Overview

This fascinating introduction to the cognitive psychology of emotions explores how, when we see others’ emotions, not only the mind, but also the body is engaged in the recognition. You will explore how to measure our ability to understand the feelings of others.

Syllabus

Welcome to the course
Module 1 - What is Cognitive Psychology?

This module will provide an overview of the key findings, theories and research methods of cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind as an input and output processor. Cognitive psychologists base their research on models of how people's minds process information and how different areas of the brain interact with each other to do it. These models relate to various cognitive functions including perception, attention, language, memory, thinking, and consciousness.

Module 2 - How we feel emotions

This module will provide an introduction to the main concepts and theories of social cognition. In particular, this module explores the extent to which mirror neurons shape our ability to understand others and our ability to understand that others might have mental states that differ from our own (theory of mind reasoning).

Module 3 - How do we study emotions?

This module explores the key research methods of embodied emotional processing and social cognition. This module will outline the most important techniques in the broader cognitive psychology world and evaluate the contribution they can make to emotional processing research and embodiment theories. The module will also introduce the role of neuropsychological research in understanding how brain lesions can help us understand how the brain normally functions. Key methods of neuroimaging techniques covered will be specifically focused on electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyography (EMG).

Module 4 - How do we recognise others' emotional facial expressions?

This module will provide an introduction to the main theories of emotional facial expression recognition. The module will include an overview of the Theory theory models as well as of the simulation theory models. This module will also illustrate the key findings on facial mimicry often associated with better facial expression recognition.

Module 5 - Is it always easy to understand others' emotions?

Any emotional expression is a communication channel that has the intrinsic intention of conveying a message. The expression finds its meaning in the interaction with another person and its sense in the social context. This module provides an overview of the factors that influence the emotional understanding in a natural social situation. This module will outline some of the main factors that are thought to affect the way we have insights about other's feeling and intentions. This includes our attitude towards the other (for instance our motivation to understand their emotions), prior knowledge that we have about them and the ambiguity of the facial expression itself.