Achim Schützwohl

Toward a Process Analysis of Emotions: The Case of Surprise

Based on an earlier model of the processes elicited by surprising events, the present studies provide evidence for one of these processes, the evaluation of the surprising events relevance for ongoing activities (action-relevance check). The central prediction tested was that, if unexpected events elicit among other processes an action-relevance check, then response delay on a concurrent task will be more pronounced in a condition where this process is more elaborate and hence takes more time. In accord with this prediction, Experiment 1 found that an unexpected appearance change of the imperative stimulus in a choice reaction time (RT) task caused greater response delay than an equivalent appearance change of a distractor stimulus. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and tested several additional predictions that concerned the effects on response delay of a second appearance change of either the imperative or the distractor stimuli. These predictions, which were also mostly confirmed, were derived by combining the logic underlying the first study with the assumption that once made, appraisals of unexpected events are stored as part of the situational schema and are reused when the same or similar events reoccur leading to an abbreviation of appraisal processes. Experiment 3 once more replicated the basic finding of the previous studies and ruled out a possible alternative explanation. It is suggested that the proposed RT method of process verification may be of broader interest as a tool to study appraisal processes in emotion.

Surprise and schema strength.

Through 4 experiments, the author investigated the effects of stimuli discrepant with schemas of varying strength on 3 components of surprise: the interruption of ongoing activities (indexed by response time increase), the focusing of attention on the schema-discrepant event (indexed by memory performance), and the feeling of surprise (indexed by self-reports). Response times were consistently found to increase with schema strength. This effect was attributed to the increasing difficulty of schema revision. In contrast, memory for the schema-discrepant event was not affected by schema strength, supporting the hypothesis that schema-discrepant stimuli are stored in memory with a distinct tag. Finally, self-reports of surprise intensity varied with schema strength only if they were made immediately after the surprising event without any intervening questions, suggesting that self-reports of surprise are highly susceptible to memory distortions.

Temporal characteristics of the surprise reaction induced by schema-discrepant visual and auditory events

Abstract Two experiments investigated the effects of a schema-discrepant event on the surprise reaction. Schema-discrepancy concerned a physical feature of irrelevant distractor words that were presented while the subjects performed a choice reaction time task. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the distractors and the task-relevant stimuli was manipulated in both experiments. The occurrence of the schema-discrepant event led to subjective feelings of surprise and enhanced recall of the stimulus material. In Experiment 1, the presentation of a schema-discrepant auditory event resulted in a pronounced increase of reaction time (RT) with a 0.2sec SOA but not with a 1.5sec SOA. In Experiment 2, the effects of both fixed and variable SOAs of four different lengths (simultaneous onset, 0.5sec, 1sec, or 2sec SOA) were investigated within a visual task context. The increase of RT was found to be most pronounced with SOAs of 0.5sec and lsec respectively, and more pronounced with variable than with fixed ...

Children’s and Adults’ Reactions to a Schema-discrepant Event: A Developmental Analysis of Surprise

Three studies investigated age-related differences in the surprise reaction. Study 1 revealed that children and seniors showed a more pronounced action delay in response to a simple, hedonically neutral surprising event than young adults that could not be attributed to a general slowing of information processing. Studies 2 and 3 provided evidence that these age-related differences in action delay between children and young adults were due to children’s greater difficulties to ”nd an explanation for the occurrence of the surprising event and to decide on its relevance for action. These results support the idea that the core mechanism of surprise is evolutionary-based and age-invariant, but its eliciting conditions and consequences depend on developmental changes of knowledge structures.

Which Infidelity Type Makes You More Jealous? Decision Strategies in a Forced-Choice between Sexual and Emotional Infidelity

This study tested the prediction derived from the evolutionary psychological analysis of jealousy that men and women selecting the adaptively primary infidelity type (i.e., female sexual and male emotional infidelity, respectively) in a forced-choice response format need to engage in less elaborate decision strategies than men and women selecting the adaptively secondary infidelity type (i.e., male sexual and female emotional infidelity, respectively). Unknown to the participants, decision times were registered as an index of the elaborateness of their decision strategies. The results clearly support the prediction. Implications and limitations of the present findings are discussed.

The processing of affectively valenced stimuli: The role of surprise

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the surprise mechanism activates a threat detection system that prioritises the processing of threat-related stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants responded to a dot that appeared during the presentation of two words. In the critical trial, one of the two words was either pleasant or unpleasant. In Experiment 2, depending on the condition, the participants had to decide whether at least one of two simultaneously presented pictures depicted either a pleasant or an unpleasant stimulus. In the critical trial, both a pleasant and an unpleasant picture appeared. In both experiments, the stimuli in the critical trial were presented either during routine behaviour or in the context of a surprising event. The results showed that during routine behaviour unpleasant stimuli received more attentive resources than pleasant stimuli only if the affective valence of the stimuli was action-relevant (Experiment 2). In contrast, in the context of surprise, unpleasant words engaged more attentive resources than pleasant words although they were action-irrelevant (Experiment 1). In addition, in the context of surprise, the decision time increase was more pronounced in the pleasant than in the unpleasant experimental group. This finding was interpreted as evidence that the threat detection system of the surprise mechanism initially searches for a threat-related stimulus.

James and the Physical Basis of Emotion: A Comment on Ellsworth

It is argued that P. Ellsworths (1994) interpretation of William Jamess theory of emotions is not supported by his writings. On the basis of textual evidence and systematic considerations, the authors try to show that, in line with the traditional view, Jamess theory holds that emotions are identical with feelings of bodily changes, of which autonomic changes are by far the most important ones (i.e., the only ones necessary and sufficient for emotions). Furthermore, the authors argue that Jamess question of the temporal priority of emotions versus bodily feelings makes good sense even if one acknowledges that these events usually show temporal overlap.

Judging female figures: a new methodological approach to male attractiveness judgments of female waist-to-hip ratio.

The procedure in previous research on attractiveness judgments of female waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) presumably supported an elaborate, effortful and deliberate decision process. In contrast, motivated by evolutionary psychological considerations about the psychological mechanism underlying attractiveness judgments of female WHR, the present study differed from previous research inasmuch as: (a) the participants were uninformed in advance about the various female figures; (b) the exposure time of the female figures was very brief; (c) trials were presented in rapid succession; (d) the participants were instructed to judge spontaneously; (e) forced-choice preference judgments and their underlying judgment times were registered. The results confirmed previous research that men prefer a normal weight figure with a .7 WHR. Additionally, judgments in favor of this figure were made most rapidly. Finally, attractiveness judgments and judgment times were found to be more closely related to those for health than for fecundity or pregnancy judgments.

Decision strategies in continuous ratings of jealousy feelings elicited by sexual and emotional infidelity

Two studies (total N = 689) tested the assumption of DeSteno, Bartlett, Braverman, and Salovey (2002) that sex differences in jealousy predicted by the evolutionary view are an artifact of measurement because they are restricted to a forced-choice response format and do not emerge when using continuous jealousy ratings. In Study 1, men and women rated how much a mates emotional and sexual infidelity contributed to their jealousy feeling. In Study 2, men and women rated the intensity of their jealousy feeling elicited by a mates emotional and sexual infidelity. In one condition they were asked to make their ratings spontaneously whereas in the other condition they were instructed to make their ratings only after careful consideration. The results of both studies lend no support for the artifact-of-measurement assumption. The implications of the present finding for the assumption of DeSteno et al. (2002) are discussed.

The Cognitive-Evolutionary Model of Surprise: A Review of the Evidence

Research on surprise relevant to the cognitive-evolutionary model of surprise proposed by Meyer, Reisenzein, and Schützwohl (1997) is reviewed. The majority of the assumptions of the model are found empirically supported. Surprise is evoked by unexpected (schema-discrepant) events and its intensity is determined by the degree if schema-discrepancy, whereas the novelty and the valence of the eliciting events probably do not have an independent effect. Unexpected events cause an automatic interruption of ongoing mental processes that is followed by an attentional shift and attentional binding to the events, which is often followed by causal and other event analysis processes and by schema revision. The facial expression of surprise postulated by evolutionary emotion psychologists has been found to occur rarely in surprise, for as yet unknown reasons. A physiological orienting response marked by skin conductance increase, heart rate deceleration, and pupil dilation has been observed to occur regularly in the standard version of the repetition-change paradigm of surprise induction, but the specificity of these reactions as indicators of surprise is controversial. There is indirect evidence for the assumption that the feeling of surprise consists of the direct awareness of the schema-discrepancy signal, but this feeling, or at least the self-report of surprise, is also influenced by experienced interference. In contrast, facial feedback probably does contribute substantially to the feeling of surprise and the evidence for the hypothesis that surprise is affected by the difficulty of explaining an unexpected event is, in our view, inconclusive. Regardless of how the surprise feeling is constituted, there is evidence that it has both motivational and informational effects. Finally, the prediction failure implied by unexpected events sometimes causes a negative feeling, but there is no convincing evidence that this is always the case, and we argue that even if it were so, this would not be a sufficient reason for regarding this feeling as a component, rather than as an effect of surprise.