1. fear assoc with amyg (human studies)

Question 1

how do we learn about emotional expressions

Answer 1

biologically predisposed to produce expressions and recog faces but do not hold assoc to recog expressions
learn via CC reward and punish

expressions act as cues for threat presentation - assoc with an outcome (faces are CS)

Question 2

whalen exp 1

METHOD

Answer 2

is the amyg activated in response to emotional stimuli, in the absence of explicit awareness?

backwards masking of happy and fear faces in between neutral presentations
fmri BOLD - report only neutral faces

Question 3

whalen exp 1

RESULTS

Answer 3

BOLD signal increase sig to fear face
sig decrease to happy face

ventral activation within the temporal lobe,
where the most anterior extent of the amygdala is located; extends immediately rostral and dorsal to the
traditionally defined amygdala within the region of the sublenticular substantia innominata (SI) of the basal forebrain + extends in a dorsomedial direction

BOLD in ventral (right) portion increased to fearful faces and decreased to happy faces
BOLD in dorsal (SI) (left) for the masked fear versus masked happy contrast created by signal increases to both fearful and happy faces, in which increases to fearful faces were significantly larger.

differential amyg activation affected differentially based on emotional valence - highlight the automaticity of the amyg + consistent with LeDoux (1996): responds to early, crude representations of external stimuli.

Question 4

Morris exp 1

METHOD

Answer 4

1 or 2 angry faces conditioned with burst of white noise
half trials where images presented backwards masked

directly assessed subjects’ awareness during scanning by an explicit target-detection task

Question 5

Morris exp 1

RESULTS

Answer 5

SCRs sig greater for CS+ than for CS− both for masked CS+ and unmasked CS+ presentations

right > left amyg to masked presentation of CS+ angry face
unmasked CS+ enhanced left > right
- activity lateralised based on awareness (left closer to BNST/SI)

(pessoa: right process neg valence, left process pos and neg valence - when attend)

Question 6

Morris exp 2

Answer 6

PET

morphed happy and fear faces to neutral and asked to determine gender

Question 7

whalen et al

why both fear and happy

why differentiation?

Answer 7

both fearful and happy faces provide information about the potential for threat in a given environment, differentially affecting the level of activity in
the amygdala

SI to both fearful and happy facial expressions might represent a more generalized response to the salience or arousal value of these stimuli - contribute to overall state of vigilance

Question 8

problem with whalen et al

Answer 8

Although differential amygdala activity during passive viewing of masked fearful and happy faces has been reported
the subjects’ awareness of the stimuli was not measured at the time of presentation, thus limiting interpretation of the data in terms of unconscious
processing

Question 9

morris et al exp 1

significance of left/right amyg activation and awareness

Answer 9

right-hemisphere advantage for processing
emotional facial expressions - emotional visual stimuli presented to the right hemisphere produce greater autonomic responseswhen masked than unmasked (Aware)

left amygdala to emotional stimuli may be enhanced by verbal or conscious processing.

Question 10

morris et al exp 2

results

Answer 10

left amygdala to fear> happy
+ responded to increases in the intensity of fear

• also responded to decreases in the intensity of
  happy expression - unexpected - patients with
  amygdala lesions do not have problems in recognizing happy expressions (Adolphs et al)

suggest that the left amygdala’s involvement in processing facial emotion is more complex
than simply mediating a response to fearful faces.