1) Memories of visual scenes and of factual information are___ in different ways.

2) Perhaps your ___ will include elements that were not in the office.

3)This common phenomenon demonstrates how___ can influence memory.

4) A schema is an organized ___ of knowledge about a par­ticular object or sequence of events.

5) People are more likely to remember things that are ___ with their schemas than things that are not.

6) Occasionally a planned ___ of long-term memory is ne­cessary.

7) Information stored in ___ is often organized around schemas.

8) Memories can usually be jogged with ___ cues.

9) The tip-of-the tongue phenomenon represents a ___ in re­trieval.

10) Subjects groping for obscure words were ___ in guessing the first letter of the missing word 57% of the time.

Unit 7. EMOTIONS

Oral topic

EMOTIONS

An emotion is generally a response of a person to a situation in which he finds himself. A situation which is out of the ordinary one for an individual is likely to result in emotional activity. This emotional activity is generally random and disorganized. It is accompanied by feelings of pleasantness or unpleasantness and universally associated with marked changes in the chemistry of the body.

Emotions are powerful reactions that have motivating effects on behaviour. Emotions are physiological and psychological responses that influence perception, learning, and performance. Unfortunately, there is no basic definition of emotions. For example, some people take the position that emotion is an entirely different process from motivation. Others say that emotions are simply one class of motives. Some define emotion subjectively - in terms of feelings experienced by the individual. Others see emotions as bodily changes. Most of these people have emphasized the reaction as the main component in emotion, but others concentrate on the perception of the situation that arouses the emotion or the effects of the emotion on ordinary behaviour.

We know an emotion is not an independent element which comes or goes at will. It is initiated by certain perceptions and accompanies the activities which are stimulated by the situation. We all know how much easier it is to work long hours on something we enjoy and how surprised we are to discover that we are suddenly fatigued after such activity. On the other hand, it is exceedingly difficult to work at something we dislike and find ourselves restless settling down to work at something with conscious effort and intent.

Most of our emotions are learned. We are born with a capacity for emotions and physiological structure capable of handling emotionally charged situations, but emotional behaviour as a reaction to particular objects or events is learned. A young child in such a situation as that of frustration may respond by an emotional storm. As he gets older he learns to inhibit the purely emotional response and to exhibit voluntarily controlled behaviour. As he learns to do this, emotional behaviour becomes less common and less intense. Uninhibited emotional responses amongst human adults are normally rare, and when an individual does exhibit outbreaks of rage, panic etc., these are recognised as pathological. They are one of the symptoms of regression or a going back to infantile modes of behaviour.

Throughout the life people may experience different kinds of emotions. The most characteristic for human beings are the so-called altruistic emotions. They may be of two types, i.e. sympathetic and disinterested emotions. We may experience the emotion of fear when we hear a scream of a frightened person or anger, when we hear a friend's voice raised angrily towards some person. The emotion called out in this way is called a sympathetic emotion. Similarly, we may feel anger at an insulting speech about another person which he has not himself heard. The emotion called out in this way on behalf of another person is called a disinterested emotion. The altruistic emotions are of obvious importance in social behaviour.

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions:

1.In what way do psychologists define emotions?

2.What definition do you think is the most significant in the psychological thought?

3.What is an emotional activity accompanied by?

4.What is an emotion initiated by?

5.Are our emotions learned or inborn?

6.What is a child's reaction to a situation characterizedby?

7.Is it easy or difficult for a grown-up person to inhibit an emotional response?

8.What altruistic emotions do you know?

9.What is a sympathetic emotion called?

10.What is a disinterested emotion called?

Exercise 2. Translate into Russian:

With all due respect to the great Ivan Pavlov, when we focus on his demonstration that dogs can be trained to slobber in response to a tone, it is easy to lose sight of the importance of classical conditioning. At first glance, most people do not see a relationship between Pavlov's slobbering dogs and anything that they are even remotely interested in. However, classical conditioning actually contributes to the regulation of many important aspects of behavior, including fears, phobias, and other emotional reactions; immune function and other physiological processes; food preferences; and even sexual arousal. Classical conditioning is routinely used to manipulate emotions in persuasive efforts. If you watch TV, you have been subjected to Pavlovian techniques! An understanding of these techniques can help you recognize when your emotions are being manipulated by advertisers, politicians, and the media.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of classically conditioned emotional responses is that people often are unaware of the origin of these responses, or even that they feel the way they do. Obviously, if a cockroach can be conditioned, the process does not depend on conscious awareness. The fact that conditioning can take place without awareness makes it a highly attractive tool for people who seek to shape others' attitudes. The key to the process is simply to manipulate the automatic, subconscious associations that people make in response to various stimuli. Let's look at how this manipulation is done in advertising, business negotiations, and the world of politics