Can Emotions Affect Cognitive Functions?
Cognitive functions are activities that stimulate the cerebral cortex of the brain, which in turn leads to knowledge. In this perspective, knowledge includes all the mechanism used to acquire information. A wide array of activities is encompassed in cognitive functions: attention, language, memory, and reasoning (Rahimpour et al., 2013). Emotions have been reported in various studies to affect these functions in one way or another. Thus, will an intense surge of emotions impair one’s ability to do cognitive activities, which they will otherwise be able to do?
Emotions like fear, sadness, anger joy, trust, and disgust can manifest on anyone despite their age or situation they face. These emotions trigger the brain making the nervous system to create a feeling in an individual’s body in response. These body feelings are popularly referred to as gut feelings. How people deal with emotions has been evidenced to be resource demanding. Scheibe and Blanchard-Fields (2009) posit that when people are affected by negative emotions, it has been shown that if they try to hide them, their memory consequently suffers. Furthermore, an observation on smokers shows that when presented with elicitor cues for their craving, they suffer from prolonged reaction time. The smoker’s mathematical skills and language comprehension also reduce. Besides, participants solving anagrams give up more quickly when trying to hide forbidden thought. Therefore, Scheibe and Blanchard-Fields (2009) indicate that emotions can alter a person’s cognitive ability
Age has been found to influence the way emotions affect people. Previous research shows that older adults effortless regulate their emotions as compared to younger adults (Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009). Older adults realize that time is shrinking; thus, they set goals that give them more emotional satisfaction. Scheibe and Blanchard-Fields’ (2009) study involved people of the two age groups performing a series of controlled tests. In the test, moods were induced using films showing disgust. Their research shows that regulating emotions in younger adults is harder than in older people. Therefore, an upsurge of emotions in a young person will profoundly disrupt cognitive functions as they try to suppress the feelings (Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009).
The decision-making process has been demonstrated to require a numerous host of inputs. These are conditioned based on experience, sensory and emotional responses, multi-modal sensory information, and future anticipation of goals (Gutnik et al., 2006). Thus, emotions are one of the factors that contribute to the decision making process. Moreover, emotions have been linked with memory access as well (another constituent of decision making) (Rahimpour et al., 2013). Until recently, emotions have only been thought to influence negatively and hinder the decision-making process. Stress factors like hunger and sexual arousal have been reported to affect the process. Thus, in the heat of the moment, people will tend to behave differently, based on two standard theories. A person could react in an emotionally stressing situation by either the experimental or analytic systems. In the experimental system, one will fall back on previously tested response behavior, intuition, and emotional basis when making a particular decision (Gutnik et al., 2006). On the other hand, a person using the analytical system will carefully assess the situation then calculate the various risks and outcomes normatively and logarithmically before making a decision. The former model is highly dependent on the subconscious, and therefore, it is more susceptible to emotions than the later (Gutnik et al., 2006). As a result, emotional upsurge would affect the decision-making process differently depending on the individual.
Indeed, everyone is vulnerable to emotions: These emotions have been suspected to have an impact on a person’s cognitive ability. Experiments on various groups of individuals to test the cognitive response of a character due to emotional influence has shown a decline in memory stress, prolonged reaction time, poor mathematical, and language comprehension. Furthermore, age has been demonstrated to be a crucial factor in determining an individual’s capacity to process and handle complex emotions. Research also shows that older individuals process emotions much faster than younger people. They can naturally hide feelings without a lot of cognitive interference as compared to younger characters who are suffering cognitive impairment in such situations. Regarding making a decision, people are also affected differently by emotions depending on the default system employed before the process. One is more susceptible than the other although both are affected. Hence, cerebral functions of the brain can be affected differently by emotional surges as some people are more predisposed depending on the discussed factors.
Can Emotions Affect Cognitive Performance?
Over the years, there has been an unending debate on the relationship between emotions and cognitive functions. Experts, such as neurologists, biochemists, economists, linguists, and mathematicians, have all sought to find the various links between the two variables concerning their respective fields. A significant number of these professionals argue that emotions primarily influence a person’s behavior at one point or another (Rahimpour et al., 2011). The question that this observation raises is if intense emotional situations hinder one’s ability to perform different functions in the heat of the moment they would calmly perform in the coolness of day.
The action of emotions is particularly fast and does not give a person much time to evaluate one’s options. Various features have been tested to show that when in emotional situations, many cognitive functions are impaired. These features include language comprehension and standard mathematical calculations. Emotional situations can also prolong a person’s response time to a problem (Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009). Thus, from these studies, one can conclude that emotions do have an impact on cognitive functions.
We can all agree emotions are relatively sophisticated. However, do they affect every individual in the same manner? Researchers sought to answer this question and tested both the young and old. The results of their experiment confirmed that people of different ages handle emotions differently. Old people have more experience in life. Their brain is also more developed to process these complicated emotions compared to a young individual. Consequently, in intense emotional exposure, the cognitive ability of a young person is more likely to be disrupted more than that of an older individual (Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009). For example, when dealing with a pushy sales person, an older person will keep calm whereas a younger person may lose it. Therefore, controlling one’s emotions also depends on age. Due to the complexity of emotions, people will most likely react to a situation based on their brain’s capacity to handle such emotions.
In addition, feelings are not meant to be suppressed. They are intended to serve an evolutional purpose in everyday life. Repressed emotions always have a way of resurfacing. They could do so using a thought or various signs that make a person revisit these emotions. Even though a person may repress their feelings, they are passively processed by the brain. Thus, no matter how much one hides them, they cannot run away from their emotions.
Further, emotions can affect people of the same age group and possibly the same mental capacity decision making differently. Recent research in neural economics and the neural architecture of the decision-making process indicates that in the event of an emotionally involving situation, people often opt for one of two models: the analytical and experimental system (Gutnik et al., 2006). People using the analytical model have more cognitive control over the decision making process than their experimental counterparts. Despite the model, one deploys in the process they are all affected by an upsurge of emotions. One can never truly separate emotions from daily activities in life like a business and interpersonal relationships. Thus, some people are better at handling emotions concerning these life dynamics than others as a result of conditioned behavior.
In essence, emotions have a surprisingly high action potential. This knowledge has sparked curiosity across various fields to research on the impacts of emotions on decisions. Multiple researchers have all confirmed that emotions do impair cognitive functions. Also, it is confirmed that emotions do not affect everyone in the same way. Age is a major determinant of how people deal with various emotions. This observation is due to their complex nature. Emotions have been with humans since the dawn of humanity; thus, they have evolved as part of the human system. In this regard, if people try to suppress them, a significant level of cognitive function is lost in the process. Various emotions have also been proven to affect the business world, sports, education, music, and other dynamic aspects of life. However, the emotional toll in making various decisions that shape multiple aspects of life is more in some people than others. Some individuals have mastered approaching decisions objectively rather than emotionally even in stressing conditions. Therefore, emotional upsurge can affect a person’s cognitive skills, but the effect varies with age and mental conditioning of the individual.
References
Gutnik, L. A., Hakimzad, F., Yoskowitz, N. A. & Patel, V. L. (2006). The role of emotion in decision-making: A cognitive neuroeconomic approach towards understanding sexual risk behavior. Journal of Biomed informaatics, 39(6), 720-736. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2006.03.002
Rahimpour, M., Ajideh, P., Amini, D., & Farrokhi, F. (2013). The Effect of Task-Related Emotional and Cognitive Involvement on Incidental Acquisition of Second Language Vocabulary. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 2(2) 193-203. doi: 10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.2n.2p.193
Scheibe, S., & Blanchard-Fields, F. (2009). Effects of Regulating Emotions on Cognitive Performance: What Is Costly for Young Adults Is not so Costly for Older Adults. Psychology and Aging, 24(1), 217–223. doi:10.1037/a0013807
