7 Emotions 2

Question 1

Q: What is emotional contagion?

Answer 1

A: Emotional contagion refers to the rapid, automatic responses to emotional expressions in another person, often leading to mimicry of those emotions.

Question 2

Q: What is affective empathy?

Answer 2

A: A: Affective empathy involves feeling and experiencing what another person is feeling, often through recognition, sensitivity, and appropriate affective responses.

Question 3

Q: What are parallel responses in empathy?

Answer 3

A: A: Parallel responses in empathy occur when individuals experience similar emotions to those of another person, mirroring their emotional state.

Question 4

Q: What is cognitive empathy?

Answer 4

A: A: Cognitive empathy involves recognizing and understanding that another person is feeling something different from what you are feeling, often through theory of mind and perspective taking.

Question 5

Q: What is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) associated with in empathy?

Answer 5

A: A: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is associated with cognitive empathy, particularly in recognizing and understanding the emotions of others.

Question 6

Q: What is the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) associated with in empathy?

Answer 6

A: A: The inferior frontal gyrus is associated with emotional empathy, particularly in feeling and experiencing the emotions of others.

Question 7

Q: What is prosocial motivation?

Answer 7

A: A: Prosocial motivation refers to the intention to respond compassionately to another person’s distress, often serving as a precursor to prosocial action.

Question 8

Q: What is the ECQ used for in measuring empathy?

Answer 8

A: The Empathy Quotient (ECQ) is a self-report questionnaire used to measure empathy. It consists of items assessing cognitive ability, cognitive drive, affective ability, affective drive, and affective reactivity.

Question 9

Q: How does the ECQ assess empathy?

Answer 9

A: A: The ECQ assesses empathy through self-reported responses to items related to cognitive and affective aspects of empathy, including abilities, drives, and reactivity.

Question 10

Q: What are some sex differences observed in empathy, as indicated by the ECQ?

Answer 10

A: A: Sex differences are observed in various components of affective empathy, with significant differences evident in affective ability, drive, and reactivity. However, only small differences are typically observed in cognitive empathy.

Question 11

Q: How was the development of empathy studied in a longitudinal study with 497 participants aged 13-18 years?

Answer 11

A: A: In the longitudinal study, participants’ self-reported empathy was assessed at six different time points to examine changes over time, particularly looking for any differences between sexes.

Question 12

Q: What are some neural correlates associated with empathy networks?

Answer 12

A: A: Neural correlates associated with empathy networks include brain regions such as the inferior frontal gyrus, posterior dorsal medial frontal gyrus, ventromedial gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and anterior dorsal medial frontal gyrus. These regions are involved in affective and cognitive aspects of empathy.

Question 13

Q: According to Darwin and Ekman, are expressions of emotion innate or learned?

Answer 13

A: Darwin observed children communicating with people in different countries, leading Ekman to conclude that expressions of emotions are unlearned, as they are consistent across cultures not exposed to each other.

Question 14

Q: What did Matsumuto’s research with congenitally and noncongenitally blind athletes suggest about the expression of emotions?

Answer 14

A: A: Matsumuto’s research found few differences in emotional expressions between congenitally blind and noncongenitally blind athletes, suggesting that emotional expression is innate and does not require learning by imitation.

Question 15

Q: What did Sauter et al.’s study on the Himba people and European English speakers reveal about the communication of emotions?

Answer 15

A: A: Sauter et al. found that groups were better able to identify basic emotions from their own cultural group, indicating that positive emotions are communicated with culture-specific signals. This suggests that facial expression can be culturally specific.

Question 16

Q: What did Jack et al. discover about the timing of facial expressions in cross-cultural analysis?

Answer 16

A: A: Jack et al. found cultural specificity in the timing of facial expressions, indicating that the face and facial expressions convey emotional intensity in culturally specific ways.

Question 17

Q: What are some findings regarding the communication of emotions in terms of brain activity and sex differences?

Answer 17

A: A: Meta-analyses show consistent engagement of the amygdala and its connectivity with distributed networks across discrete and dimensional emotions. There is left-hemisphere dominance of the amygdala and anterior insula across emotions, but category-specific lateralization of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Additionally, research by Hinojosa et al. and Proverbio suggests sex differences in the processing of facial information, with males showing right-sided asymmetry of bioelectrical activity and females showing left-sided asymmetry.

Question 18

Q: What did research on developmental differences in emotion recognition reveal about the processing of vocal versus facial emotions?

Answer 18

A: A: Research involving 88 children aged 4-11 years and 21 adults showed that developmental trajectories of emotion processing differ as a function of emotion type and stimulus modality. Vocal emotion processing exhibited a more protracted developmental trajectory compared to facial emotion processing.

Question 19

Q: What is alexithymia, and what are its characteristics?

Answer 19

A: Alexithymia is a psychological trait characterized by an externally oriented cognitive style, leading to difficulty in identifying and describing one’s own feelings.

Question 20

Q: Is alexithymia considered a stable trait across the lifespan?

Answer 20

A: A: Yes, alexithymia is generally considered to be a stable psychological trait that persists across an individual’s lifespan.

Question 21

Q: What is the range of alexithymia in the population, and what are some common co-occurring conditions?

Answer 21

A: A: Alexithymia ranges from low to high within the population and is often accompanied by conditions such as depression and anxiety.

Question 22

Q: What did the research by Hogeveen and Grafman reveal about the relationship between alexithymia and social cognition?

Answer 22

A: A: Hogeveen and Grafman found that alexithymia significantly predicted abilities related to emotion recognition, empathy, and emotion regulation. However, it did not predict the representation of others’ affective and cognitive mental states. This suggests that alexithymia plays an intervening role in social cognitive functioning.

Question 23

Q: What is the simulationist hypothesis regarding emotion recognition?

Answer 23

A: The simulationist hypothesis suggests that emotion recognition involves the simulation of the emotion being observed, often by imagining ourselves making the same expression. This process recruits brain regions associated with somatosensory processing.

Question 24

Q: What did Adolphs et al. find regarding the role of the somatosensory cortex in facial emotion recognition?

Answer 24

A: A: Adolphs et al. found that individuals who were poorest at facial emotion recognition had damage to the somatosensory cortex. This suggests that when we see a facial expression, we unconsciously imagine ourselves making that expression, thus recruiting the somatosensory cortex.

Question 25

Q: How do Shanton and Goldman contribute to the simulationist hypothesis?

Answer 25

A: A: Shanton and Goldman suggest that the process of imagining ourselves making the facial expression we are observing is innate, supporting the simulationist hypothesis.

Question 26

Q: What did Pitcher et al.’s research involving rTMS reveal about the role of specific brain areas in facial expression matching?

Answer 26

A: A: Pitcher et al. found that both the right occipital face area (rOFA) and the right somatosensory cortex (rSC) are crucial for accurate facial expression matching. Stimulation of these areas reduced participants’ accuracy on expression matching tasks but had no effect on identity matching tasks.

Question 27

Q: How can facial expressions be misidentified according to the information provided?

Answer 27

A: A: Facial expressions can be misidentified if environmental cues or an individual’s own mental state are suppressed or ignored during the process of emotion recognition, highlighting the importance of context and self-awareness in accurately perceiving emotions.

Question 28

Q: What did Timmerman et al.’s study on oxytocin administration reveal about its influence on facial emotion recognition in individuals with ASPD?

Answer 28

A: Timmerman et al. found that oxytocin administration improved the recognition of fear and happy expressions in young adults with ASPD. This suggests that oxytocin may play a role in enhancing the perception of emotional expressions, particularly fear, which is important for inhibiting aggression.

Question 29

Q: What were the findings of Lausen et al.’s research regarding the influence of testosterone and cortisol on emotion recognition?

Answer 29

A: A: Lausen et al. found that recognition accuracy was significantly higher in the audio-visual modality compared to auditory or visual modalities. They also observed a positive association between testosterone levels and recognition accuracy, as well as between cortisol levels and reaction time. These findings suggest that combining audio-visual content enhances recognition accuracy, and the interaction between testosterone and cortisol influences males’ accuracy and response times in emotion recognition tasks.

Question 30

Q: How did Pletzer and Noachtar investigate the influence of the menstrual cycle on emotion recognition?

Answer 30

A: A: Pletzer and Noachtar studied 218 females who completed an emotion recognition task. Sixty-five women completed the task three times, once during each phase of the menstrual cycle, while 153 completed it once in one of the three cycle phases. Bayesian statistics indicated strong evidence for the null hypothesis, suggesting no significant changes in emotion recognition across the menstrual cycle.

Question 31

Q: What role does the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) play in moral decision making?

Answer 31

A: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays a crucial role in moral decision making by regulating emotional responses and inhibiting impulsive behaviors.

Question 32

Q: How does damage to the vmPFC affect moral decision making, as indicated by research studies?

Answer 32

A: A: Damage to the vmPFC can lead to serious impairments in behavioral control and decision making, including difficulties in inhibition and making moral decisions. Studies such as those by Barrash et al. have shown that damage to the left vmPFC is strongly associated with emotional and social personality changes, impacting one’s ability to make logical decisions in personal moral dilemmas.

Question 33

Q: What is the difference between impersonal and personal moral dilemmas, and how do they relate to brain activity in the vmPFC?

Answer 33

A: A: Impersonal moral dilemmas involve situations where harm is caused without direct personal interaction, such as pulling a switch to divert a train. Personal moral dilemmas involve direct personal interaction, such as pushing someone to divert a train. Neuroimaging studies by Koenigs et al. have shown that both types of moral dilemmas activate the vmPFC, but damage to the vmPFC results in more logical decisions in personal moral dilemmas.

Question 34

Q: What did Feldmanhall et al. find regarding the moral brain network and its flexibility in moral decision making?

Answer 34

A: A: Feldmanhall et al. observed a double dissociation in the moral brain network, where difficult moral dilemmas engaged the bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), while easy moral dilemmas engaged the vmPFC. This suggests a flexible use of the moral network during moral decision making.

Question 35

Q: How did Fong et al. study the effects of dementia on moral decision making?

Answer 35

A: A: Fong et al. studied individuals with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and those without dementia. Participants were presented with computerized versions of moral dilemmas and assessed for their responses and emotional reactions. They found that individuals with bvFTD were more likely to choose actions that caused harm in impersonal moral dilemmas and showed decreased conflict and emotional arousal in personal moral dilemmas, suggesting dysfunction in emotional processes guiding moral behavior.