3-emotion Flashcards
Emotions are
- A conscious, subjective feeling
- An expression
- A physiological change
- A behaviour
- hard to capture content validity because of how complicated it is
Three Components of Emotional Experience
- Physiological Arousal
- Observable Behaviour
- Subjective Feelings
Physiological Arousal component of emotional experience
- ANS Activity (Fight or Flight)
- Autonomic Nervous System - Increased heart rate
- Respiration
- Inhibits digestion
- Pupils dilate
- Blood flow to extremities
Observable Behaviour component of emotional experience
- Emotional Expression
- Facial
- Posture
- Vocalizations
- Touch -
- Not always voluntary…
Subjective Feelings compnent of emotional experience
- Cognitive Experience
- Our perceptions of discrete emotions or generalized feelings
- Your personal assessment of arousal, how positive/negative and motivation
how are emotions related to nowadays?
bad judgments…
long history of emotions supposedly clouding judgement
Darwin’s ideas on emotion
- Expression of emotions indicates subsequent behaviour
- Emotions increase fitness… it’s selected FOR, not against
- Principle of antithesis
Principle of antithesis
where the emotion is represented by the opposite bodily expression
- feeling dominant = hunched
- feeling submissive = opposite
Why express emotion?
prosocial experience!
stronger as a community and society
when parts of the brain associated with emotion is damaged, what function is also inhibited?
decision-making
James-Lange physiological theory on emotion
emotional stimulus -> bodily response (arousal) -> conscious emotional feelings
- afraid becae our heart is racing
- we are READING our bodily responses
- Experience feeling AFTER physiological arousal had taken place Different arousal patterns would be associated with different feelings
“It is not that we see a bear, fear it, and run. We see a bear and run, consequently we fear the bear.”
issues with James-Lange theory on emotion
- no unique bodily state for different emotions
- they will have very similar responses
- Internal organs not sophisticated enough to make distinctions about emotional experience.
- What about people with spinal cord injuries?
Cannon-Bard perspective on emotion
emotional stimulus -> bodily response AND -> conscious emotional feelings
- critique of James-Lange, slight variation
- parallel process!!
- Physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously, yet independently
- we interpret the situation while we experience physiological arousal… not one after the other
Two-Factor Theory: persepctive on emotion
emotional stimulus -> bodily response (arousal) AND -> cognitive appraisal -> conscious emotional feelings
- Schachter & Singer, 1962
- Emotions are based on inferences about the causes of physiological arousal.
- thinking about cognition again!!
modern biopsycholgoical view
everything is interlinked and play a role!!
- perception of stimulus
- physiological reactions
- feeling of fear
are emotions discrete or universal?
- Some (e.g. Paul Ekman) argue for discrete, universal emotions
- all human beings, regardless of culture experience the same emotions
the universal emotions
- anger
- sadness
- happiness
- fear
- disgust
- surprise
- contempt
- embarassment
evidence for the idea of univesal emotions
- 2-day old babies make a ‘disgust’ face when you put bitter flavours in their mouth
- Congenitally (since birth) blind people smile when they are happy.
Duchenne vs non-duchenne smile
- duchenne smile = true smile
- activation of TWO sets of muscles… eyes and mouth
are we good at deteching emotion in others?
nope… but we’re pretty good with body language!!
- poor at detecting emotion expression when it’s isolated, but when we add body to the mix, we’re chilling
Can a Lie Detector Reveal Lies?
nope
its just detecting electroids, ONLY physiological arousal
accuracy of lie detectors
- 1/3rd of innocent declared
“guilty” by polygraph! - 1/4th of guilty declared “innocent” by polygraph!
differing of expression between genders
- Male and female film viewers did not differ dramatically in self- reported emotions or physiological responses.
- But the women’s faces showed much more emotion.
Dimensions of emotion
- Others suggest emotions are NOT categories, but rather are comprised of dimensions (e.g. valence and intensity)
- These dimensions are thought to guide perception and action (e.g. approach/avoid)
- These dimensions also map well to what we know about psychology and brain activity
Regions of emotion in the brain
- Diffuse (distributed throughout brain, especially the cerebral cortex), overlapping yet distinct
- Many, big areas
- Often not 1:1 for function:cell (i.e. population coding, where it would be determined by a population of neurons)
- probably is coded by PATTERN
models that suggest that emotions are lateralized in the brain
- R. Hemisphere model
- Valence Model
- META-ANALYSES SAY THAT THE TRUTH IS MORE COMPLICATED
R. Hemisphere model
Right hemisphere specialize to process ALL types of emotion
valence model
right hemisphere specialized to process negative emotion
left hemisphere specialized to process positive emotions
issue: we prescribe more emotions negatively, and positive is just happiness
Kluver-Bucy syndrome
- Lack of fear
- Hyperorality
- Misdirected hypersexuality
- Repeatedly investigating
familiar objects
how was kluver-bucy syndrome induced in monkeys
- Anterior temporal lobectomy
- removed the front of the temporal lobe, all of the amygdala and some other stuff
- Due to mainly to amygdala damage?
the thinking high road for brain pathway for emotions
- Some input travels to the cortex (via the thalamus) for analysis
- is then sent to the amygdala. (Slower but more sophisticated)
- good at discriminating against fear stimulus
which part of the brain can make use feel fear response even when we don’t consciously know whats making us afrai
thalamus
speedy low road for brain pathway for emotions
- Other input travels directly to the amygdala (via the thalamus) for an instant emotional reaction.
- Faster but less sophisticated
- all info stops at the thalamus!
neurologically, what causes fear
- more than just the amygdala
- effect of many neurons
- Emotional activation in the brain is large, distributed, and overlapping
- All lobes of the neocortex
- Heterogeneity in results (due to methods/evocation of emotion?)
- PFC usually important
Stress and types of stress
- a process whereby an individual perceives and responds to events that they appraise as overwhelming or threatening to their well-being
- Can be significant life events (e.g. death of a loved one, marriage)
- can also be “the daily grind” (Lazarus, 1981), lives of “quiet desperation”
- Can be active or passive, short-term or long-term
active stress vs passive stress
active: intense done upon you
passive: removal of something in life
stress immunization
when enough exposure to CONTROLLED stress cause some individuals to become better with short term stress
effect of exposure to uncontrollable stress?
- larger stress response
2 fundamental pathways for stress
- sympathetic response (fight or flight)
- HPA axis (brain and endocrine system)
HPA axis pathway for stress
- brain and endocrine system
- use axons and neurons
- release of hormones
- works much more slowly than the sympathetic nervous system
benefits of stress
- implicit memory,
- simple tasks,
- habitual
- well-rehearsed tasks,
- immune system? (short-term)
cost of stress
- cognitive flexibility,
- working memory,
- executive functions
stress and catecholamine release
- dopamine and noepinepherine
- think Relationship between stress/arousal and performance (Yerkes-Dodson curve)
- We all sit at different levels of baseline catecholamine function
effect of stress on the PFC
- stress impairs working memory, attention, planning, etc.
- BUT stress improves habitual behaviour
- We also see PFC inhibition and amygdala/basal ganglia/HTh activation
effect of chronic stress
- Compromises immune functioning, mental health
- Reduces hippocampal volume, thins PFC
- Reduces performance on hippocampal- or PFC-dependent tasks
- Requires more PFC activity to have same level of performance
- Shifts more reliance to subcortical structures (e.g. amygdala)
- May decrease baseline DA function
- Then there’s also the exposure to stress (and catecholamine release)
- Effects often more pronounced in women
functional utility of anger?
fight for equitity, reciprocity!!
functional utility of frustration?
MOTIVATIONNNNN
