The Influence Of Emotion On Cognitive Processes

• How emotion may affect one or more cognitive processes?

  Emotion has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in humans, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving. Emotion has a particularly strong influence on attention, especially modulating the selectivity of attention as well as motivating action and behavior
• Flashbulb Memories (FBMs)

  • Proposed by Brown & Kulik (1977) 

  • Vivid, detailed "snapshots" of surprising and emotionally arousing events 

  • Believed to be more resistant to forgetting than ordinary memories
• Characteristics

  • Highly detailed and vivid 

  • Often include seemingly irrelevant contextual details 

  • Perceived as more accurate than regular memories (though not always true) 

  • Usually associated with public or personal events of high emotional impact
• Neural Mechanism


  • Hypothesized special neural mechanism triggered by unexpected/important events 

  • Modern neuroscience supports enhanced memory for emotional events

  • Amygdala plays crucial role in encoding emotional memories
• Importance-Driven Model

  • Current understanding emphasizes personal impact of event

  • Emotional significance leads to stronger, more vivid memories 

  • Rehearsal and retelling may contribute to memory strength
• Amygdala's Role in FBMs

  • Processes strong emotions (fear, stress, arousal) 

  • Interacts with hippocampus for memory consolidation 

  • Assesses emotional significance of events 

  • Stimulates release of stress hormones (adrenaline, cortisol) enhancing memory consolidation
• Strengths of FBM Theory

  • Supported by biological evidence

  • Led to significant findings about memory processing in different brain regions 

  • Broadened understanding of memory formation and emotion's impact
• Limitations and Criticisms

  • Challenging to measure emotional state at time of event 

  • Accuracy of FBMs often cannot be verified in real-life studies 

  • Constructs like personal relevance, surprise, and rehearsal variably defined 

  • Neisser argues confidence, not accuracy, defines FBMs
• Cultural Considerations

  • Cultural differences in FBM formation and maintenance observed 

  • Suggests rehearsal may play more significant role than initially thought
• Predictive Validity


  • Predicts vivid, detailed memories for significant emotional events 

  • Cannot consistently predict accuracy of these memories