Special Issues of Cognition and Emotion - Böcker

The concepts 'affect', 'valence' and 'attitude' are all fundamentally linked to the basic psychological dimension of good vs bad, positive vs negative, approach vs avoid. Affective processing refers to the act of determining the location of a stimulus on the affective dimension. Over the past few decades, scholars of emotion theory, social psychology, and learning psychology have put forward the hypothesis that affective processing does not depend on controlled cognitive processing. That is, they propose that organisms are able to determine whether a stimulus is good or bad without engaging in intentional, goal-directed, conscious, or capacity-demanding processing of the (evaluative attributes of the) stimulus. Rather, affective processing could occur automatically. Such automatic affective processing was believed to have an important impact on subsequent cognitive processing and behaviour.These proposals led to a multitude of research. New paradigms were developed that allow one to study the conditions under which stimulus valence can be processed and efforts were directed at understanding how such affective processing influences subsequent cognitive processing and behaviour. The aim of this special issue is to provide an overview of some of (a) the paradigms that are available to study automatic affective processing, (b) the knowledge about affective processing that has been gained over the last years, and (c) the issues and questions that are currently being addressed and that will most likely dominate the research in years to come.

Of all the psychiatric disorders, depression is by far the most common, affecting between 8 and 18 percent of the general population at some point in their lives. Although the heterogeneity of the affective disorders makes it unlikely that a single set of factors can adequately explain the full range of phenomena associated with depression, there has been a swell of research over the past two decades designed to examine cognitive factors in the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of this disorder.Whereas early work in this area tended to examine responses of depressed persons to questionnaires assessing cognitions, more recent research has drawn both theoretically and methodologically from experimental cognitive psychology, including work in information processing, social cognition, and cognitive neuropsychology.In an effort to examine the current state of research and theory in this area, the National Institute of Mental Health held a workshop on "The Cognitive Psychology of Depression" - this special issue is a result of that workshop. The papers represent a wide range of approaches to examining the relation between cognition and depression, and include studies assessing attention, memory, and schematic processing of both self-referential and neutral information, as well as examinations of transient mood effects and underlying brain activity. Moreover, the papers cover a diverse set of samples (including children and young and middle-aged adults, and unipolar depressed, bipolar depressed, and formerly depressed individuals) and encompass a range of severity of depressive symptoms.Finally, a closing commentary identifies and discusses issues raised by this group of papers, and offers suggestions concerning fruitful directions for future research in the study of cognition and depression.

This Special Issue is concerned with the effects of three emotional states (positive affect; anxiety; and depression) on performance. More specifically, the contributors focus on the potential mediating effects of attention and of executive processes of working memory. The evidence discussed suggests that anxiety and depression both impair the executive functions of shifting and inhibition, in part due to task-irrelevant processing (e.g., rumination; worry). In contrast, positive affect seems to enhance the shifting function and does not impair the inhibition function. The complicating role of motivational intensity is also discussed, as are implications for future research.

Magda B. Arnold (1903-2002), is a pioneering figure of 20th Century emotions research whose pathbreaking and comprehensive theory of emotion is an ambitious fusion of research in cognition, motivation, neuroscience, and personality. Contributors' reviews and critiques of Arnold's work offer a panorama of 20th Century emotion science, revealing where progress has been made, particularly in understanding appraisal processes, and highlighting issues that emotions researchers continue to grapple with, especially questions concerning emotion and value, optimal human functioning, and the complexity of affective and motivational pathways in the brain.Initially drawn to study emotion in the early 1940s because of her interest in personality psychology, Magda Arnold became a leader in the revival of the psychology of emotion, long neglected while behaviourism was the prevailing paradigm. Arnold's life story is no less complex and inspiring than her multifaceted view of human emotion. She was a woman in a field substantially dominated by men, a devout Roman Catholic at a time when the scientific objectivity of Catholic scholars was questioned, and an immigrant, first to Canada and then the U.S., whose early life had provided her with no advantages and little opportunity.Contributors provide insight into the intellectual forebears and theoretical scope of Arnold's emotion theory, and apply her insights to illuminate pressing questions that face contemporary researchers of emotion, motivation, and affective neuroscience.

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that depression and reported history of trauma are associated with a difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories, a phenomenon called overgeneral memory (Williams & Broadbent, 1986). Over the past twenty years there has been a stimulating progression in knowledge in this field, and it is clear that the topic has a considerable level of importance, both from a theoretical and clinical perspective. This Special Issue is intended to further advance this field which lies at the heart of the cognition-emotion interface. Papers published in this Issue address key issues relating to the underlying mechanisms and aetiology of overgeneral autobiographical memory, providing a state-of-the-art and pushing the field forward.

Of all the psychiatric disorders, depression is by far the most common, affecting between 8 and 18 percent of the general population at some point in their lives. Although the heterogeneity of the affective disorders makes it unlikely that a single set of factors can adequately explain the full range of phenomena associated with depression, there has been a swell of research over the past two decades designed to examine cognitive factors in the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of this disorder.Whereas early work in this area tended to examine responses of depressed persons to questionnaires assessing cognitions, more recent research has drawn both theoretically and methodologically from experimental cognitive psychology, including work in information processing, social cognition, and cognitive neuropsychology.In an effort to examine the current state of research and theory in this area, the National Institute of Mental Health held a workshop on "The Cognitive Psychology of Depression" - this special issue is a result of that workshop. The papers represent a wide range of approaches to examining the relation between cognition and depression, and include studies assessing attention, memory, and schematic processing of both self-referential and neutral information, as well as examinations of transient mood effects and underlying brain activity. Moreover, the papers cover a diverse set of samples (including children and young and middle-aged adults, and unipolar depressed, bipolar depressed, and formerly depressed individuals) and encompass a range of severity of depressive symptoms.Finally, a closing commentary identifies and discusses issues raised by this group of papers, and offers suggestions concerning fruitful directions for future research in the study of cognition and depression.

Preferences are assumed to play a crucial role in many phenomena that are studied in learning psychology, social psychology, consumer science, emotion research, and clinical psychology. Given the pervasive impact that preferences have on behaviour, it is important to know where these likes and dislikes come from. Although some preferences are genetically determined, most stem from learning that took place during the lifetime of the individual. In this special issue, the editors focus on one such type of learning: associative learning of likes and dislikes, that is, changes in liking that are due to the pairing of stimuli. Prior studies on evaluative conditioning have shown that pairing an affectively neutral stimulus with an affectively positive or negative stimulus will change the liking of the originally neutral stimulus. The papers that are part of this special issue explore the relevance of evaluative conditioning for social psychology, provide new data about the impact of contingency awareness, attention, and extinction trials on evaluative conditioning, and examine whether pairing stimuli can also result in the transfer of non-evaluative stimulus properties.

Influential theories on affect and emotion propose a fundamental differentiation between emotion and cognition, and research paradigms designed to test them focus on differences rather than similarities between affective and cognitive processes. This research orientation is increasingly challenged by the widespread and successful use of cognitive research paradigms in the study of affect and emotion – a challenge with far-reaching implications. Where and on what basis do theorists draw the line between cognition and emotion, and when is it useful to do so? Should researchers build more global, integrative models of cognition and emotion, or should they rely on local, content-specific models that draw attention to a differentiation between affective and cognitive processes? This special issue compiles different viewpoints on fundamental issues in the relationship between affect and cognition.

Despite the negative impact of anxiety in children, theories and research have lagged behind their adult counterparts. This special issue arose from an Economic and Social Research Council funded seminar series (Child Anxiety Theory and Treatment, CATTS). It highlights four themes in theories and research into child anxiety: the appropriateness of applying adult models to children, the need to isolate causal variables, the need to take a developmental perspective, and the importance of parents. This issue aims to stimulate debate about theoretical issues that will inform future child anxiety research.

For the past three decades theorizing and research on the relationship between culture and emotion has tended to concentrate on the seemingly straightforward issue of whether or not emotions are universal. This was reflected in a dispute in which it seemed only possible to choose between the two extremes, namely a cultural-relativist point of view or a universalist point of view. However, recent empirical evidence concerning cultural variation in emotion has expanded and is generally consistent with the view that an extreme position in this controversy is untenable. Currently, there is abundant research trying to gain insight into the subtleties of cultural effects, rather than in the 'yes' or 'no' issue.The papers selected for inclusion in this special issue on culture and emotion bear witness in their different ways to a new awareness of the need to approach the issue of the relation between culture and emotion in a way that goes beyond the universalism-relativism debate. One issue that is attracting increased research attention is the role of emotion language in emotion research. Three papers included here address the issue of language. A second theme concerns the distinction between individualism and collectivism and related cultural dimensions such as honour, and its implication for the experience and expression of emotions. Three papers address the effects of this cultural dimension; one is on crying, another on well-being and positive feelings, and a third on anger-related emotions. Finally, a last theme that is considered in this special issue is the way in which emotions are expressed in inter-racial interactions.

The beginning of the 1990's saw a partisan debate about the nature of recovered memories for highly emotional events. Some authors claimed that recovered memories of trauma always referred to veridical memories that had been inaccessible for years. Others argued that such memories were false by definition and that they were created by therapeutic attempts to uncover trauma that was believed to lie at the root of anxiety or depression. Although the debate soon moved to a middle ground, both sides fuelled the development of relevant experimental paradigms to explore the mechanisms for how false memories might be created and also how true memories might be forgotten. Examples are studies looking at memory implanting, false word memory, and retrieval-induced forgetting in the mid-1990's. Many studies using such paradigms, however, relied on emotionally neutral material. Studies relating to trauma were less readily available. Now more and more researchers are bridging this gap, testing whether emotive material can be implanted and forgotten and whether there are special populations more susceptible to these effects. This special issue brings together papers examining emotion and memory malleability, both providing a picture of the state-of-the-art research and pushing the field forward.

Influential theories on affect and emotion propose a fundamental differentiation between emotion and cognition, and research paradigms designed to test them focus on differences rather than similarities between affective and cognitive processes. This research orientation is increasingly challenged by the widespread and successful use of cognitive research paradigms in the study of affect and emotion – a challenge with far-reaching implications. Where and on what basis do theorists draw the line between cognition and emotion, and when is it useful to do so? Should researchers build more global, integrative models of cognition and emotion, or should they rely on local, content-specific models that draw attention to a differentiation between affective and cognitive processes? This special issue compiles different viewpoints on fundamental issues in the relationship between affect and cognition.

Despite the negative impact of anxiety in children, theories and research have lagged behind their adult counterparts. This special issue arose from an Economic and Social Research Council funded seminar series (Child Anxiety Theory and Treatment, CATTS). It highlights four themes in theories and research into child anxiety: the appropriateness of applying adult models to children, the need to isolate causal variables, the need to take a developmental perspective, and the importance of parents. This issue aims to stimulate debate about theoretical issues that will inform future child anxiety research.

For the past three decades theorizing and research on the relationship between culture and emotion has tended to concentrate on the seemingly straightforward issue of whether or not emotions are universal. This was reflected in a dispute in which it seemed only possible to choose between the two extremes, namely a cultural-relativist point of view or a universalist point of view. However, recent empirical evidence concerning cultural variation in emotion has expanded and is generally consistent with the view that an extreme position in this controversy is untenable. Currently, there is abundant research trying to gain insight into the subtleties of cultural effects, rather than in the 'yes' or 'no' issue.The papers selected for inclusion in this special issue on culture and emotion bear witness in their different ways to a new awareness of the need to approach the issue of the relation between culture and emotion in a way that goes beyond the universalism-relativism debate. One issue that is attracting increased research attention is the role of emotion language in emotion research. Three papers included here address the issue of language. A second theme concerns the distinction between individualism and collectivism and related cultural dimensions such as honour, and its implication for the experience and expression of emotions. Three papers address the effects of this cultural dimension; one is on crying, another on well-being and positive feelings, and a third on anger-related emotions. Finally, a last theme that is considered in this special issue is the way in which emotions are expressed in inter-racial interactions.

The beginning of the 1990's saw a partisan debate about the nature of recovered memories for highly emotional events. Some authors claimed that recovered memories of trauma always referred to veridical memories that had been inaccessible for years. Others argued that such memories were false by definition and that they were created by therapeutic attempts to uncover trauma that was believed to lie at the root of anxiety or depression. Although the debate soon moved to a middle ground, both sides fuelled the development of relevant experimental paradigms to explore the mechanisms for how false memories might be created and also how true memories might be forgotten. Examples are studies looking at memory implanting, false word memory, and retrieval-induced forgetting in the mid-1990's. Many studies using such paradigms, however, relied on emotionally neutral material. Studies relating to trauma were less readily available. Now more and more researchers are bridging this gap, testing whether emotive material can be implanted and forgotten and whether there are special populations more susceptible to these effects. This special issue brings together papers examining emotion and memory malleability, both providing a picture of the state-of-the-art research and pushing the field forward.

Preferences are assumed to play a crucial role in many phenomena that are studied in learning psychology, social psychology, consumer science, emotion research, and clinical psychology. Given the pervasive impact that preferences have on behaviour, it is important to know where these likes and dislikes come from. Although some preferences are genetically determined, most stem from learning that took place during the lifetime of the individual. In this special issue, the editors focus on one such type of learning: associative learning of likes and dislikes, that is, changes in liking that are due to the pairing of stimuli. Prior studies on evaluative conditioning have shown that pairing an affectively neutral stimulus with an affectively positive or negative stimulus will change the liking of the originally neutral stimulus. The papers that are part of this special issue explore the relevance of evaluative conditioning for social psychology, provide new data about the impact of contingency awareness, attention, and extinction trials on evaluative conditioning, and examine whether pairing stimuli can also result in the transfer of non-evaluative stimulus properties.

Magda B. Arnold (1903-2002), is a pioneering figure of 20th Century emotions research whose pathbreaking and comprehensive theory of emotion is an ambitious fusion of research in cognition, motivation, neuroscience, and personality. Contributors' reviews and critiques of Arnold's work offer a panorama of 20th Century emotion science, revealing where progress has been made, particularly in understanding appraisal processes, and highlighting issues that emotions researchers continue to grapple with, especially questions concerning emotion and value, optimal human functioning, and the complexity of affective and motivational pathways in the brain.Initially drawn to study emotion in the early 1940s because of her interest in personality psychology, Magda Arnold became a leader in the revival of the psychology of emotion, long neglected while behaviourism was the prevailing paradigm. Arnold's life story is no less complex and inspiring than her multifaceted view of human emotion. She was a woman in a field substantially dominated by men, a devout Roman Catholic at a time when the scientific objectivity of Catholic scholars was questioned, and an immigrant, first to Canada and then the U.S., whose early life had provided her with no advantages and little opportunity.Contributors provide insight into the intellectual forebears and theoretical scope of Arnold's emotion theory, and apply her insights to illuminate pressing questions that face contemporary researchers of emotion, motivation, and affective neuroscience.

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that depression and reported history of trauma are associated with a difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories, a phenomenon called overgeneral memory (Williams & Broadbent, 1986). Over the past twenty years there has been a stimulating progression in knowledge in this field, and it is clear that the topic has a considerable level of importance, both from a theoretical and clinical perspective. This Special Issue is intended to further advance this field which lies at the heart of the cognition-emotion interface. Papers published in this Issue address key issues relating to the underlying mechanisms and aetiology of overgeneral autobiographical memory, providing a state-of-the-art and pushing the field forward.

This Special Issue is concerned with the effects of three emotional states (positive affect; anxiety; and depression) on performance. More specifically, the contributors focus on the potential mediating effects of attention and of executive processes of working memory. The evidence discussed suggests that anxiety and depression both impair the executive functions of shifting and inhibition, in part due to task-irrelevant processing (e.g., rumination; worry). In contrast, positive affect seems to enhance the shifting function and does not impair the inhibition function. The complicating role of motivational intensity is also discussed, as are implications for future research.