her hand away. The following day, when the doctor came back and
routinely went ahead to give his introduction, s he refuse dto shake his
hand. When probed further, she could not pinpoint the reasons behind
refusing to shake his hand, she just knew that she didn't want to. This
indicates that she had been classically conditioned, even though she had
no conscious recall of it.
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55 Memory and Language The cerebellum typically governs the creation and storage of classically
conditioned implicit memories . Therefore, if this part of the brain is
damaged, people are unable to develop more conditioned reflexes, and the
existing one school also get impaired. Also, since cerebellum is
responsible for our voluntary motor movements, it could also get
impaired.
Procedural memory is a form of implicit memory that allows us to
effortlessly engage in a lot of physical activities. Most of our implicit
memories can be called as procedural in nature. This procedural memory
realies heavily on the basal ganglia and cerebellum. Both these brain areas
have their own respective contr ibution toward procedural memory. The
cerebellum is responsible for governing fine tuning of motoragility or
corrections of movement required for skills like playing a sport or musical
instrument, painting, etc. In the unfortunate event that the cerebellum is
damaged, the full potential relearning of those kills could be hampered.
However, that may not necessarily be the case with basal ganglia . The
basal ganglia is a subcortical structure that majorly governs motor
movements. The cerebral cortex sends inputs to the basal ganglia,
however, unlike other areas of the brain, the basal ganglia does not send
back these inputs to the cortex for the confirmation of the procedural
learning's conscious awareness. Many cognitive psychologists, believe this
is the reason once we learn a motor skill like riding a bike or swimming,
we won't forget it, even if we don't remember having learnt it in the first
place.
Synaptic changes :
When memories are formed, our neurons typically release
neurotransmitters to hel p pass on this message to other neurons throughout
the synapse. The more this process repeats, the stronger a memory gets,
our synapses typically undergo something called as long-term potentiation
(LTP) which causes our neurons to send the electrical signa ls across the
synapse in a more efficient manner. This typically causes proliferation of
neurotransmitter receptor sites, and as a result, the prompts required to
send a signal across are reduced. This indicates that neurons typically
exhibit behaviour tha t is history -dependent , and as a result of constant
pairing, certain changes - both, chemically as well as structurally - are
initiated which greatly strengthens active synapses, enabling the formation
of stronger neural circuitry .
2.4.2 Neuropsychological basis language :
The Brain and Language:
We all understand and acknowledge how importantlanguage is for
understanding and having any kind of communication with someone else.
In a fascinating study by Caplan in 1994, it was found that participants
recognized words while most of the words were still being spoken . There
is no doubt that the brain mechanisms cognitively supporting language are
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56 curious to locate the underlying brain str uctures governing language and
understand its operations.
Let's have a look at the two language disorders that are caused as a result
of some form of brain damage in a particular area.
Broca's Aphasia :
Brain structure involved with languages.

In the 1860s, when we didn't have such sophisticated brain imaging
techniques, localizing different brain functions, heavily on postmortem
autopsies. One such interesting case was reported by Pierre Paul Broca - in
1861, a patient nicknamed "Tan" had lost h is ability to speak any word
saved for tan. Upon postmortem autopsy, it was found that this patient's
left frontal lobe had a lesion . The patient "Tan" and many other patients
suffering from a similar loss of ability to speak - had a common ground - all
of them had a lesion in a particular part of their left frontal lobe. These
findings led to the understanding that there is a particular area of the brain
in the left frontal lobe which is responsible for our ability to speak - it has
been named as the Broca's area. Any damage to this part of the brain
causing someone's inability to speak is called as Broca's aphasia aka
expressive aphasia. In this condition , while somebody's ability to speak is
hampered, they would still be able to comprehend speech and could e ven
sing songs that they know.
Wernicke's Aphasia :
13 years after it was discovered that the area named Broca's area is
responsible for production of speech, Carl Wernicke , a neurologist, found
that there is a particular brain area in our temporal lobe which is
responsible for comprehension of spoken language. This area has been
named as the Wernicke's area. If the Wernicke's area is damaged, people
have extreme difficulties comprehending language , however the ir ability
to speak still prevails (even tho ugh most of what they speak is gibberish).
This phenomenon with damage to the Wernicke's area that causes extreme
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57 Memory and Language 2.5 QUESTIONS 1. Explain in detail Atkinson and Shiffrin’s three – stage information
processing model of memory.
2. Discuss in detail short -term memory and working memory.
3. Distinguish between automatic and effortful processing of
information. What are some effortful processing strategies that can
help us remember new infor mation?
2.6 REFE RENCE  Myers, D. G. (2013). Psychology .10thedition; International edition.
New York: Worth Palgrave Macmillan, Indian reprint 2013
 Ciccarelli, S. K. & Meyer, G. E. (2008). Psychology. (Indian sub -
continent adaptation). New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India) pvt ltd.


*****




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58 3
THINKING AND INTELLIGENCE
Unit Structure
3.1 Problem Solving and Creativity
3.1.1 Problem Solving
3.1.2 Creativity
3.2 Thinking, Decision Making and Reasoning
3.2.1 Thinking
3.2.2 Decision Making and Reasoning
3.3 Human Intelligence. Organization of Knowledge in the Mind
3.4 Neuropsychological basis of executive functions
3.4.1 Social Determinants & Biological Determinants of Intelligence:
3.4.2 Is intelligence neurologically Measurable?
3.5 Questions
3.6 References
3.1 PROBLEM SOL VING AND CREATIVITY 3.1.1 Problem solving :
Broadly speaking, a problem can be defined as any kind of conflict
between two contradictory things or an obstacle which restricts us from
reaching our goal. In the process of trying to solve the problem we've
encountered, we use available information from our long -term memory
and our current perception of the problem situation before we begin to
determine our options to solve the problem. Many cognitive psychologists
consider problem -solving to be a form of motiv ated processing of
information which is guided by certain rules of the presenting problems.
Problem -solving Strategies :
Most of the rules used in solving problems revolve around changes that
are allowed while moving from one point to another. Let's have a l ook at
different strategies that can be used for solving problems
1. Algorithm :
An algorithm basically is a set of rules which guarantees the problem to be
solved, if followed correctly. It includes a meticulous step -by-step
procedure and can be frustrating to put into practice sometimes, especially
since the steps are elaborate and more in number.
2. Heuristics :
A heuristic basically includes extremely simple, quick, and easy strategies
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59 Thinking and Intelligence Heuristics can possibly lead to a solution but they do not always guarantee
a successful outcome. One of the most common strategies is to break
down a larger problem into smaller chunks, very closeto our desired goal
with each little step that we move forward . There are many types of
heuristics and some of them can occur without our conscious awareness
too. For example , availablity heuristic. Other examples of heuristics
include representative heuristics, anchoring and adjustment, take the best
heuristic, etc.
3. Trial and error :
This method is probably by far the one that is most commonly used. All of
us at some point , have used the trial and error method. It comes to our
rescue in situations when we usually do not have a strategy for
systematically solving a p roblem or cannot think of one. In this method ,
we keep trying one thing after another until we stumble upon the solution
by some random chance. Insight and creativity can also play a part in this
method.
4. Insight :
One of the most interesting ways of solvi ng a problem, or should I say
getting the problem solved is by using the method of insight. It is
something that comes to us suddenly, and many times it just comes
randomly to us long after we have exhausted our thinking capacity trying
to reach a solution .
One of the best and most famous historical examples of solving a problem
by insight is that of Archimedes who ran out of his bathtub naked shouting
"Eureka" when he had finally found an answer to a problem that afflicted
him for a long time.
Kohler was t he first person to suggest the idea that learning takes place by
insight. Inside is extremely influential while solving the most creative
problems. When we typically solve a problem using insight, the amazing
feeling that we get as a result of it is termed as the "aha" experience .
Obstacles In Problem Solving :
Solving a problem has never been easy task to accomplish. Every problem
comes with its own set of obstacles or difficulty level. Even though we are
the most intelligent species on this planet, our inte lligence comes with
certain limitations that could lead to us committing of you errors while
trying to solve our problems.
Let's look at some of the most frequent barriers to the process of
problem solving :
1. Functional fixedness :
Functional fixedness is o ne of the most common cognitive biases that
typically leads us to utilize something only in the way that we have used it
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60 a way that we can't think of utilizing the object in any o ther alternative
beyond what it is typically used for. This block is created because we
cannot move beyond the original purpose or intent of that object and
wavelength to associate tools for their obvious functions.
One of the best ways of overcoming funct ional fixedness would start with
the most obvious realization that a particular object could be used for
multiple purposes and not just one function! We also need to start being
cognitively flexible about theutiliza tion of regular objects in ways that
have n't been thought of before.
2. Mental set :
A mental s et is a type of functional fixedness w herein we typically exhibit
the tendency to choose a particular strategy or framework that directs our
cognitive processes towards solving all our problem using the s ame
solution that we utilised in the past and have worked for us, despite having
more efficient and effective ways of solving the problem. This also
indicates that most humans don't prefer getting out of their comfort zones
and generally prefer to do thing s in ways that they are familiar with.
One of the best examples of the existence of mental set is the nine-dot
problem. One of the earliest studies on the phenomenon of mental set was
done by Luchin in the early 1940s and he found that almost 75% of the
students continued to use the same strategy to solve the task at hand that
they learnt in the practice condition, and were to some extent unable to see
the easier solution.
3. Confirmation bias :
Confirmation bias is one of the biggest obstacles in the objecti ve appraisal
of something. It is a phenomenon which leads us to selectively notice or
seek out evidence that confirms our original belief or theory, while
ignoring or undervaluing the relevance of contradictory evidence.
Apart from these three, sometimes h aving incomplete information or lack
of expertise can also lead to a set of difficulties towards solving problems.
3.1.2 Creativity :
In the 1920s one of the first people to have found that highly intelligent
people are not inevitably creative was Lewis Term an and his colleagues .
They also found that creativity is notentirely limited to or entirely bound
by intelligence. Because people who won't be considered as highly
intelligent also came up with creative ideas. In a fascinating long -term
study that followe d up on people considered as "gifted" for intelligence
throughout their adult life, very expectedly found that not a single one of
them was well known for their "creativity" in any field.
Other researchers have also found that anyone can be creative regard less
of their intelligence. Thus, intelligence all alone does not guarantee
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61 Thinking and Intelligence However , it is also important to note that there is a positive correlation
between intelligence and creativity because any kind of creativity
definitely requires some a mount of capacity to accumulate knowledge
along with the ability to understand and retrieve it.
Let's take an example - in order for authors and writers to be creative, they
obviously need to be good with language.
Just as intelligence has different types o r attributes, creativity also can take
many forms . There are a lot of individual differences also while talking
about intelligence and creativity. Why some people have more of
intellectual abilities, others may have more of creativity, and there may
also m ay be some who have the blend of both.
While considering intelligence and creativity, it is important to note that
there is a lot more to the process of creativity then what can be measured
through the use of intelligence tests.
Have you heard of convergen t versus divergent thinking? The biggest
difference between these two is that convergent thinking typically focuses
on coming up with one effective solution, divergent thinking focuses on
coming up with many possible creative solutions. Therefore, we could
conclude that we need better psychometric procedures to test creativity
since tests measuring intelligence require convergent thinking and
creativity leans more towards divergent thinking.
Robert Sternberg and his colle agues have talk about various compon ents
of creativity . Let's have a look at them :
1. Expertise :
We can call someone an expert in something when they have thorough
knowledge about it. This well -developed knowledge base in an individual
allows them to generate different ideas, concepts, or ima ges that form
some kind of cognitive building blocks. Many cognitive psychologists
believe that the higher the availability of such building blocks, the higher
is the possibility of us combining them in a creative way.
2. Imaginative thinking skill :
We can call someone as possessing an imaginative thinking skill when
they have not only mastered the basic elements of the presenting problem
but can also redefine them in newer ways. This enables them to identify
patterns and make connections.
3. A venturesome p ersonality :
We can call someone venturesome when they seek out new experiences
and also possess a unique peculiarity which enables them to have a higher
threshold for ambiguity and risk and the necessary resilience required to
conquer the obstacles.
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62 4. Intr insic motivation :
When someone is motivated by internal factors like inner satisfaction,
fascinating interest, or overcoming an intriguing challenge, rather than
external factors like money and deadlines, he or she can be called as
operating from intrinsic motivation. Creative people by nature possess
very strong intrinsic motivation and generally careless about extrinsic
factors like impressing someone, revenue generation, meeting the
deadline, etc. These people find the task at hand cognitively stimulating
and derive immense pleasure from it.
5. A creative environment :
Dean Keith Simonton was fascinated by the role somebody's upbringing
and environment have on their accomplishments. He and his colleagues
studied 2026 famous inventors and scientists and their respective careers.
This study brought a new leap of faith for the advocates of nurture in the
classic nature versus nurture debate, because they found that most of those
distinguished scientists were supported, challenged and mentored by their
peers. But this was not all that they found. Another crucial finding was
that out of all the people studied, many also had a strong emotional
intelligence that enabled them to work effectively with their peers.
Therefore , we can conclude that environments which not only foster better
communication but also creativity, lead to higher rates of innovation and
greater team building.
From a neuropsychological standpoint, in case the frontal lobe of an
individual is damaged, sometimes their ability to read write, and calcu late
could still be intact but their capacity for imagination could be hampered.
3.2 THINKING, DECISION MAKING AND REASONING 3.2.1 Thinking :
Thinking is an extremely inseparable part of our existence. We think in
most of the time that we are awake or ev en sleeping and dreaming! As you
are reading this textbook, you are thinking about what it is that you just
read, and even if you stop thinking about it and contemplate what you
would be having for dinner tonight or what you can gift your bestfriend
whose birthday is in the next month, You would still be thinking.
Researchers in the domain of cognitive psychology have always been
intrigued by what goes on in the mind when we think. Broadly speaking,
thinking includes cognitively processing information that we are receiving
from our environment with the help of existing information stored in our
long-term memory.
Many cognitive psychologists believe that thinking refers to a set of
mental processes that intervenes between a stimulus and response which
ultimat ely guides our behaviour. Let's take a very simple example -
imagine the last time you went to buy a mobile phone - you may have told
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63 Thinking and Intelligence good mobiles within the price range you gave them. This is then followed
by you considering the pros and cons of all the options you shortlisted and
then eventually you buy the one that you liked the most (response).
How do people think? :
Thinking is not only one of the most complex things that humans can
accomplish but also one of the highest forms of intelligence. Thinking
about thinking became a point of study only in the 1960s when cognitive
psychology was strengthening its foothold. This was the time which was
kind of dominated by the behaviourists who were not much in favour of
studying thinking as it was more of a mental phenomenon and not an
observable construct.
Difference between thinking and cognition :
Both these terms are often used as synonyms for each other, but it is
important to note that there is a good amount of difference between the
two. We've previously looked at how thinking is the catalyst mediating
between a stimulus and a behavioural response. Cognition, on the other
hand, is broader in scope in comparison to the process of thinking.
According to Watson , ‘thinking’ is ‘sub -vocal speech’. Thinking is also
defined as “mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is
processing information such as organizing it, understanding it, and
communicating it to others.”
Thinking by nature is not just verbal, but also includes the involvement of
mental representations.
Let's have a look at a few elements that are impor tant in the process of
thinking :
Concepts :
A concept can be defined as a symbolic or representative construction of
the most general and basic features of something. Symbols of language are
crucial in the process of thinking, and these concepts are an important
aspect of language. Some of these concepts are innate and can be seen as
appearing earlier in life and are acquired wit h ease compared to others.
Let's have a look at different types of concepts :
1. Superordinate concept :
This is the most broad and generic type of concept. For example, the
category of fruits or vegetables.
2. Basic level type of concept :
This typically inclu des one kind of concept around which similar once can
be organized . For example, consider mango or grapes - there are many
different types of both - red grapes, black grapes, green grapes or alphonso
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64 3. Subordinate con cept:
Out of all the concepts, this represents the most specific type. For
example, you may like apples, but your favourite apple could be the
washington apple. Similarly , for dogs, you may be a dog lover, but
Labradors could be your favourite.
4. Formal co ncept :
All those concepts that are governed by a well -defined set of unbendable
rules or rigid features can be called as a formal concept and are generally
non-negotiable. Broadly speaking, formal concepts are typically thought
as a part of academics in edu cational institutions.
5. Natural concept :
Unlike formal concepts, natural concepts are not well defined and are
developed as a result of our personal experience in the world outside. For
example, the answer to the questions - Is tomato fruit or a vegetable? , Is a
whale a fish or a mammal? The answers to these questions will majorly
depend on our personal experience and level of exposure or accumulation
of knowledge.
Being an intelligent human being includes the attainment and mastery of
these concepts. There fore, it is crucial to understand what aids in the
attainment of concepts. Transfer of knowledge , the distinctive features of
elements, having such properties of materials that can be easily
reorganised or rearranged, the set of instructions received by us ,
availablity of all the relevant information given to us at the same time, as
oppo sed to receiving it in bits and pieces - all of these are essential
components for the attainment of concepts.
Without concepts, categorization of objects, ideas, or anything , as a matter
of fact, would nearly be impossible! Imagine keeping a set of different
toys in front of a child and telling him or her to "throw a ball", a child will
not be able to comprehend this if they have not yet formed a concept of a
ball or throw. T herefore, we can conclude that accumulation and
understanding of concepts gives as a vast array of information with very
little cognitive efforts.
Mental imagery :
Our ability to comprehend the pictorial representations of various
objects/phenomenons is call ed as visual imagery or mental imagery. It is
an inseparable aspect of human cognition.
Allan Paivio, Stephen Kosslyn , and many others have done some amazing
research in the area of mental imagery.
Kosslyn and his colleagues did a study in the 1990s, and t hey found that
most of our imagery is visual in nature. They primarily focused on the
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65 Thinking and Intelligence is formed, its experience for us is pretty much like vision where we are
seeing something but it is in our mind.
When an image is formed in our mind, we can twist it, turn it, bend it, in
order to solve problems that involve visual imagery. It has also been found
that even though mental imagery can hold a lot of details, in comparison to
the actual pe rception of something, it typically tends to be less detailed.
Other important findings of Kosslyn's research include the following :
 When making judgements about its features, people take longer to
evaluate mental images that are small compared to those th at are
large.
 When the images are different from each other, it takes more time to
travel or cover a large mental distance, for obvious reasons.
 One of the best applications of visual imagery is the effect that it has
on our memory when used properly. Many cognitive psychology
researches have significantly shown that our prowess for memory can
be most effective when we use visual imagery while encoding and
learning information, especially if they are depicted in interaction
with each other.
Prototypes :
While concepts can simplify and aid in our thinking, prototypes refer to a
mental model of a concept that closely matches the peculiar characteristics
of a concept/object/phenomenon.
Prototypes typically provide us with a mental framework that depictsa
typical representation of a category. For example, we all have prototypes
for a professor, a politician, a doctor, an actor/actress, a criminal, etc.
Prototypes also provide us with a baseline to compare new people we meet
and help us to decide if they fit into a category or not.
Sometimes there can also be certain contradictions that hamper the
placement of a new individual into a particular category. For example, let's
say a young woman telling you that she does not like fancy clothes,
makeup, and parties, and wo uld rather prefer at home reading a book away
from the lime light; later on you find out that she was a film actor; now,
imagine your surprise! This happens because the young woman you
encountered does not fit into your typical prototype of film stars.
Prototypes can vary and are built as a result of past experience, culture,
geographical region, knowledge, etc. They also help us navigate social
thought and guide our social behaviour.
The Prototypes we've developed or hold on to - exert a strong influence on
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66 One of the most prominent names that comes up for their research on
prototypes is Eleanor Rosch whose work has been very influential in
cognitive psychology and related fields .
3.2.2 Decision Making And Reasoning :
One of the crucial factors involved in the process of problem solving is
decision making where an individual has to choose one alternative from
several others. This process of choosing comes with certain levels of ris ks
and are typically guided by heuristics .
There are many types of heuristics, but for now let's look at two of the
most commonly used -
1. Availability heuristic :
Availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that is based on how easily
something comes to our mind. Information that is vivid, distinct, and
recent, pops up automatically in our thought and is assumed to be a
common phenomenon because it came to mind so readily. This greatly
influences our judgement, and can frequently lead us into fearing things.
For example, people who have recently watched any movie of "The final
destination" franchise would be petrified of sitting on the rides in the
amusement parks, compared to those who haven't. Another example could
be that people staying closer to the sea, think about tsunamis more
frequently than those who don't; or people who are either currently
travelling on a path through the mountains or planning to, would be more
frequent to think about landslides.
2. Representative Heuristic :
A representative heuristi c is a mental shortcut that aids in the decision -
making process by processing the information received and matches it
with a prototype that best describes it. For example, imagine someone told
you about an older woman who had tremendous love for children a nd was
very warm, you would automatically assume that she is a very good
grandmother to her grandkids because the description you received fits the
most typical mental representation we have of a grandmother, therefore,
we automatically tend to put her int o that category.
While evaluating and deciding which outcome is more likely, we not only
use rules based on available and representative information, but also use
anchoring and adjustment to reach an estimated probability of a particular
outcome. Even thou gh these heuristics sound fancy and helpful, they
induce a significant amount of bias in the process of decision -making .
Bad Decisions :
1. Overconfidence :
Sometimes the decisions we make can go horribly wrong because the ir
correctness does not match up to ou r confidence level. All of us have over -
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67 Thinking and Intelligence One of the best examples relevant to students would be the time you have
estimated to finish preparing for the upcoming exams. The preparat ion
almost always takes more time than we initially predicted.
Before we jump to conclusions about our faulty attributions, let's consider
if overconfidence also has some kind of adaptive value.
Many studies have found that even when people have errors in their
judgement as a result of their overconfidence, they tend to live a more
happy life than those who are underconfident.
On the contrary to people who appear less confident, overconfident people
somehow appear to be having more credibility than others a nd are able to
make difficult decisions more easily.
To conclude, there are a few things to keep in mind :
 While estimating the time taken for completing something, we must
take into account the time taken to do something similar in the past
and not hold un realistic expectations of our abilities.
 The wisdom to decide whether we know we can do something or not,
comes with experience , and we should first be open to knowing our
limitations, and embracing them, before actually working on
overcoming them.
2. Pers everance of belief :
Our tendency to faultily hold on to our beliefs, despite having
contradictory evidence can be termed as belief perseverance. Sometimes,
it has a strong potential to cause social conflicts especially when beliefs
clash or are contradictor y in nature. The more strongly we believe in
something, the more tightly we will hold on to them.
Imagine a school teacher who has made up her mind and believes that one
of our students suffers from a learning disability. She may tend to ignore
the informa tion that is contradictory to her belief.
Once a belief is created in our mind and gets validated, it will require
stronger and more pressing proof to change it than it took to create that
belief .
One of the best ways to overcome belief perseverance is to tell people to
imagine the opposite. Many studies have found that when people are told
to imagine and think about opposite things than their actual orientations,
they have the capacity to become less biased while evaluating the
evidence.
3. The effect of f raming :
Framing can be defined as the way we choose to present something, and
exerts a very powerful influence on the decisions we make. For example,
imagine two patients who need to have the same surgery performed on
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68 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
68 here is the way success rate information is presented to them. Let's say, the
first patient was told that this surgery is fairly common and 90% of the
people, have successfully survived it. Imagine, the second patient is told
that 10% people have died during this surgery.
Even though the information given to both the patients is same, the effect
it will have will be extremely different. Obviously, the second patient who
was told that there is a 10% probability that he or she may die during the
surgery, will conclude it to be far more risky than the first patient who was
told that there is a 90% chance of success (unless, the first patient is an
over thinker and automatically wonders whether he or she will fall into the
category of those 10% people who did not have a successful run).
Thus, we can conclude that framing is a very powerful tool and majorly
influences whether somebody will be persuaded or not.
3.3 HUMAN INTELLIGENCE: ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE MIND Intro duction: What Is Intelligence? :
Intelligence is one of the most important mental constructs that has the
potential to distinguish one individual from another. It can be defined as
our cognitive capacity to gain knowledge from experience, our ability to
reason logically, and our competence to effectively adapt to our
environment.
The term "intelligence" is assigned by people to different to different
attributes that enabled success in their own time and culture.
There are different definitions of intelligence given by different
psychologist, some of which are given below.
 Alfred Binet was one of the first psychologist who worked on
intelligence. According to him, Intelligence is the ability to judge
well, understand well and reason well (Alfred Binet, 1973).
 According to Wechsler , Intelligence is the global and aggregate
capacity of an individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to
deal effectively with his/her environment. (Wechsler, 1950).
 Other psychologists such as Gardner and Sternberg have def ined
intelligence as well. Intelligent individual not only adapt to their
environment but also actively modifies or shapes it (Gardner &
Sternberg).
In short, we can conclude that intelligence is the synthesis of all our
combined abilities. Different theor ists in psychology have advocated their
own beliefs.
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69 Thinking and Intelligence Let's take a look at them :
Alfred Binet , who is typically given the credit of being the father of
intelligence testing, strongly believed that intelligence reflects our general
ability for comprehending and reasoning that can manifest in many ways.
Charles Spearman , another distinguished gentleman in the history of
psychometric testing, advocated that all of us possess a general
intelligence factor but in different amounts. He believed that intelligence
is a global combination of multiple abilities.
Louise Thurstone , another pioneer, contradicted Spearman and was of the
opinion that intelligence can be further divided into a lot of primary
abilities.
Joy Guilford also criticized Spearman's view of intellig ence, and built on
that of Thurstone. He believed that intelligence is made up of multiple
intellectual abilities. He also stated that there are different aspects of
intelligence can usually get ignored when the items on a test measuring
intelligence are c lubbed together.
Individual differences in intelligence :
Broadly speaking, no two individuals can be exact duplicates of each
other. Even identical twins exhibit behavioural differences once they grow
up.
Consider anything and you will realise that there ar e individual differences
in everything, right from our physical appearance to our psychological
characteristics. Our height, our weight, our skin colour, the length and
type of our hair, the extent of our approachableness, our talkativeness, etc.
Similarly , the psychological construct of intelligence is also bound by a lot
of individual differences that occur due to everyone's unique genetic
heredity, environment, and the interdependent interaction of both the
factors.
We inherit many characteristics direct ly from our biological parents
through genetic material (genes). The entire hereditary information that we
possess is called the genotype . The inherent characteristics that are
physically expressed are called the phenotype . Phenotypes majorly depend
on the social cultural as well as geographical environment of an
individual. That is the reason we may share many similarities with our
parents and grandparents like height, weight, eye colour, creativity
intellectual competence.



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70 Extremes of Intelligence: Retard ation and Giftedness:
Figure: Normal Distribution Curve of Intelligence: Bell Curve

Multiple studies that tried to measure intelligence across different
populations have shown that it typically represents a bell -shaped curve.
This indicates th at majority of the people are average in their intelligence,
few people are either above average in below average intelligence, and
extremely few people are either highly intelligent or immensely dull.
Mental retardation :
In the entire population, only abou t 2% of people have an IQ lower than
70 and a diagnosed with varying degrees of mental retardation. One of the
most common causes of mental retardation is down syndrome . It is a
chromosomal disorder caused due to an extra 21st chromosome.
The attitude of p eople towards those suffering from mental retardation has
slightly changed over the last 20 -30 years, and most of us don't use
derogatory terms like idiot and stupid to describe them anymore.
Recent laws like the Persons With Disabilities Act (PWD) has dec lared it
illegal to discriminate in terms of any kind of disability - physical as well
as mental.
Our society is also changing and becoming progressively better because
such individuals are also being trained and hired into some workplace. The
very fact tha t today we have so many dedicated schools catering to the
personality development, vocational guidance, and intellectual needs for
such people, itself is proof that we have progressed for the better and have
become more inclusive.
Intellectual giftedness :
At some point or the other, many of us may have wished for being more
intelligent or having a greater memory prowess or even envied the first
ranker in our class/college. There are always multiple sides to a
phenomenon. For all you know, these intellectuall y gifted school children
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71 Thinking and Intelligence would be envied so much by their classmates, difficult for them to create
meaningful friendships in class.
Lewis Terman and his colleagues conducted an interesting study in the
1950s, where they made high school students take the S tanford -Binet test
along with other similar IQ tests. They approximately selected 1,500
students who fell into the top 1% category. These kids had intelligence
questions of more than 130 and work closely studied for more than 70
years. The most initial fin dings of the study were that these students were
significantly better than the others in their health and were also taller and
heavier than other kids of their age. Another interesting finding was that
their social relationships were above average too and therefore, the
probability of them getting divorced was also lesser.
It is important to also note that there are different kinds of giftedness .
Some maybe exceptionally good at science or history or some form of art,
some maybe extremely amazing at sports while others may possess an
unmatched ability to lead.
There is a serious debate among academicians about whether weather it
should be considered appropriate to provide such intellectually gifted
children in schools and colleges with more advanced classes or programs
that are obviously not available to the other students. S uch provisions will
not only isolate these kids from their peers but also make the other "not so
gifted" kids feel like they are unworthy and are being deprived of
something.
David Wechsl er as classified IQs into the following categories :

Figure A: Classification of Intelligent Quotient by Wechsler
Nature versus nurture controversy :
Even though it is widely accepted that intelligence has both genetic as well
as environmental factors th ere has been a great deal of debate about the
extent of influence both the factors exert. In an attempt to finally solve this Sr. No. IQ Range IQ Classification 1 130 and Above Very Superior 2 120-129 Superior 3 110-119 Above Average Intelligence 4 90-109 Average Intelligence 5 80-89 Below Average Intelligence 6 70-79 Bord erline Intelligence 7 55-69 Mild Mental Retardation 8 40-54 Moderate Mental Retardation 9 25-39 Severe Mental Retardation 10 24 and Below Profound Mental Retardation munotes.in

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72 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
72 contr oversy, extensive studies have been conducted by a lot of
researchers - Neisser et.al., Plomin, DeFries, and McGuffin - to name a few.
Studies done in 2004 by Plomin, Spinath , and colleagues have found that
approximately 60 to 80% of variance in Intelligence Quotients can be
attributed to genetics. This indicates that while the environment has its
own part to play in one's IQ, genetics seem to play a significantly stronger
part.
Another study done in 2004 by Deary, Whiteman, Starr , and colleagues
found that t he intelligence of children who are less than 3 years old does
not help too much while predicting their intelligence in adulthood,
however, as they grow older their intelligence remains stable. It has also
been found that compared to the IQ scores of frate rnal twins who are less
similar in genetic terms (r= .60), the IQs of identical twins have a stronger
correlation (r= .86).
The very fact that our IQs tend to become more and more stable as we
grow older is enough evidence to conclude that early environmen tal
experiences matter significantly more (speaking purely in comparative
terms).
In an interesting study done by Turkheimer, Haley, Waldron , and
colleagues in 2003, it was found that environmental factors also account
for a higher proportion of intellectu al variability in children from lower
socioeconomic households than for children from upper social economic
backgrounds. This difference could probably be because parents from a
higher socioeconomic status typically provide a consistently safer, more
suppo rting, and more enriching environment for their children, whereas
these factors are highly variable in parents from a lower socioeconomic
status (most probably due to lack of financial stability and consistent
income).
Another well -established fact is that social and economic deprivation has
detrimental effects on our Intelligence Qu otient . This is because children
raised in poverty typically have fewer resources at their disposal. They
could lack basic educational opportunities, may not receive food with
good nutritious value, and could also be exposed to certain toxins as a
result of living in dangerous conditions which could affect their brain
development and intelligence levels.
This brings us to an interesting question - if under -nourished environments
detrimentally influence intelligence; can enriching environments improve
it?
The answer to this question is simple - a consistently enriching and
intellectually stimulating environment will certainly allow the individual
an opportunity to rise up to the opti mal potential of their intellectual
prowess , but will not increase the genetic intellectual potential, magically
converting somebody with lower or below average intelligence into a
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73 Thinking and Intelligence Another interesting observation linking the role of na ture and nurture
could be the fact that a child who has above average intelligence will be
treated differently compared to the child who has below average
intelligence. Initially these differences maybe minute, but as both the
children grow up, the differe nces in the opportunities given and resources
provided to both the kids will most certainly amplify the initial
differences.
Theory of Multiple Intelligences :
Howard Gardner was an American psychologist who staunchly advocated
that we don't possess a single general intelligence, rather we have a set of
multiple intelligences.
Let's take a look at the different types of intelligence proposed by Howard
Gardner :
Linguistic Intelligence :
People who possess this kind of intelligence typically relish writi ng,
reading, narrating stories or solving crossword puzzles. It generally
depicts an aptitude for eloquence in language, both spoken and written.
For example, any good author like Emily Bronte, Paulo Coelho,
Paramhansa Yogananda, etc
Logical -Mathem atical Intelligence:
People who posses this kind of intelligence are intrigued by different
patterns, and their relationships. They are attracted to solving
mathematical problems, and games involving strategy and experiments.
For example, Albert Einstein.
Spatial Intelligence:
People who posses this kind of intelligence are generally very good at
perceiving visual and spatial information and comprehending the world in
tasks not just involving forms of art but also those that require
geographical nav igation. For example, the Painter, Pablo Picasso
Musical intelligence:
People who posses this kind of intelligence have a superior aptitude to
understand, appreciate, compose, and perform any form of music. For
example, A. R. Rahman.
Bodily -kinaesthetic intelligence:
People who posses this kind of intelligence are capable of using different
parts of their body to successfully accomplish various activities and
typically have superior hand -eye coordination. For example, Martha
Graham, the famo us dancer and choreographer, is a good example of
bodily -kinaesthetic intelligence. The most distinguished athletes, dancers,
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74 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
74 over their body, their hands and legs, their fingers and toes can be said to
have this form of intelligence.
Interpersonal intelligence:
People who posses this kind of intelligence are typically superior at
understanding other people and behave in ways which are in accordance
with that understanding. The se exceptional people can easily gauge
someone else's mood, their temperaments, and their motives too.
Intrapersonal intelligence:
People who posses this kind of intelligence have the capacity to fully
understand themselves. They have an amazing in sight into what they are
feeling at a given point in time. For example, Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi.
Naturalist Intelligence:
People who posses this kind of intelligence are capable of recognizing and
classifying different species of plants, animals , and minerals, and most
typically pursue some aspect biology. For example, the most renowned
naturalist, Charles Darwin. Naturalistic Intelligence is defined as the
ability to observe and/or interact with diverse species in nature.
Existentialist Intelligence :
People who posses this kind of intelligence are capable of identifying the
“big picture of the human world by raising the right questions about life,
death and ponder about ultimate reality of human existence.
Emotional Intelligence
Most psyc hologists have believed intelligence to be a cognitive
component, but intelligence isn't the only thing people use to solve their
problems. Most of us take decisions emotionally and make use of
emotions to direct their problem solving pursuits. They not on ly relate
better to others but also have better and stronger meaningful relationships
with others.
Emotional intelligence as a concept was first proposed by Salovey and
Mayer . They defined Intelligence as our ability to monitor emotions,
discriminate among different emotions, and using this information to
effectively direct thoughts and behaviours - not just in us, but also in
others. The concept of emotional intelligence is also mentioned in Howard
Gardner‘s interpersonal intelligence.
Emotional Quotient (E Q):
Just as the term Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is used to signify intelligence,
the term Emotional Quotient (EQ) is used to signify emotional
intelligence. It can be calculated as follows - divide one's chronological age
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75 Thinking and Intelligence Therefore, EQ = Emotional Age/ Chronological Age* 100
Emotional intelligence governs correct appraisal, expression and
regulation of our emotions. It is most typically called as the feeling side of
our intelligence. A dec ent IQ and good academic record is not sufficient
and doesn't guarantee success in life.
We may have encountered many people whose academic performance is
splendid but their personal life could be miserable. What could be the
possible cause behind the prob lems they experience in their personal and
professional life? What do they lack? Most psychologists advocate that
this can be explained by their low emotional intelligence.
Let's take a look at the peculiar characteristics possessed by most of the
highly i ntelligent people :
 Accurately perceiving others' emotions
 Good observational skills that are highly sensitive to body language,
facial expressions, and tonality of an individual
 Identifying the underlying emotions behind your thoughts
 Comprehending the int ensity of your emotions.
 Ability to patiently monitor and regulate emotions.
Daniel Goleman is an American author and psychologist, most famous for
the book "Emotional Intelligence" that he published in the year 1995. He
broadened the concept of EQ and inc orporated the aspect of general social
competence .
Daniel Goleman believes that Emotional Intelligence represents a master
aptitude that holds the capacity to exert great influence on all other
abilities, either by helping or interfering in the process.
According to Daniel Goleman, EQ must encompass the following
characteristics:
1) Self-Awareness.
2) Managing Moods
3) Motivating Oneself towards accomplishments of goals
4) Verbal as well as nonverbal Empathy
5) Managing and modulating re lationships
Emotional intelligence is not synonymous self -esteem and optimism.
According to Lopes and colleagues , people blessed with a higher EQ are
precisely aware and possess exceptional people skills which enable them
to create and maintain higher quality of interactions with others. They are
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76 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
76 bestowed with an amazing ability to know what to say to calm down an
anxious friend, encourage a loved one, or soothe someone who is troubled.
According to Fiori , EQ empowers the unconscious processing of
emotional information. Numerous studies across different cultures have
found that individuals with a higher EQ report better performances and
satisfaction not only i n one's career and marriage but also in parenting.
Being able to monitor one's impulses and delay immediate gratifications
are crucial aspects of emotional intelligence, and definitely go a long way
in the pursuit of one's long term goals.
3.4 NEUROPSYCHOL OGICAL BASIS OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 3.4.1 Social Determinants & Biological Determinants of Intelligence:
Biological and social influences have always been the most basic factors
to have affected the human intelligence. Psychologists from different
speci alizations have always been debating about the classic nature versus
nurture issue , and this debate has been most profoundly focused on the
domain of intelligence. Even though there isn't anyone who denies the
genetic factors of intelligence, there are man y who have different beliefs
about the level of influence exerted by heredity and environment.
A decent amount of evidence which proves that our intelligence is what it
is due to genetic inheritance. These studies typically test for correlations
between the intelligence quotients of people who share different degrees
of genetic relatedness.
One of the most consistent findings has been that on an average the
correlation found between biological parents and their offspring is 50, and
that of adopted childre n with their foster parents is exactly half, which is
25. Not surprisingly, the correlation between IQs of identical twins has
been found to be 90. An interesting finding was that fraternal twins who
are raised together, had a higher correlation of 0.75, w hich is significantly
higher than those of fraternal twins who were raised separately in different
homes by different people. Thus, researchers Skodak and Skeels (1949)
concluded that being brought up together typically exerts an influence of
having simila r IQs even for people who are not biologically related to each
other.
Racial differences :
After the classic nature versus nurture debate on intelligence, if there is
any other hot topic discussed in this domain that is whether racial
differences exist in intelligence, and many researchers have wondered
whether Africans are inherently less intelligent than Americans. In order
to test this controversy, a lot of research and studies have already taken
place and proved it with a statistical difference that Afr ican Americans
score at least 10 to 15 points lesser than Americans. But the biggest
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77 Thinking and Intelligence basis of American populations and are not culture -fair, and hence, cannot
be used on populati ons of other ethnicities, majorly because most people
of different ethnicities grow up in different environments, have different
experiences, and have an understanding of the world that is quite different
from one another and hence an African American chil d may react very
differently on certain test items especially if he or she was being tested by
an American examiner.
3.4.2 Is intelligence neurologically Measurable? :
Since the methods of investigating the brain have become so advanced, we
can use these t echnological advancements to study the difference between
the brains of different people and the corresponding differences in their
performance on intelligence tests. Many researchers live in the hope that
in the future there could be a test of intelligenc e based on our marvelous
brain itself. Recent studies done by Carey in 2007 and McDaniel in 2005
have found that there is a correlation of +.33 between intelligence scores
and an individual’s brain size. In a recent meta -analysis done by Jung and
Haeir in 2007, 37 brain imaging studies were thoroughly looked at, and it
was found that the correlation between intelligence and size of the brain
was strongest within the frontal lobe and parietal lobe.
Researcher, Sandra Witelson and her colleagues were among th e lucky
few who had the once in a lifetime opportunity to study the brain of Albert
Einstein . They found that compared to the total size and weight of other
typical 91 Canadian brains, the lower region in the parietal lobe of
Einstein's brain was 15% large r, and certain other areas seemed smaller as
well. Famous evolutionary psychologist and author, Steven Pinker
believes that we have different mental functions that compete with each
other for the brain's real estate, and that could probably be the reason w hy
other great physicists like Richard Feynman and Edward Teller were
slower while acquiring the ability to talk.
The fact that learning leaves behind traces in the brain's neural
connections that can be detected. Psychologist, Dennis Garlick believed
that intelligence exists because neural connections developed as a result of
responding to the environment .
A lot of postmortem studies of the brain have revealed that people who are
highly educated typically have 17% more synapses in their brains
compared to people with less education (Orlobskaya et. Al., 1999). This
finding races a big question which is not yet answered - do people with
more s ynapses seek more education, or is it the other way round where
synapses grow as and how people receive more and more e ducation, or is
it a combination of both. If you recall, we discussed in the first chapter
that people who are more intelligent have greater neural plasticity and
hence can grow neural connections better in response to their
environment.
Does this new rese arch decrease the importance of what we have termed
as the "g factor" of intelligence in the favour of underlying brain activity?
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78 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
78 intelligence is not one single trait but a set of multipl e skills that are
culturally adaptive. Even when the neurological understanding of mental
phenomena that we have today is at its peak, the debates and controversies
revolving around the nature of intelligence are far away from being
resolved.
3.5 QUESTIONS 1. Discuss Problem Solving and Creativity in brief.
2. Write detail note on Human Intelligence. Organization of Knowledge
in the Mind
3. Is intelligence neurologically Measurable? Explain
4. Write short notes
a) Thinking
b) Decision Making and Reasoning
c) Social Determinants of Intelligence
d) Biological Determinants of Intelligence
3.6 REFERENCES  Myers, D. G. (2013). Psychology .10thEdition; International edition.
New York: Worth Palgrave Macmillan, Indian reprint 2013.
 KumarVipan (2008), General Psycho logy, Himalaya Publishing
House, Chapter 06.
 Ciccarelli, S. K. & Meyer, G. E. (2008). Psychology (Indian sub -
continent adaptation). New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India) pvt ltd.
 Ciccarelli, S. K. & Meyer, G. E. (2008). Psychology. (Indian
subconti nent adaptation). New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India) pvt.
Ltd.

*****

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79 4
PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTIONS
Unit Structure
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Theories of Emotions
4.2.1 Historical Emotion Theories:
4.2.2 Cognition Can Define Emotion: Schachter and Singer’s Two
Factor Theory
4.2.3 Cognition May Not Precede Emotion: Zajonc, LeDoux and
Lazarus’ Theory
4.3 Biological basis of human emotions
4.3.1 Emotions and the Autonomic Nervous System:
4.3.2 The Physiology of Emotions:
4.3.3 Gender, Emotion and Nonverbal B ehavior:
4.4 Measurement of Emotions
4.4.1 Detecting Emotions in Others
4.4.2 Culture and Emotional Expression
4.4.3 The Effects of facial Expression
4.5 Emotional Development and regulation
4.5.1 The Need To Belong: Introduction
4.6 Summary
4.7 Questi ons
4.8 References
4.1 INTRODUCTION Most psychologists define emotions as a complex state of feelings which
lead to certain physiological and psychological changes that have
magnanimous potential to influence our thoughts and behaviours.
Emotions can compass everything we feel ra nging from happiness and
pleasure to sorrow and hate. Many scientists also believe that emotions are
an adaptive response of our body and they aid or support our survival.
Like any other psychological construct, emotions also incl ude a set of
physiological activations (for example, increase in the heart rate) coupled
with certain feelings which guide our ultimate expressive behaviours (for
example, fastened pace).
Researchers have always been interested to understand whether emotio nal
feelings come before or after physiological activations, and if there is any
kind of interaction between the way we feel and what we think.
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80 4.2 THEORIES OF EMOTIONS 4.2.1 Historical Emotion Theories:
1) The James -Lange Theory :
Common logic dictates th at typically we shall first experience an emotion
and after that experience what follows is the consequent action. For
example, when we are sad, we cry. However, the James Lange theory
proposed something on the contrary, and advocated that feelings are a
consequence of actions and are felt after the action has taken place. In
short, what they were trying to say is we feel sorry as a consequence after
we cry or because we cried.
To elaborate further and shed more light on what they are suggesting,
imagine wa lking alone in the Jungle and you see a tiger, and naturally you
would start trembling, your heart rate would increase, and these
physiological sensations make a person realize that they are scared. In
other words, in the absence of any evident physiologic al arousals leading
to a perception, an individual in a similar situation would react purely in a
cognitive form (lacking emotional warmth) like deciding to run or attack
the tiger, but not actually feel scared.
2) The Canon -Bard Theory :
Canon and Bard coul dn't agree with theory given by James and Lange.
They advocated that typically people have the same physiological arousal
for different emotions. For example, people cry not just when they are sad,
but also when they are happy, or our heart rate can go up as a sign of fear
or love or even anger.
Canon and Bard believed that in some instances physiological reactions
could occur in the absence of any motion as well, for example , exercise
also can increase our heart rate and have no emotional significance for it.
This observation led them to propose their own theory of emotion where
they pointed out that our experience of emotions and our physiological
arousal towards it usually occur separately but simultaneously. They
elaborated further by saying that the st imulus triggering our emotions
travel simultaneously to the sympathetic nervous system and the brain's
cortex leading to our body’s physiological arous al and awareness of
emotion experienced respectively.
However, some unsettling evidence came to light whe n people were doing
research on patients who had severe spinal cord injuries and found that the
patients who could not feel anything below the neck reported drastic
changes in the intensity of their emotions. These patients reported that
their experience o f anger had reduced drastically but other emotions that
are expressed mostly above the neck were felt more intensely, example
they reported crying more often and getting more emotional while
watching a movie or saying goodbye than they used to before the s pinal
cord injuries. This can be enough evidence to prove that our emotional
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81 Psychology of Emotions 4.2.2 Cognition Can Define Emotion: Schachter and Singer’s Two
Factor Theory:
Schachter and Singer believed t hat the knowledge of when we are happy,
angry, or jealous doesn't come automatically to us, rather, we tend to
consider the situational cues first and then label our emotions. Basically,
what they are suggesting is that emotions are created by our thoughts and
physical reactions. Thus, the two factors are physiological arousal and
cognitive appraisal.
In their theory, you also mention a phenomenon called the spillover effect ,
wherein other elements (for example, excercise) could also trigger a
general and n on specific arousal that causes our heart rate to increase or
tightens our stomach and/or causes our breathing to become rapid.
4.2.3 Cognition May Not Precede Emotion: Zajonc, LeDoux and
Lazarus’ Theory:
Zajonc proposed that some emotional reactions that we have don't involve
a deliberate form of thinking. He elaborated further by saying that our
brain has two different pathways for processing our emotional responses.
He called them the High Road and the Low Road. The Low Road typically
denotes a shorter route consider it like a shortcut, which enables our
emotional responses before are intellect could interfere. The High Road ,
on the other hand typically denotes the long route which also involves
cognitive processing.
Lazarus specified that our brains can process large quantities of
information outside our conscious awareness and a few emotional
responses therefore don't seem to need conscious thinking. He also
believe d that a large part of our emotional life tends to function via the
automatic and speedy Low Road. However, he also mentioned that before
determining how to react we obviously need to appraise the situation, and
sometimes this appraisal is so effortless that we probably may not even be
consciously aware of it.
Lazarus also proposed that emotio ns arise after we have appraised any
event as threatening or harmless and have confirmed it! For example,
imagine you hear the sound of rustling bushes and appraise it as a
presence of danger, upon looking into it further, you realize that it was just
the wind, and therefore not a threat.
It is interesting to note that many studies have found some people to be
highly emotional and intense partly because of their interpretations of
emotional stimuli. Therefore, even though the low road functions
automaticall y, the high road could overtake some control over our
emotional life and its interpretations.
4.3 BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF HUMAN EMOTIONS This is a well -established fact that we cannot distinguish between
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82 breathing, and sweating because regardless of the type of emotion,
positive or negative, our body's physiological response is the same!
Fortunately, we can still differentiate between emotions based on subtle
brain activity and the fac ial expressions.
4.3.1 Emotions and the Autonomic Nervous System:
The Autonomic Nervous System is further divided into Sympathetic and
Parasympathetic Nervous System. While the sympathetic nervous system
is involved in the fight or flight response and prep ares our body for such
action, the parasympathetic nervous system helps in calming the body
down once the stress is over and dealt with.
Let's see how this works in greater details - whenever we encounter any
challenging situation, our Sympathetic Nervous System initiates a series of
many quick adaptations, for example, our adrenal glands secrete
catecholamines, more sugar is released in the bloodstream so that our body
can draw more energy, our respiration rate also increases so that we can
receive more ox ygen. Apart from this, the process of digestion also takes a
back seat so that more blood and energy can be provided to our muscles,
and in the event that one is wounded, formation of blood clots also
happens quickly to stop the bleeding. Simultaneously, t he pupils in our
eyes dilate too so that more light enters our visual perception systems and
we are able to see better. Not only this, our rate of perspiration also
increases so that it can help our stirred -up body to cool down. This kind of
physiological response from our body is helpful in successfully
performing the actions that govern our fight or flight response. However,
it is important to also bear in mind the fact that too much of
arousal/tension or too little, both will be detrimental for our perfo rmance.
Therefore, we should try not to be too relaxed or too tensed before and
while undergoing any important activity.
Once the challenging situation has been dealt with and there isn't any more
threat, our parasympathetic nervous system takes the front role and aids in
gradually calming the body down while all the elevated levels come back
to equilibrium.
4.3.2 The Physiology of Emotions:
Different emotions do not typically have very different biological
reactions and they also don't seem to originate f rom specifically distinct
brain areas. Consider the case of the insula in the brain - it gets activated
when we are experiencing social emotions like disgust or pride,
irrespective of the different sources that these feelings arise from. For
example, we cou ld feel disgusted at many things changing from the smell
of spoilt food or the taste of bad food or just the idea of disgusting food or
probably from watching some appalling news about bureaucratic
corruption.
Nonetheless, there is a vast amount of researc h which has proven that the
brain regions involved in different emotions and our biological reactions
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83 Psychology of Emotions differences in our brain patterns and physiological arousals for different
emoti ons. For instance, the temperature of our fingers and the secretion of
hormones are different when we experience fear in comparison with when
we experience rage. When we typically experience fear, our eyebrow
muscles seem to be tensed and when we typically experience joy, the area
under our eyes and our cheeks are pulled to form a smile.
It is interesting to note that different emotions can activate different brain
circuits. For instance, it has been well -established that when we are
exposed to fearful face s, the amygdala shows more activity compared to
when we are exposed to angry faces. It has also been found that when
people feel negative emotions such as disgust, the prefrontal cortex in our
right hemisphere shows more activation than the left. Another i ntriguing
observation made by neuroscientists was that people suffering from
depression typically tend to show more activation in the right frontal lobe ,
whereas people who have relatively positive personalities, are consistent
in their goal directed activ ities, have high enthusiasm and good energy
levels, typically show more activation in the left frontal lobe than the right
one.
Therefore, we can conclude that even though different emotions can't be
distinguished in terms of reactions in the body, other t hings like activity in
the brain and facial expressions can definitely be a game changer.
4.3.3 Gender, Emotion and Nonverbal Behavior:
There has always been a significant gender difference when it came down
to reading emotional cues. Many researches have consistently found that
women compare d to men are far more advanced while picking on
emotional cues. This is applicable even when they are briefly exposed to
other people's behaviour. For example, they are faster and more accurate
in detecting if a couple is genuinely in love or are just pretending.
Psychologists believe that this difference is mainly due to the fact that
women's sensitivity to nonverbal cues is greater because of their emotional
literacy compared to men. In an experiment conducted in 2000 on
emotional literacy by Barrett et. al ., when asked how would they feel
while saying goodbye to a friend, most men only said that they will feel
bad, whereas women said that it will be bittersweet and that they will feel
both happy as well as sad.
The fac t that women tend to be more emotional than men is well
documented. There is a major gender difference in the attributions behind
reactions - women's reactions are typically attributed to their emotions ,
unlike men's reactions which are typically attributed to circumstances ,
except for anger because it is categorised as a more masculine emotion.
Another gender difference found in multiple studies is that women not
only describe themselves to be more empathetic but they are also more
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84 4.4 MEASUREMENT OF EMOTIONS 4.4.1 Detecting Emotions in Others:
Most of us are pretty decent at reading nonverbal cues, especially when
detecting threats. For example, amidst a crowd of faces, an angry face is
easier and faster to detect than a happy one. We often pay close attention
to voice tones, facial expressions, body language, etc. while trying to
determine the emotions of other people.
There are many subtle cues which give away crucial bits of information.
For example , a firm handshake typically represents a confident and
outgoing personality, and a gaze or a stare typically indicates intimacy or
dominance depending on the context.
In an interesting study, where all the participants were tot al strangers to
each other, male -female pairs were made and they were asked to look into
each other's eyes for at least 2 minutes. Not so surprisingly, at the end of
this task, they reported feeling attracted towards each other.
It has also been found that experience has the potential to cause
sensitization towards particular emotions. For example , physically abused
children are faster a t detecting signals of anger.
Lie detection :
Forensic psychologists, researchers, and crime investigators, frequently
use p olygraph tests to detect lies. However, it's effectiveness and
reliability at dep icting lies have always been in question. A polygraph test
typically is based on the fact that certain emotions can lead to certain
physiological changes in cardiovascular act ivity, breathing, sweating, etc
whenever a person is lying. The underlying assumption behind this being
that comparatively speaking, one can control their facial expressions but
not the ir physiological reactions.
The typical process of a polygraph test wor ks in such a way that basic,
regular, and control questions like name, address, occupation, etc are
asked in order to establish a baseline of physiological responses; and once
the baseline is established critical questions about the investigation are
asked . And based on the changes and intensity in physiological response
on the polygraph test, a conclusion is made. Thus, if the level of
physiological arousal while answering the critical questions is weaker than
the baseline, one can typically say that a per son is telling the truth, and if
the physiological arousal for the critical questions is higher than the
baseline, one can conclude that there is a higher probability that the person
is lying.
4.4.2 Culture and Emotional Expression:
Many studies across th e globe have prove n that facial expressions are
universal throughout different cultures. Children typically cry when they
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85 Psychology of Emotions that even those people who are born blind typically show s imilar facial
expressions that are correlated with happiness, sadness, fear, and anger.
Charles Darwin advocated that before the formal establishment of
language as a means of communication, our ancestors in the prehistoric
times communicated with each oth er through facial expressions and this
provided them with a very high survival advantage.
4.4.3 The Effects of facial Expression:
Many researchers have found that facial expressions don't just signify
emotions, they also tend to regulate, amplify, and in fluence them. For
example, it has been observed that the more we explicitly smile, we also
tend to feel better. This phenomenon is called as the facial feedback
hypothesis which advocates that our facial expressions also have the
ability to influence our e xperience of emotion and not just the other way
around.
There have been many interesting experiments which have yielded many
fascinating findings. One s uch experiment was done on patient s suffering
from depression who were administered botox injections. No w, it is a well
established fact that bot ox injections tend to paralyze the facial muscles,
and when these patients suffering from depression were given Botox
injections, the ir faces typically frowned less, which led to the patients
reported feeling better .
Another interesting experiment was able to prove that the finger that we
use to scroll or move up and down while reading a story can also influence
our reactions to it. They found that when participants read the story while
moving an extended middle fin ger, the story seemed harbouring more
hostility and when participants of this experiment read it with a thumb up,
they reported feeling more positive .
4.5 EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND REGULATION 4.5.1 The Need To Belong: Introduction :
The fact that we all ar e social beings and have a strong need for affiliation
with others is very well documented. Aristotle also spoke about how
people would prefer to live with others even with lesser resources rather
than living abundantly and alone. Alfred Adler called our u rge to form
long-lasting, close relationships with others as an "urge to community".
Psychologists have always believed that the need to affiliate has been
advantageous for human beings.
Aiding In Survival :
Evolutionary psychologists have elaborately advoca ted that being in a
group while living in forests and caves, not only gave our ancestors a
survival advantage by collectively fighting against wild animals and
protecting oneself but also evolved and enhanced our cooperation. Our
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86 always more beneficial than hunting an animal larger than oneself
individually.
Evolutionary psychologists believe that all living beings are born with
many instincts that have evolutionarily evolved with time. S urvival and
reproduction are two of the strongest instincts. In the olden times, the
adults who are able to form attachments with others had more probability
of reproducing and propagating their genes. Thus, ensuring that a part of
their genes and biologic al existence is carried forward. Those people who
felt the need to belong and created affiliations with a group, had better
chances of survival and reproduction compared to others who didn't feel
the need to affiliate with anyone. Therefore , evolutionary psychologists
have concluded that being social is inherent to us.
Many studies have also reported that people who form close and
meaningful relationships with others, tend to feel more supported, more
loved, more happy, and those are at a lower risk of bein g inflicted by any
psychological disorder like depression or suicidal ideation compared to
those who do not have such social support systems.
Wanting To Belong :
Another well-established fact is that we derive a lot of gratification,
happiness, and meaning f rom the kind of relationships that we share with
our loved ones. Many studies have also shown that - comparatively
speaking, a happy relationship is more satisfying to an individual than
being rich. In a recent study done by Deci and Ryan in 2002, it was
reported that we feel a profound sense of well-being when our need for
affiliation is balanced with our need for autonomy and competence.
We all tend to feel good and have a better and healthier self -esteem when
we feel loved, accepted, and appreciated. Henc e most of our actions are
directed towards activities which will lead to a higher social acceptance
and we also tend to conform to norms of our society or group, in order to
make a favourable impression of ourself and avoid rejection.
To understand fully h ow much our affiliations with other people matter to
us, just consider how most people typically describe themselves. For
example, when introducing oneself, people tend mention which family,
community, school / college, organization or institution they bel ong to.
Sustaining Relationships :
The fact that familiarity generally leads to liking is also well documented.
Imagine joining a new school or college full of strangers. Initially , when
we do not know anyone, we may feel indifferent towards them. However ,
at the end of that degree or course, parting ways can be very painful and
distressing because of the emotional bonds that we formed with some
people in that group, and promise to be in touch with one another.
Many studies on abusive relationships have found that people tend to
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87 Psychology of Emotions physically and emotionally than be alone. The fear of being alone is so
powerful that people are willing to suffer emotional and physical trauma
but not break away and get separated from their abuser.
A study by Oishi and Shimmack in 2011 found that the children who grew
up frequently relocating to different foster homes, and lacking
opportunities to form long lasting attachments or disruptions in the process
of one, hav e immense difficulty in creating meaningful attachments with
others later in life. It has also been found that children who are neglected
severely have difficulty feeling a sense of belongingness and are typically
withdrawn or frightened.
Some of the best moments of our life are when we have formed close
affiliations whether in terms of forming deep friendships or romantic
relationships. On the contrary, some of the worst moments of our life are
when such important relationships come to an end either due to death or
irreconcilable differences, and we feel lonely, angry, anxious, guilty,
jealous, and/or empty.
The Pain of Ostracism :
Forcibly excluding somebody from a group or society is formally termed
as ostracism. For years together, people have controlled s ocial behaviour
by using ostracism as a form of punishment. In its extreme, ostracism can
take the form of being exiled or being imprisoned in solitary confinement.
Being ignored by a friend or being given silent treatment or being avoided
are milder and c ommonly found forms of ostracism.
Williams and Zardo spoke about how one's need to belong is threatened
when one is given the cold shoulder or silent treatment or simply avoided.
They emphasized that this probably is the meanest thing one can put
someone e lse through especially when the victim can't fight back. It has
also been found that just being in a group that speaks a language that you
don't understand and speak can make you feel extremely excluded and left
out.
When somebody is being socially ostraci zed, initially they may try to get
their acceptance restored, and if they fail to do so, they may go into
withdrawal. This will also have a detrimental effect on their self -esteem.
An interesting study was conducted by Williams et. al . in 2006 wherein
they found that the experience of cyber -ostracism was equal to the
experience of real pain. Cyber -ostracism can we typically termed as being
ignored on various digital platforms of social media. Social ostracism by
not just our loved ones but even by strangers takes a toll on its victim and
was shown to activate the same brain area that typically gets activated
when we are in some physical pain.
It has been found that whenever anyone experiences any form of rejection
and cannot pacify or change the situation, t hey typically tend to seek new
friends or relieve their stress by strengthening their religious faith; or they
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88 empathy or tend to behave aggressively, especially with those who made
them feel excluded.
Social Networking
Technology, today, has led to a considerable change in how we connect
and communicate with other people. Since social networking has spread
through all aspects of our life, it is essential to understand the effect that it
has on us.
The social effects of social networking
Research has found that the more time we spend communicating online in
chat rooms or playing online games, we spend less time with the people
around us and relationships in the real world have immensely suffered
because of that. Since communicating on digital social media platforms
has become the new normal, psychologists are intrigued by the question -
"Are Social Networking Sites Making Us More or Less Socially Isolated?"
In a study done in 2010 by Bone tti et. al ., it was found that people who
feel lonely usually tend to spend more time online than those who don't. It
has also been observed that compared to non -internet users, people who
spend most of their time online typically don't know much about the ir
actual neighbours than they know about their internet friends.
Networking on social media isn't always bad and can also have multiple
advantages. For example, it is easier to connect with like -minded people
who have similar interests from all over the w orld thereby breaking
geographical boundaries. Other examples of benefiting from social media
include connecting with different groups on Facebook or WhatsApp -
increasing our social network, or when any difficulty that gets posted
online, garners support w hich not only makes us feel that we are not alone
but also provides the much -needed encouragement. The most obvious
advantage of social media is that it allows us to stay in touch with our
friends and family who stay in a different city or country.
Anothe r interesting phenomenon which was noticed on social media is
that people usually feel more comfortable while disclosing personal
information online rather than confiding in actual people in their own life.
This lead psychologists to be puzzled by another question - "Does
Electronic Communication Stimulate Healthy Self -disclosure?"
The incidences of people posting a suicide note or video before actually
committing suicide on Facebook are also increasing each day, leading to
the question - "why do people share their distress so openly on social
media rather than talking to someone around?".
There can be multiple explanations for this. Most obvious one being that
these people may not have anyone with whom they could talk face to face
about their problems; Or pro bably because making oneself vulnerable to
someone in person could make a feel weak, self -conscious or harm our
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89 Psychology of Emotions Some people try to depict their true life and share it with their online
friends while some others are probably predators trying to find another
gullible victim to prey on and devour. This made psychologists also
wonder -“If Social Networking Profiles And Posts Reflect Actual
Personalities of People! ”
A concerning observation was that people on social media mostly talk
about themselves - their likes, their dislikes, their experiences, their
thoughts, basically it's all about their life. This has leads psychologists to
wonder “If Social Networking Promotes Narcissism?! ”
To answer this question, to an extent it does, who is these people en joy
being the center of attention and typically compare the number of friends
or followers they have on social media websites or the number of likes
that they get on their posts compared to that of other people. They are
treme ndously active on social media and derive a great deal of pleasure by
having the maximum number of likes or followers. They are trapped in a
vicious cycle where they try to post more glamorous photos to get more
likes.
Maintaining A Balance And Focus :
Mental health experts have suggeste d a few things that we can do in order
to balance our real and virtual world.
Monitor your time :
One can monitor the time that we spend on everything during the day and
analyze whether the time that we have spent on things reflect our actual
priorities.
Monitor your feelings :
It has been suggested that we k eenly observe how we feel when we a ren’t
online. If at all one feels too restless or anxious all the time when they are
not online, it is a clear indication that you are addicted to social media and
need help.
Filter information :
It is also prescribed that before posting anything we must ask ourselves if
we would be interested in reading this if someone else had posted it! We
also have the option to hide posts from people who can be anxiety -
provoking or distressing or simply unfollow/unfriend/block them.
Turning off your mobile phones or keeping them somewhere else :
Many cognitive psychologists have identified that we can't pay full
attention to two things at the same time, and if we do at least one task
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90 Psychology of Cognition and Emotion
90 Going on an internet "fast" :
Many ancient Indian texts talk about fasting (upwaas) as a means of detox,
the same logic can be applied to our addiction to social media as well.
Recharge yourself by reconnecting with the nature :
The benefits of walkin g in a quiet garden and its effect on our capacity to
focus, concentrate, and feel inner peace is very well documented, and we
must follow this practice as and when we get the time to do so or probably
find time to inculcate this practice into our daily or weekly schedule.
4.6 SUMMARY In this unit, we have touched upon three learning items - need to belong,
emotions and happiness.
In need to belong, we looked at the definition and usefulness of need to
belong. We also discussed how ostracism is pain ful for anybody and in
social networking topic we discussed how technology has impacted our
social communications. We also looked at the ways and means of
maintaining a balance between real world and internet world.
In emotions we first talked about its definition, and we discussed four
historical theories of emotion to see the link between cognition and
emotions. The James Lange theory proposed that first comes bodily
response and then we label emotions based on those bodily responses.
Cannon -Bard’s theo ry argued that emotions and autonomic responses
occur simultaneously but separately. One is not the cause of the other. The
individual’s appraisal of the emotion producing situation largely
determines the emotions.
Schachter and Singer believed that to ex perience emotions, we must
consciously interpret and label them. Zajonc, LeDoux and Lazarus noted
that we have many emotional reactions without interference of intellect.
Many emotions occur without our being aware of them. Then we
discussed the physiology of emotions and how emotions can be detected
by others. We also dwelled upon how gender and culture can influence the
expression of emotions, and how facial expression can influence the actual
experience of emotions.
4.7 QUESTIONS 1. Explain the useful ness of need to belong and pain of ostracism.
2. What is social networking and how can we maintain balance between
real world and virtual world.
3. Define emotion and discuss various theories of emotion.
4. How can we detect emotions in others and what role is pla yed by
gender and culture in detecting emotions? munotes.in

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91 Psychology of Emotions 5. Write a short note on
a. Effects of social networking
b. Maintaining balance between real world and virtual world
c. Cannon -Bard theory of emotion
d. Schachter & Singer’s theory of Emotion
4.8 REFERENCES  Myers, D. G. (2013). Psychology .10thedition; International edition.
New York: Worth Palgrave Macmillan, Indian reprint 2013
 Ciccarelli, S. K. & Meyer, G. E. (2008). Psychology. (Indian sub -
continent adaptation). New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India) pvt ltd.

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