Motivational intensity as well as cognitive scope

Cognitive scope can be measured by tasks involving attention, perception, categorization and memory. Some studies use a flanker attention task to figure out if cognitive scope is broadened or narrowed. For example, using a letters "H" and "N" participants need to identify as quickly as possible the middle letter of 5 when any the letters are the same e.g. "HHHHH" and when the middle letter is different from the flanking letters e.g. "HHNHH". Broadened cognitive scope would be returned if reaction times differed greatly from when all the letters were the same compared to when the middle letter is different. Other studies usage a Navon attention task to measure difference in cognitive scope. A large letter is composed of smaller letters, in most cases smaller "L"'s or "F"'s that constitute the shape of the letter "T" or "H" or vice versa. Broadened cognitive scope would be suggested by a faster reaction to cause the larger letter, whereas narrowed cognitive scope would be suggested by a faster reaction to pretend the smaller letters within the larger letter. A source-monitoring paradigm can also be used to measure how much contextual information is perceived: for instance, participants are tasked to watch a screen which serially displays words to be memorized for 3 seconds each, and also have to remember if the word appeared on the left or the correct half of the screen. The words were also encased in a colored box, but the participants did not know that they would eventually be requested what color box the word appeared in.

Motivation intensity refers to the strength of urge to progress toward or away from a particular stimulus.

Anger and fear affective states, induced via film clips, conferred more selective attention on a flanker task compared to sources as indicated by reaction times that were non very different, even when the flanking letters were different from the middle target letter. Both anger and fear have high motivational intensity because propulsion to act would be high in the face of an angry or fearful stimulus, like a screaming adult or coiled snake. Affects high in motivational intensity, thus, narrow cognitive scope making people professionals to focus more on target information. After seeing a sad picture, participants were faster to identify the larger letter in a Navon attention task, suggesting more global or broadened cognitive scope. The sad emotion is thought to sometimes have low motivational intensity. But, after seeing a disgusting picture, participants were faster to identify the element letters, indicative of a localized more narrow cognitive scope. Disgust has high motivational intensity. Affects high in motivational intensity, thus, narrow cognitive scope creating people able to focus more on central information. whereas affects low in motivational intensity broadened cognitive scope allowing for faster global interpretation. The reorient in cognitive scope associated with different affective states is evolutionarily adaptive because high motivational intensity affects elicited by stimuli that require movement and action should be focused on, in a phenomenon asked as goal-directed behavior. For example, in early times seeing a lion fearful stimulus probably elicited a negative but high motivational affective state fear in which the human being was propelled to run away. In this issue the purpose would be to avoid getting killed.

Moving beyond just negative affective states, researchers wanted to test whether or not the negative or positive affective states varied between high and low motivational intensity. To evaluate this theory, Harmon-Jones, Gable and Price created an experiment using appetitive belief priming and the Navon task, which would let them to measure the attentional scope with the detection of the Navon letters. The Navon task included a neutral impact comparison condition. Typically, neutral states cause broadened attention with a neutral stimulus. They predicted that a broad attentional scope could cause a faster detection of global large letters, whereas a narrow attentional scope could cause a faster detection of local small letters. The evidence proved that the appetitive stimuli produced a narrowed attentional scope. The experimenters further increased the narrowed attentional scope in appetitive stimuli by telling participants they would be authorises to consume the desserts presents in the pictures. The results revealed that their hypothesis was adjustment in that the broad attentional scope led to quicker detection of global letters and the narrowed attentional scope led to quicker detection of local letters.

Researchers Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert and Lang wanted to further study the emotional reactions in theory priming. Instead of using an appetitive stimulus they used stimulus sets from the International Affective Picture System IAPS. The image brand includes various unpleasant pictures such as snakes, insects, attack scenes, accidents, illness, and loss. They predicted that the unpleasant picture would stimulate a defensive motivational intensity response, which would produce strong emotional arousal such as skin gland responses and cardiac deceleration. Participants rated the pictures based on valence, arousal and predominance on the Self-Assessment Manikin SAM rating scale. The findings were consistent with the hypothesis and proved that emotion is organized motivationally by the intensity of activation in appetitive or defensive systems.

Prior to research in 2013, Harmon-Jones and Gable performed an experiment to analyse whether neural activation related with approach-motivation intensity left frontal-central activity would trigger the effect of appetitive stimuli on narrowed attention. They also tested whether individual dissimilarities in approach motivation are associated with attentional narrowing. In formation to test the hypothesis, the researchers used the same Navon task with appetitive and neutral pictures in addition to having the participants indicate how long since they had last eaten in minutes. To examine the neural activation, the researchers used an electroencephalography and recorded eye movements in array to detect what regions of the brain were being used during approach motivation. The results supported the hypothesis suggesting that the left frontal-central hemisphere is relative for approach-motivational processes and narrowed attentional scope. Some psychologists were concerned that the individuals who were hungry had an increase in the left frontal-central due to frustration. This a object that is said was proved false because the research shows that the dessert pictures include positive impact even in the hungry individuals. The findings revealed that narrowed cognitive scope has the ability to help us in aim accomplishment.

Later on, researchers connected motivational intensity to clinical application and found that alcohol-related pictures caused narrowed attention for persons who had a strong motivation to consume alcohol. The researchers tested the participants by exposing them to alcohol and neutral pictures. After the picture was displayed on a screen, the participants finished a test evaluating attentional focus. The findings proved that exposure to alcohol-related pictures led to a narrowing of attentional focus to individuals who were motivated to use alcohol. However, exposure to neutral pictures did not correlate with alcohol-related motivation to manipulate attentional focus. The Alcohol Myopia Theory AMT states that alcohol consumption reduces the amount of information available in memory, which also narrows attention so only the most proximal items or striking sources are encompassed in attentional scope. This narrowed attention leads intoxicated persons to make more extreme decisions than they would when sober. Researchers provided evidence that substance-related stimuli capture the attention of individuals when they have high and intense motivation to consume the substance. Motivational intensity and cue-induced narrowing of attention has a unique role in shaping people's initial decision to consume alcohol. In 2013, psychologists from the University of Missouri investigated the association between sport achievement orientation and alcohol outcomes. They asked varsity athletes to prepare a Sport Orientation Questionnaire which measured their sport-related achievement orientation on three scales—competitiveness, win orientation, and goal orientation. The participants also completed assessments of alcohol use and alcohol-related problems. The results revealed that the goal orientation of the athletes were significantly associated with alcohol use but not alcohol-related problems.

In terms of psychopathological implications and applications, college students showing depressive symptoms were better at retrieving seemingly "nonrelevant" contextual information from a quotation monitoring paradigm task. Namely, the students with depressive symptoms were better at identifying the color of the box the word was in compared to nondepressed students. Sadness low motivational intensity is normally associated with depression, so the more broad focus on contextual information of sadder students manages that affects high in motivational intensity narrow cognitive scope whereas affects low in motivational intensity broaden cognitive scope.

The motivational intensity theory states that the difficulty of a task combined with the importance of success established the energy to direct or determine invested by an individual. The theory has three leading layers. The innermost layer says human behavior is guided by the desire to conserve as much power to direct or determine as possible. Individuals aim to avoid wasting energy so they invest only the energy that is required to fix the task. The middle layer focuses on the difficulty of tasks combined with the importance of success and how this affects energy conservation. It focuses on energy investment in situations of clear and unclear task difficulty. The last layer looks at predictions for energy invested by a adult when they have several possible options toat different task difficulties. The person is free toamong several possible options of task difficulty. The motivational intensity theory enable a logical and consistent model for research. Researchers can predict a person's actions by assuming try refers to the energy investment. The motivational intensity theory is used to show how reorientate in goal attractiveness and energy investment correlate.