Critique worksheet
“The negativity bias is found in what types of cognitive functions? _______________ ______________ and _____________________”
The cognitive functions that exhibit negativity bias are emotional and attention functions. According to the piece, examples of such functions are provided as discernment, decision making and evaluative judgment (Kisley, Wood and Burrows, 2011).
“Carstensen and colleague’s work led to the hypothesized “positivity bias” in aged adults, what mechanism did they propose to explain these findings?”
According to Kisley, Wood and Burrows (2011), Carstensen and her colleague’s work led to the hypothesized “positivity bias” in aged adults. The mechanism that they proposed to support these findings was the effect of enthusiasm processes. They argued that motivational changes were responsible for the optimization of communal and expressive goals. These changes apparently affected both cognitive functions and goals which in turn resulted in attention to positive stimuli. The writer denotes that this is a positive effect for information processing in adults.
“Define an ERP, and state how Kisley created ERP’s in his participants”.
ERP is an “event reacted potential” (Kisley, Wood and Burrows, 2011). It is a procedure used to investigate emotional processing in human beings and in particular the negativity bias of the brain. Kisley created ERP’s in his participants by presenting emotionally valenced images of both unconstructive and affirmative stimuli. The images occurred infrequently against a backdrop of usually presented neutral Images. This gave rise to the “late positive potential” (LPP) waveform which is a distinctive ERP waveform. This LPP produced this way is inconsistent with the presented neutral background. Kisley, Wood and Burrows (2011) denotes that ERP based measurements demonstrate a negative bias by showing increased allocation of neural resources to negative compared to positive information.
“For this study what was the n value before any exclusions and the range of ages studied?”
Before any exclusions, the value of n ranged between n=2, which indicated a difficulty in performing the behavioral task, n=10, which was indicative of an insufficient number of trials available for computing ERP average waveform and another n=2 which showed recording problems. Kisley studied close to 51 persons within the 18 and 81. Furthermore, the statistical scrutiny was achieved with individuals with minimal self-reported image concerns (Kisley, Wood and Burrows, 2011). The participants had to test 20/40 or improved with one eye on the “Snellen visual acuity chart” and interpreted textual orders on a computer screen 2.5 ft away (Kisley, Wood and Burrows, 2011).
“Name the instrument used to quantify the participants’ rating of the emotional valence and arousal level for each of the images”.
Kisley, Wood and Burrows (2011) explain that the instrument used to quantify the participants’ rating of the emotional valence and arousal level for each of the images was a Neuroscan NuAmps amplifier system under control of a laptop computer running Scan 4.2. This amplifier system recorded an electroencephalographic signal. Additionally, the images were presented on a 17-inch panel 2.5 ft away from the participants. The Psychosomatic Software device called E-Prime was used to present the images and to record the responses.
“The recordings presented in figure 1 begin how many milliseconds (ms) before stimulus presentation and end how many ms after the stimulus?”
The recordings presented in figure 1 begin 100 milliseconds (ms) before stimulus and concluded 900 ms after the stimulus production (Kisley, Wood and Burrows, 2011)
“How did the magnitude of the LPP change with increasing age for the negative images?”
“For the positive images?”
According to Kisley, Wood and Burrows (2011), it is evident that the extent of the LPP elicited by negative images decreased with age more significantly. The findings indicated a link between the waveform elicited by the negative images and age. The magnitude of the positive lessened irrelevantly with age. This was apparent in the results which showed no link amid the waveform arising the positive images and age.
“The LPP response to negative images decreases with age, does the average ranking of how negative the participants rated the images also decrease with age”?
The average ranking of how negative the participants rated the images decrease with age. The writer indicates that, the relation between the LPP waveform and the emotional valence of the images changed with age even though skewed ratings for the same images did not .(Kisley, Wood and Burrows, 2011).
“Can people intentionally suppress the level of LPP for negatively valenced images”?
People can intentionally suppress the level of LPP for negatively valenced images. According to Kisley, Wood and Burrows (2011), this was a previously reputable fact. This is through a deliberate effort to minimize unenthusiastic emotional experiences.
“Do you believe this reported age-related decrease in LPP response is intentional”?
It is hard to suppose that the reported age-related decrease in LPP response is intentional. It is evident that the LPP waveform is elicited even when individuals are not willingly attending to the sappy salience of the images as apparent in the article. Moreover, under such involuntary conditions, implicit negativity bias is detectable.
Reference
Kisley, M. Wood, S. and Burrows, C. (2001). Looking at the sunny side of life .Age-Related
change in an Event –Related potential Measure of the Negative Bias. Psychological Science, Vol 18-Number 9
