The Neuropsychology of Mental Illness: The study of emotion and the interaction between emotion and cognition: methodological perspectives

Introduction In the 1950s, when behaviorism held sway over psychology, emotion was deemed to be too “subjective” for empirical study. However, the study of emotion has seen something of a renaissance over the past 25 years. The door has opened to a more objective study of emotion, largely due to technological advances and innovative methodologies that have enabled researchers to study human emotions in the laboratory (LeDoux, 2000). These new methods have helped us gain a deeper understanding of emotional processes, including how emotion interacts with cognition. Research on the interaction between emotion and cognition is particularly relevant to neurological and psychiatric disorders, given that impairments are often seen in both domains. Not only can such research increase our understanding of the relationship between thoughts and feelings to help improve our understanding of the etiology of specific clinical disorders, it can also help generate novel and effective treatment strategies. The goal of this chapter is to provide information about some of the approaches taken to study emotion and the interaction between emotion and cognition. Included in the chapter will be discussions of behavioral methodologies, focusing on those used to evaluate emotion; the interaction between emotion and memory, learning and attention; and emotion regulation. In addition, both functional and spatiotemporal imaging techniques used to assess the emotioncognition interaction will be described. Particular emphasis will be placed on those methodologies commonly used to conduct research in cognition and emotion with psychiatric populations. This chapter is intended to be an introduction to the methodology used to assess the interaction between emotion and cognition in humans. Given that a considerable amount of research has been conducted in this area, only a limited number of methodologies have been selected for discussion given that it is impossible to review all methodologies.