Cognition and Physiology Factors, and Emotion - Research Paper Example

Cognition and Physiology factor and Emotion This paper is looking at the influence of cognitive and physiological factor interaction with emotion of a person. Emotion is an important part of human mechanism and it can be considered as an adaptive response of human to a particular situation. It can be in the form of fear, anger, sadness, surprise or happiness. These emotions are universal and are expressed and recognized by all in the same way. As per ( Cherry,2013) “Emotions exert an incredibly powerful force on human behavior. Strong emotions can cause you to take actions you might not normally perform, or avoid situations that you generally enjoy”. Emotions are sometimes initiated through physiological or cognitive factors. Cognition is a mental process in which information are handling by the brain with the help of sensory outputs. The mind is working with the help of our sensory outputs and cognitive functioning. By physiology we mean, the internal biological mechanism of any living being. From a biological perspective, emotion can be seen as a somatic bodily function. These can be body arousal, face expressions, physiological changes in nervous system and brain activity. Cognitive functions can influence emotions as conscious and unconscious mental process has influence on mind. As per ( Orteny,1999,pg.4) “To say that emotion arise from cognition is to say that the content, structure and organisation of knowledge representation and the process that operate on them”. Many a times ,emotions can come as a result of defective interpretation of experiences. This can alter our mood and create emotions which are caused by our altered cognitive functioning. For example, if a person makes fun of us in a loving manner we might interpret it as a negative connotation and hence it can create hatred and depression in us. If a partner calls his mate a naughty person that person can take it as a bad comment if she or he thinks it to be a bad characteristic. Moreover, there is a theory which suggests the influence of cognitive function and biological factor influence on emotion by Le Doux. He was a researcher who demonstrated cognitive and biological interaction in emotion. As per ( Levenson,1997, pg.47) “Emotion can be thought of as having a structure consisting of biological and mental layers’. He has conducted research on animals by testing the functioning of their brain circuit. He explained the effect of lesion in circuit of brain tend to condition fear. This means that cognitive functions can impair our emotions. Some brain damage can alter the way we express our emotions. Also if a person has a problem with information processing then he can have delusional or defective thought process which can result in fear, happiness or depression. For example a person having schizophrenia has altered cognitive functioning as they see and hear things but process it differently in brain than other people. So if one patient sees a stranger coming towards them they can think for him to be their lover and can react to them with fear, love or hatred. So the emotion is created by an altered cognitive functioning. Also the brain can have altered chemical processing which can impair the way the patient respond to a situation. Also some study shows that the response of emotions in an autism patient can be different. The autism children with damaged brain have low ability to recognize emotion on facial expressions. Moreover, certain areas of brain as pre- frontal lobe and amygdale have role in emotional processing. It was seen in a research conducted by Branchard and Branchard in 1972 showed that rats lost fear of cats when they has lesion in amygdale. Also birds lost fear of humans when they had lesion in amygdale. Also the strength of the physiological arousal decides the intensity of the emotion. Physiological arousal is necessary for emotion and it depends on the cognitive appraisal of the situation by a person. As per ( Nock,2008,pg.28-38) “Myriad deficits or dysfunctions can occur in the information processing sequence that can influence engagement in maladaptive behaviors, such as problems with cue interpretation, response selection, and response enactment”. When an unexplained arousal is induced in a person he can relate that to the particular environment he is in. Thus the cognitive appraisal can define the arousal as an emotional experience. This is a theory put forward by Schacter and Singer in 1962 and it is called the two factor theory. As per ( Graham,1990,pg.124) “The two factor theory of Schacter and Singer look at emotion from an attributional approach where there is consequence to attribution”. This theory also proves that the hormone and adrenaline can interact with the emotions of a person. A case study was conducted where some students were classified in to four groups who were all men. They were told they are being injected by a chemical called Sufroxin to test its effect on their vision. But in reality they were receiving adrenaline and one group was given instruction on effects of adrenaline and the other group was not given information on the same. And the group with the information on effects of adrenaline could explain the emotion but the other group without instruction could not explain their emotion. So we can understand that only psychological arousal cannot bring emotions but cognitive appraisal can make expression of emotions stronger. So it is concluded by researches that emotions takes place as result of cognitive labelling and physiological cues works in combination .The subjective expression of an emotion depends on the cognitive and physiological factors of a person. Actually cognitive and physiological factors can influence our emotion more than we think. Many people with brain disorders have emotions different than normal people in relation to same situations. Our perception of our bodily symptoms decides our emotional experience. Many brain activities have a role in the expression of emotion in a person and even in animals. A person in order to have emotion need to appraise a situation and this depends upon his cognitive ability and physiology. In case a person cannot process a situation well through his cognition then the intensity of emotion can be varied. Also the external stimuli decide the emotional response of a person. If a person has problem with sensory output then his information processing and the emotional response out of it can be different. A person with amnesia has memory loss and this can affect the cognitive functioning of a person. Emotion has relation to memory and people retain emotions from their past experience. If a person has a distorted memory then the person can have defective emotional response. So the physiology and cognitive functions are affecting the emotion of a person. Impairment to recall memory or form new memory all can change the intensity and quality of emotion in a person. The memory storing, retaining and its formation are all depended upon the cognitive ability and physiology of a person. All the brain activities and brain chemicals have a part to play in the formation of emotions. Emotion is a reflection of the processing of information which is received by the sensory outputs of a person. Any defect in cognitive or physiological aspect can relatively effect emotion. Sometimes our child hood memories can be impaired due to accidents or illness and this can distort our emotion. Sometimes such defects can even cause unexplained fear and depression in a person. Even the way in which interpret certain experience can induce emotion in us. For example if two people watched some fearful program on television the emotion expressed among two of them can be different. It is the nature of their cognitive functioning and physiology which decides their emotion. So only the event cannot decide the quality of the emotion rather it is the cognitive function and physiology of a person which decides the emotional response of a person. A person can interpret emotions in different ways and every person can have feeling of a specific situation in various manners. For example when one watches a movie, everyone would not respond to a situation in the same way. All the people watching a horror movie may not get scared as some may take it lightly, some may respond with fear and person with brain disorder may not react at all. So the importance of cognitive appraisal is high when it comes to emotions. A person need to interpret a situation in a certain way to bring out a specific emotion and it depends on the cognitive and physiological factor of his mechanism. The increase in certain petrochemicals can change the way we react to a situation. The adrenaline can induce physical arousal in people and thus can create emotions in people. Actually, physical arousal is same for many emotions and it is not solely responsible for an emotion. It is important to label that arousal in a particular way to create a particular emotion. Which means simply arousal cannot create emotion but we also need to identify it to bring out an emotion. References Cherry, K. (2013). Theories of Emotions. In http://psychology.about.com. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologytopics/a/theories-of-emotion.htm Graham, S. (1990). Attribution Theory (p. 124). New York: Psychology Press. Levenson, R. W. (1997). Phsyiological Apsect of Emotional Knowledge and Rapport (p. 45). New York: The Guildford Press. Nock, M. K. (2008). Physiological Arousal, Distress Tolerance, and Social Problem–Solving. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76(1), 28-38. Ortony, A. (1999). The Cognitive strucutre of Emotions (p. 4). New York: Cambridge University Press. Read More