Biological Approach
● All thoughts, feelings & behavior ultimately have a biological cause.
● Looking at psychological issues by studying the physical basis
Canli et. al (2000)
A brain-scanning study looking at the links between the amygdala and memory for
emotional experience
Aim:
● To show that emotive images will be remembered better than those that have
little emotional impact on an individual
● To find out if the level of emotional intensity enhances memory for the stimuli
● To find out if the amygdala is sensitive to varying degrees of emotional intensity
from external stimuli
● To find out what degree of emotional intensity affects the role of the amygdala in
enhancing the memory of emotional stimuli
Dependent Variables
● Level of activation in the human amygdala during the first stage of the
experiment when the participants were exposed to each of the 96 scenes (the
effect that this arousal level had on the memory of each picture)
○ During functional scanning, 11 frames were captured per trial
■ For each of the 96 scenes, there were 11 fMRI measures of neural
activity
● Later memory (3 weeks after)
Independent Variables
● Level of arousal of each picture shown to the participants (0-3 scale)
Research method
● Laboratory experiment
○ fMRI scanner was needed which is big and heavy, therefore the study was
conducted in a laboratory
○ The environment where the participants were tested was not similar to an
everyday situation
, ● Repeated measures design
○ Participants contributed to each of the 4 conditions of rating, and also
were unexpectedly asked to repeat the procedure again three weeks after
Sample
● 10 right-handed healthy female volunteers
○ Right-handed? Left brain activated
○ Female? More likely to report intense emotional experience & show more
psychological reactions
Procedure
● Participants were lying inside a 1.5 Tesla fMRI scanner
○ Everyone had given informed consent & was informed about the aim
● Participants viewed a series of 96 scenes that were presented via an overhead
projector and mirror allow them to view inside the fMRI comfortably
● All 96 pictures were randomly ordered and were from the “International Affective
Picture System” stimuli set, with average ratings for valence ranged from 1.17
(high arousal) to 5.44 (neutral)
● Images were presented for 2.88 seconds each
● An interval of 12.96 seconds showing a fixation cross
● After the replacement with a fixation cross, they were to indicate their emotional
arousal by pressing a button with their right hand
○ Had to choose between 4 buttons, emotional arousal scale from 0 (“not
emotionally intensive at all”) to 3 (“extremely emotionally intensive ”)
● While the participants are laying in the scanner, the fMRI machine collected
information about the brain activity (using contrast imaging method
○ To measure blood-oxygen level-dependent contrast
● 3 weeks after, participants were tested in an unexpected recognition test in the
lab
○ Where they viewed all 96 images with additional 48 foils
■ Were asked to judge if the pictures were forgotten, remembered
with certainty, or familiar
, Valence: when discussing emotions this refers to the attractiveness (positive valence)
or aversiveness (negative valence) of an event, object, or situation
Results
● There was a correlation of -0.66 & 0.68 between the normative valence of the
picture and participants’ subjective valence rating
● Participants’ experience of emotional intensity in the study correlated well with
average ratings of the emotional arousal & valence
● Amygdala activation was significantly correlated with higher ratings of individually
experienced emotional intensity
○ Provides evidence that amygdala activation is related to the subjective
sense of emotional intensity and that the participants’ perceived arousal is
associated with amygdala activation
● Follow-up memory task indicated that memory performance was significantly
improved for scenes that were rated as highly emotionally intense
○ 0-2 had similar distributions of items that were forgotten, familiar, or
remembered
○ 3 were recalled better
● For scenes that were rated highly emotional (3), the degree of left but not right
amygdala activation predicted whether individual stimuli would be forgotten,
familiar, or remembered in a later memory test
○ Therefore, little amygdala activation when viewing a picture rated as highly
emotionally intense was associated with the participant’s forgetting the
stimulus
○ But intermediate and high amygdala activation was associated with a
participant’s later report of familiarity or confident recognition
Conclusion
● The more emotionally intensive the stimulus, the more likely it will be
remembered
○ Explains why people remember emotionally intense experiences well
■ The level of arousal a person is under could affect the strength of a
memory trace
● All thoughts, feelings & behavior ultimately have a biological cause.
● Looking at psychological issues by studying the physical basis
Canli et. al (2000)
A brain-scanning study looking at the links between the amygdala and memory for
emotional experience
Aim:
● To show that emotive images will be remembered better than those that have
little emotional impact on an individual
● To find out if the level of emotional intensity enhances memory for the stimuli
● To find out if the amygdala is sensitive to varying degrees of emotional intensity
from external stimuli
● To find out what degree of emotional intensity affects the role of the amygdala in
enhancing the memory of emotional stimuli
Dependent Variables
● Level of activation in the human amygdala during the first stage of the
experiment when the participants were exposed to each of the 96 scenes (the
effect that this arousal level had on the memory of each picture)
○ During functional scanning, 11 frames were captured per trial
■ For each of the 96 scenes, there were 11 fMRI measures of neural
activity
● Later memory (3 weeks after)
Independent Variables
● Level of arousal of each picture shown to the participants (0-3 scale)
Research method
● Laboratory experiment
○ fMRI scanner was needed which is big and heavy, therefore the study was
conducted in a laboratory
○ The environment where the participants were tested was not similar to an
everyday situation
, ● Repeated measures design
○ Participants contributed to each of the 4 conditions of rating, and also
were unexpectedly asked to repeat the procedure again three weeks after
Sample
● 10 right-handed healthy female volunteers
○ Right-handed? Left brain activated
○ Female? More likely to report intense emotional experience & show more
psychological reactions
Procedure
● Participants were lying inside a 1.5 Tesla fMRI scanner
○ Everyone had given informed consent & was informed about the aim
● Participants viewed a series of 96 scenes that were presented via an overhead
projector and mirror allow them to view inside the fMRI comfortably
● All 96 pictures were randomly ordered and were from the “International Affective
Picture System” stimuli set, with average ratings for valence ranged from 1.17
(high arousal) to 5.44 (neutral)
● Images were presented for 2.88 seconds each
● An interval of 12.96 seconds showing a fixation cross
● After the replacement with a fixation cross, they were to indicate their emotional
arousal by pressing a button with their right hand
○ Had to choose between 4 buttons, emotional arousal scale from 0 (“not
emotionally intensive at all”) to 3 (“extremely emotionally intensive ”)
● While the participants are laying in the scanner, the fMRI machine collected
information about the brain activity (using contrast imaging method
○ To measure blood-oxygen level-dependent contrast
● 3 weeks after, participants were tested in an unexpected recognition test in the
lab
○ Where they viewed all 96 images with additional 48 foils
■ Were asked to judge if the pictures were forgotten, remembered
with certainty, or familiar
, Valence: when discussing emotions this refers to the attractiveness (positive valence)
or aversiveness (negative valence) of an event, object, or situation
Results
● There was a correlation of -0.66 & 0.68 between the normative valence of the
picture and participants’ subjective valence rating
● Participants’ experience of emotional intensity in the study correlated well with
average ratings of the emotional arousal & valence
● Amygdala activation was significantly correlated with higher ratings of individually
experienced emotional intensity
○ Provides evidence that amygdala activation is related to the subjective
sense of emotional intensity and that the participants’ perceived arousal is
associated with amygdala activation
● Follow-up memory task indicated that memory performance was significantly
improved for scenes that were rated as highly emotionally intense
○ 0-2 had similar distributions of items that were forgotten, familiar, or
remembered
○ 3 were recalled better
● For scenes that were rated highly emotional (3), the degree of left but not right
amygdala activation predicted whether individual stimuli would be forgotten,
familiar, or remembered in a later memory test
○ Therefore, little amygdala activation when viewing a picture rated as highly
emotionally intense was associated with the participant’s forgetting the
stimulus
○ But intermediate and high amygdala activation was associated with a
participant’s later report of familiarity or confident recognition
Conclusion
● The more emotionally intensive the stimulus, the more likely it will be
remembered
○ Explains why people remember emotionally intense experiences well
■ The level of arousal a person is under could affect the strength of a
memory trace
