Chapter 6

Arousal, Behavior, and Affective Tone

I. Arousal and Performance

• A. An Analogy for Arousal– Arousal: mobilization or activation of energy for

and during behavior.– Arousal increases the vigor of behavior and affects

the efficiency.

I. Arousal and Performance

• B. Categories of Arousal– 1. Physiological Arousal

• Changes in sympathetic nervous system, e.g., heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and perspiration.

– 2. Brain Arousal• Positron emission topography and magnetic resonating imaging

measure blood, glucose use, and oxygen flow in active brain areas.

– 3. Psychological Arousal• Activation-Deactivation Adjective Check List measures the

degree of energetic (tired-lively) arousal and tense (calm-anxious) arousal.

• Energetic is highest midday and lowest early morning and night.

I. Arousal and Performance

• C. Source of Arousal– 1. Stimuli

• Cue function determines type of response.

• Arousing function determines intensity of response.

– 2. Collative Variables• Stimulus novelty, complexity and incongruity determine arousal.

– 3. Incentives• They energize approach/avoidance behavior and heighten

arousal.

– 4. Tasks• Person becomes aroused to perform a task based on need,

value of task incentive, and likelihood of success.

I. Arousal and Performance

• D. Arousal within and among Individuals• Stimulation increases arousal. Individuals vary in degree

of increase.

• E. Dimensionality of Arousal• Unidimensionality: arousal is a single dimension that

ranges from sleep to excitement.• Directional fractionation of response: arousal varies

along several dimensions that do not all correlate with one another.

I. Arousal and Performance

• F. Arousal and Behavior– 1. Inverted-U Relationships

• As stimulation or arousal increases, performance increases, levels off, and then declines.

• Trait anxiety: personality trait to perceive environment negatively.

• State anxiety: situation evokes apprehension or tension.

– 2. Yerkes-Dodson Law• Arousal interacts with task complexity: low arousal for best

performance on difficult tasks; high arousal for best performance on easy tasks.

– 3. Zones of Optimal Functioning• Individual inverted-U curves each with a zone of optimal

arousal where an athlete performs best.

I. Arousal and Performance

• G. Explanations for Arousal-Performance Relationships– 1. Arousal as Response Magnifier

• Arousal increases strength of all responses, both correct and incorrect.

I. Arousal and Performance

– 2. Cusp Catastrophe Model• Cognitive and physiological arousal interact: at higher levels of

cognitive, increases in physiological produces optimal performance (cusp), further increases shatters performance (catastrophe).

– 3. Cue Utilization Hypothesis• With increased arousal, less attention is given to problem cues.

– 4. Arousal and Memory• As arousal increases, there is better recall of central detail and

a decline in recall of peripheral detail.

– 5. Cool and Hot Memory Systems• Cool memory in hippocampus works best under low arousal

and hot memory (amygdala) works best under high arousal.

II. Arousal and Affective tone

• A. Variation in Affective Tone• Arousal may be tinged with positive or negative affect.

– 1. Optimal Level of Stimulation Theory• As arousal increases, the degree of pleasantness of

affective tone increases, levels off, and then decreases in an inverted-U fashion.

– 2. Arousal Regulation via the Negative Feedback Loop

• A person maintains a desired level of arousal by changes in behavior.

• Arousal model of interpersonal intimacy: people adjust their behavior (eye contact) with others to maintain a comfortable level of arousal.

II. Arousal and Affective tone

• A. Variation in Affective Tone– 3. When Arousal Is Too Low

• Sensory deprivation: reducing sensory stimulation from touch, sound, and light to lowest level possible. Situation is boring and aversive.

• B. Arousal, Stimulus Complexity, and Preference• Intermediate complexity is preferred over lesser or greater

complexity.

• Repeated exposure decreases perceived stimulus complexity.

• This results in decreased liking for simple stimuli and increased liking for

• complex stimuli.

II. Arousal and Affective tone

• C. Incongruity-Resolution and Affect– 1. Schemas, Assimilation, and Accommodation

• Schemas: knowledge structures of environmental regularities.

• Assimilation: new information is integrated into an existing schema.

• Accommodation: schema is modified to assimilate new information.

II. Arousal and Affective tone

– 2. Schema Incongruity Model• Successful assimilation and accommodation of

information yields positive affect. Unsuccessful accommodation yields negative affect.

– 3. Incongruity Resolution, Arousal, and Humor• A punch line is resolved when it is assimilated into an

alternative schema imbedded in the joke stem. This resolution triggers humor.

– 4. Arousal-Safety Model of Laughter• Incongruities judged safe trigger humor; judged

dangerous trigger fear

II. Arousal and Affective tone

• D. Music– 1. Music Regulates Arousal

• Music alters arousal and induces positive or negative affect.

– 2. Incongruity Resolution and Appreciation of Music

• The enjoyment of music comes from assimilating pieces of music into activated musical schemas.

– 3. Musical Complexity• As musical complexity increases, liking of the music

increases, levels off, and then decreases (inverted-U relationship).

II. Arousal and Affective tone

• D. Music– 4. Musical Complexity and Experience

• With experience, complex music is enjoyed more and simple music is enjoyed less.

– `Musical grammar processor: it assimilates musical notes into a primitivemusical grammar processor that works the same way each time and is sealed off from memory.