Mara Mather | |
---|---|
Parent | John N. Mather |
Academic background | |
Education | AB (1994), PhD (2000) |
Alma mater | Princeton University, Stanford University |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Gerontology,Psychology,Biomedical Engineering |
Institutions | Leonard Davis School of Gerontology |
Main interests | Neuroscience,Emotion,Cognition |
Mara Mather is a professor of gerontology and psychology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. Her research deals with aging and affective neuroscience,focusing on how emotion and stress affect memory and decisions. [1] [2] She is the daughter of mathematician John N. Mather. [3]
Mather is best known for her contributions to research on emotion and memory. [4] Her work with Laura Carstensen and Susan Charles revealed a positivity effect in older adults’attention and memory,in which older adults favor positive information more and negative information less in their attention and memory than younger adults do. Perhaps the most intuitive explanation for this effect is that it is related to some sort of age-related decline in neural processes that detect and encode negative information. However,her research indicates that this is not the case;her findings suggest that older adults’positivity effect is the result of strategic processes that help maintain well-being. [5]
She has also been investigating how emotional arousal shapes memory. Mather first outlined an arousal-biased competition (ABC) model that they argue can account for a disparate array of emotional memory effects,including some effects that initially appear contradictory (e.g.,emotion-induced retrograde amnesia vs. emotion-induced retrograde enhancement). The ABC model posits that arousal leads to both "winner-take-more" and "loser-take-less" effects in memory by biasing competition to enhance high priority information and suppress low priority information. Priority is determined by both bottom-up salience and top-down goal relevance. Previous theories fail to account for the broad array of selective emotional memory effects in the literature,and so the ABC model fills a key theoretical hole in the field of emotional memory. [6] With colleagues,Mather then outlined a theory to account for how the locus coeruleus-noadrenaline system could simultaneously enhance brain processing of high priority or salient information while impairing processing of low priority/salience information. [7]
Mather's research projects have included work on how older adults interpret positive stimuli [8] as well as how stress influences older adults' decision making processes [9] and the differences between men and women's decision-making processes under stress. [10]
The limbic system,also known as the paleomammalian cortex,is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus,immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain.
Source amnesia is the inability to remember where,when or how previously learned information has been acquired,while retaining the factual knowledge. This branch of amnesia is associated with the malfunctioning of one's explicit memory. It is likely that the disconnect between having the knowledge and remembering the context in which the knowledge was acquired is due to a dissociation between semantic and episodic memory –an individual retains the semantic knowledge,but lacks the episodic knowledge to indicate the context in which the knowledge was gained.
Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to a point of perception. It involves activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in the brain,which mediates wakefulness,the autonomic nervous system,and the endocrine system,leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure and a condition of sensory alertness,desire,mobility,and reactivity.
The Yerkes–Dodson law is an empirical relationship between arousal and performance,originally developed by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908. The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal,but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high,performance decreases. The process is often illustrated graphically as a bell-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal. The original paper was only referenced ten times over the next half century,yet in four of the citing articles,these findings were described as a psychological "law".
Emotional reasoning is a cognitive process by which an individual concludes that their emotional reaction proves something is true,despite contrary empirical evidence. Emotional reasoning creates an 'emotional truth',which may be in direct conflict with the inverse 'perceptional truth'. It can create feelings of anxiety,fear,and apprehension in existing stressful situations,and as such,is often associated with or triggered by panic disorder or anxiety disorder. For example,even though a spouse has shown only devotion,a person using emotional reasoning might conclude,"I know my spouse is being unfaithful because I feel jealous."
Affective neuroscience is the study of how the brain processes emotions. This field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality,emotion,and mood. The basis of emotions and what emotions are remains an issue of debate within the field of affective neuroscience.
Choice-supportive bias or post-purchase rationalization is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected and/or to demote the forgone options. It is part of cognitive science,and is a distinct cognitive bias that occurs once a decision is made. For example,if a person chooses option A instead of option B,they are likely to ignore or downplay the faults of option A while amplifying or ascribing new negative faults to option B. Conversely,they are also likely to notice and amplify the advantages of option A and not notice or de-emphasize those of option B.
Age-related memory loss,sometimes described as "normal aging",is qualitatively different from memory loss associated with types of dementia such as Alzheimer's disease,and is believed to have a different brain mechanism.
Tip of the tongue is the phenomenon of failing to retrieve a word or term from memory,combined with partial recall and the feeling that retrieval is imminent. The phenomenon's name comes from the saying,"It's on the tip of my tongue." The tip of the tongue phenomenon reveals that lexical access occurs in stages.
Socioemotional selectivity theory is a life-span theory of motivation. The theory maintains that as time horizons shrink,as they typically do with age,people become increasingly selective,investing greater resources in emotionally meaningful goals and activities. According to the theory,motivational shifts also influence cognitive processing. Aging is associated with a relative preference for positive over negative information in individuals who have had rewarding relationships. This selective narrowing of social interaction maximizes positive emotional experiences and minimizes emotional risks as individuals become older. According to this theory,older adults systematically hone their social networks so that available social partners satisfy their emotional needs.
The negativity bias,also known as the negativity effect,is a cognitive bias that,even when positive or neutral things of equal intensity occur,things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things. In other words,something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person's behavior and cognition than something equally emotional but negative. The negativity bias has been investigated within many different domains,including the formation of impressions and general evaluations;attention,learning,and memory;and decision-making and risk considerations.
Memory and trauma is the deleterious effects that physical or psychological trauma has on memory.
The self-regulation of emotion or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed. It can also be defined as extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring,evaluating,and modifying emotional reactions. The self-regulation of emotion belongs to the broader set of emotion regulation processes,which includes both the regulation of one's own feelings and the regulation of other people's feelings.
The framing effect is a cognitive bias in which people decide between options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations. Individuals have a tendency to make risk-avoidant choices when options are positively framed,while selecting more loss-avoidant options when presented with a negative frame. In studies of the bias,options are presented in terms of the probability of either losses or gains. While differently expressed,the options described are in effect identical. Gain and loss are defined in the scenario as descriptions of outcomes,for example,lives lost or saved,patients treated or not treated,monetary gains or losses.
Emotion can have a powerful effect on humans and animals. Numerous studies have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events,which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events.
Bob G. Knight,is the former associate dean of the USC Davis School of Gerontology,the Merle H. Bensinger Professor of Gerontology and Psychology and the director of the Tingstad Older Adult Counseling Center. He is best known for research and theory development on cross-cultural issues in stress and coping during family caregiving for dementia and also for theory and scholarship on adapting psychotherapy for work with older adults.
In psychology,limbic imprint refers to the process by which prenatal,perinatal and post-natal experiences imprint upon the limbic system,causing lifelong effects. The term is used to explain how early care of a fetus and newborn is important to lifelong psychological development and has been used as an argument for alternative birthing methods,and against circumcision. Some also refer to the concept as the human emotional map,deep-seated beliefs,and values that are stored in the brain's limbic system. When a fetus or newborn experiences trauma,the brain will register trauma as normal affecting the newborn into adulthood. However,when a fetus or newborn does not experience trauma,the brain will develop healthy coping mechanisms that work effectively into adulthood.
The neurocircuitry that underlies executive function processes and emotional and motivational processes are known to be distinct in the brain. However,there are brain regions that show overlap in function between the two cognitive systems. Brain regions that exist in both systems are interesting mainly for studies on how one system affects the other. Examples of such cross-modal functions are emotional regulation strategies such as emotional suppression and emotional reappraisal,the effect of mood on cognitive tasks,and the effect of emotional stimulation of cognitive tasks.
Laura L. Carstensen is the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy and professor of psychology at Stanford University,where she is founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity and the principal investigator for the Stanford Life-span Development Laboratory. Carstensen is best known in academia for socioemotional selectivity theory,which has illuminated developmental changes in social preferences,emotional experience and cognitive processing from early adulthood to advanced old age. By examining postulates of socioemotional selectivity theory,Carstensen and her colleagues identified and developed the conceptual basis of the positivity effect.
Elizabeth Kensinger is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Boston College. She is known for her research on emotion and memory over the human lifespan. She is co-author of the book Why We Forget and How To Remember Better:The Science Behind Memory,published in 2023 by Oxford University Press,which provides an overview of the psychology and neuroscience of memory. She also is the author of the book Emotional Memory Across the Adult Lifespan, which describes the selectivity of memory,i.e.,how events infused with personal significance and emotion are much more memorable than nonemotional events. This book provides an overview of research on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the formation and retrieval of emotional memories. Kensinger is co-author of a third book How Does Emotion Affect Attention and Memory? Attentional Capture,Tunnel Memory,and the Implications for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder with Katherine Mickley Steinmetz,which highlights the roles of emotion in determining what people pay attention to and later remember.