Arousal
Easterbrook's hypothesis suggests that under high-stress conditions, individuals tend to focus on a narrower set of cues and may overlook relevant information, leading to a decrease in decision-making effectiveness.
The neurons arise in the ventral tegmental area in the midbrain, and projects to the nucleus accumbens, the striatum forebrain, limbic system, and prefrontal cortex.
One example is the ventrolateral preoptic area, which release GABA reuptake inhibitors, which interrupt wakefulness and arousal.
According to Hans Eysenck, differences in baseline arousal level lead people to be either extraverts or introverts.
It predicted that high levels of arousal will lead to attention narrowing, during which the range of cues from the stimulus and the environment decreases.
Campbell and Hawley (1982) studied the differences in introverts versus extroverts responses to particular work environments in the library.
[9] Daoussiss and McKelvie's (1986) research showed that introverts performed worse on memory tasks when they were in the presence of music compared to silence.
[9] Similarly, Belojevic, Slepcevic and Jokovljevic (2001) found that introverts had more concentration problems and fatigue in their mental processing when work was coupled with external noise or distracting factors.
The choleric react immediately, and the arousal is strong, lasting, and can easily create new excitement about similar situations, ideas, or impressions.
[14] Sanguine people (or those with high extraversion and low neuroticism) had the lowest overall levels of internal arousal, or a "predominance of inhibition".
The process goes: event (family member dies) → physiological arousal (tears) and emotion (sadness) simultaneously.
[16] The fact that people can experience different emotions when they have the same pattern of physiological arousal is one argument in favor of the Cannon-Bard theory.
[18] This theory states that events cause the autonomic nervous system to induce physiological arousal, characterized by muscular tension, heart rate increases, perspiration, dryness of mouth, tears, etc.
[18] In this theory, emotion is seen as a product of the interaction between the state of arousal and how one's thought processes appraise the current situation.
[26] When a person is aroused, they may find a wider range of events appealing[27] and view decisions as more salient, specifically influencing approach-avoidance conflict.
Arousal in women has been shown to be slowed in the left visual field due to depression, indicating the influence of the right hemisphere.
[31] This is caused by withdrawal from alcohol or barbiturates, acute encephalitis, head trauma resulting in coma, partial seizures in epilepsy, metabolic disorders of electrolyte imbalance, intra-cranial space-occupying lesions, Alzheimer's disease, rabies, hemispheric lesions in stroke and multiple sclerosis.
The use of the term with specific reference to vital activities of healthy humans, which began in the 16th century, also applicable to many current aspects of physiology.
"If a stimulus is perceived as a threat, a more intense and prolonged discharge of the locus ceruleus which is the major nor adrenergic nucleus of the brain, giving rise to fibers innervating extensive areas throughout the neuraxis.
(Thase & Howland 1995)" (psychologistworld.org, n.d.)[35] The activation of the sympathetic nervous system leads to the release of norepinephrine from nerve endings acting on the heart, blood vessels, respiratory centers, and other sites.
Anticipated behaviors are actions that are foreseen or predicted to happen in a specific situation due to different environmental factors.
A real-life example of the effects of physiological arousal on cognition is when you're walking through the woods and you notice a rattlesnake in front of the walkway on the ground.
Fear works when one senses danger, the brain reacts instantly, sending signals that activate the nervous system.
A study done by Joan Vickers and Mark Williams[36] analyzed how a group of elite biathlon shooters handled an experimental task.
In the low pressure stimulation the subjects were only told that the purpose of the test was to simply provide feedback and the fixation on the target at different power output levels.
Cognitively, the utilization of logical analysis and problem solving has been associated with higher levels of life satisfaction, better health, and lower depression in caregivers.
A realistic appraisal and acceptance of the difficult situation is healthy and allows the caregiver to live his or her own life while accommodating the needs of the recipient.
Lazarus argued that the experience of stress differs significantly between individuals depending on how they interpret an event and the outcome of a specific sequence of thinking patterns called appraisals.
These appraisals can be accurate or inaccurate, and helping a person arrive at more apt appraisals is a goal of some modes of cognitive behavioral therapy, This is a psychosocial intervention that is the most widely used evidence based practice for improving mental health guided by empirical research cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on the development of personal coping strategies that target solving current problems and changing unhelpful patterns in cognition, behaviors, and emotional regulation.
One of the initial studies looking into this phenomenon conducted by Schachter and Singer (1962)[37] was based on the idea that the experience of arousal could be ambiguous and therefore misattributed to an incorrect stimulus.
