Emotion 1 Flashcards
Plutchik (1994) considered there to be eight primary emotions
Plutchik (1994) considered there to be eight primary emotions—anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy. Plutchik proposed that these ‘basic’ emotions are biologically primitive and have evolved in order to increase the reproductive fitness of the animal. Plutchik argues for the primacy of these emotions by showing each to be the trigger of behaviour with high survival value, such as the way fear inspires the fight-or-flight response. Plutchik’s system is popular, but no agreement about the exact number of basic emotions (six, seven, eight?). Empirical support has been derived from studying facial expressions (Ekman).
Ekman et al
Ekman et al conducted seminal research on the specific biological correlates of specific emotions, demonstrating the universality and discreteness of emotions in a Darwinian approach. Ekman found a high agreement across members of diverse Western and Eastern literate cultures on selecting emotional labels that fit facial expressions. Expressions he found to be universal included those indicating anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.
The Strange Case of Phineas P. Gage
In the summer of 1848, Phineas P. Gage was managing a group of men laying railroad tracks. The 25-year old Gage was a model employee, “efficient and capable, temperate, shrewd, smart and “persistent in executing his plans of action.” An explosion launched a bar like a rocket upward into Gage’s face penetrating his left cheek, went through the top of his skull and landed a 100 or so feet away, covered with blood and portions of Gage’s brain. Still conscious, Gage was taken to a nearby doctor. Miraculously, he survived. Even without antibiotics he fought off infection and eventually the hole in his skull healed. In less than two months, Gage’s doctors pronounced him “cured.” While Gage’s wounds had healed, and he could walk, talk and use his hands like any normal man, he was hardly his old self. In fact, he was a new person, one so different that this new Gage could not manage his emotions. He was fitful, irreverent and profane. He was impatient and acted on his desires without restraint. At times, he was stubborn and yet, at other times, he could not make up his mind. He couldn’t plan for the future. He went from job to job, sometimes getting fired, sometimes quitting capriciously. He travelled and joined the circus as a freak, posing with the iron bar from his accident. Researchers found the answer in the early 1990s after creating computer simulations of Gage’s skull. They learned that the accident had damaged a specific part of Gage’s brain, the prefrontal cortex. They concluded that this damage impaired his ability to plan and make decisions. Researchers tested this conclusion by examining other patients with similar prefrontal cortex damage.
Emotional Memories and flashbulb memories: Sharot et al., 2007
Columbia University study (NYC) 24 participants completed MRI in 2004, while remembering events from 9/11 or summer 2001. Also recorded proximity to World Trade Center (WTC). MRI scan while remembering events, examined activation in Amygdala. In their study of personal recollections of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) in New York City, they combined behavioural and brain imaging techniques, with two goals: (i) to explore the neural basis of such memories and (ii) to clarify the characteristics of the emotional events that may give rise to them. Three years after the terrorist attacks, participants were asked to retrieve memories of 9/11, as well as memories of personally selected control events from 2001. At the time of the attacks, some participants were in Downtown Manhattan, close to the World Trade Center; others were in Midtown, a few miles away. The Downtown participants exhibited selective activation of the amygdala as they recalled events from 9/11, but not while they recalled control events. This was not the case for the Midtown participants. Moreover, only the Downtown participants reported emotionally enhanced recollective experiences while recalling events from 9/11, as compared with control events. These results suggest that close personal experience may be critical in engaging the neural mechanisms that underlie the emotional modulation of memory and thus in producing the vivid recollections to which the term flashbulb memory is often applied.
Emotional memories
Also some evidence that emotional memories may be enhanced compared to non-emotional memories but, may depend on type of information being recalled. Emotional memories associated with amygdala (limbic system) but also parietal lobe so not only does interpretation of emotion influence reaction / strength of response, but also influences other aspects of cognition. Which brain regions are important for emotion? Does it matter which emotion we’re talking about? The role of brain in emotion: Traditional focus for investigating emotion is the limbic system. Limbic system is a collection of brain structures from the telencephalon, diencephalon; mesencephalon and has extensive connections to other brain regions. Regions included in “limbic system” has changed over time which is problematic and has a historic definition based on location and layers within structures - do not have 6-layers as in cortex. Sometimes also called Papez circuit (1937) although many researchers think the term should be abandoned. Lack of consistency in what people mean when they use the term.
Amygdala lesions – SM
SM a 42 year old woman had seizures for over 20 years. Severe atrophy of both amygdale due to Urbach-Wiethe disease. Last recall of being scared age 10 years, she could identify emotions, except fear and could describe situations that would evoke fear. The experiment used what is known as the stop-distance technique. Briefly, the subject (SM or one of 20 other volunteers, representing a cross-section of ages, ethnicities, educations, and genders) stands a predetermined distance from an experimenter, then walks toward the experimenter and stops at the point where they feel most comfortable. The chin-to-chin distance between the subject and the experimenter is determined with a digital laser measurer. Among the 20 other subjects, the average preferred distance was .64 meters—roughly two feet. SM’s preferred distance was just .34 meters, or about one foot. Unlike other subjects, who reported feelings of discomfort when the experimenter went closer than their preferred distance, there was no point at which SM became uncomfortable; even nose-to-nose, she was at ease. Furthermore, her preferred distance didn’t change based on who the experimenter was and how well she knew them. “Respecting someone’s space is a critical aspect of human social interaction, and something we do automatically and effortlessly,” Kennedy says. “These findings suggest that the amygdala, because it is necessary for the strong feelings of discomfort that help to repel people from one another, plays a central role in this process. They also help to expand our understanding of the role of the amygdala in real-world social interactions.” Adolphs and colleagues then used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner to examine the activation of the amygdala in a separate group of healthy subjects who were told when an experimenter was either in close proximity or far away from them. When in the fMRI scanner, subjects could not see, feel, or hear the experimenter; nevertheless, their amygdalae lit up when they believed the experimenter to be close by. No activity was detected when subjects thought the experimenter was on the other side of the room. “It was just the idea of another person being there, or not, that triggered the amygdala,” Kennedy says. The study shows, he says, that “the amygdala is involved in regulating social distance, independent of the specific sensory cues that are typically present when someone is standing close, like sounds, sights, and smells.” The researchers believe that interpersonal distance is not something we consciously think about, although, unlike SM, we become acutely aware when our space is violated. Across cultures, accepted interpersonal distances can vary dramatically, with individuals who live in cultures where space is at a premium (say, China or Japan) seemingly tolerant of much closer distances than individuals in, say, the United States. (Meanwhile, our preferred personal distance can vary depending on our situation, making us far more willing to accept less space in a crowded subway car than we would be at the office.) One explanation for this variation, Kennedy says, is that cultural preferences and experiences affect the brain over time and how it responds in particular situations. “If you’re in a culture where standing close to someone is the norm, you’d learn that was acceptable and your personal space would vary accordingly,” he says. “Even then, if you violate the accepted cultural distance, it will make people uncomfortable, and the amygdala will drive that feeling.”
Conclusion
Evidence for brain-emotion link, experimental (Animal) Studies: Kluver-Bucy Syndrome (Human) Case studies: Phineas Gage, Surgery patients, Brain stimulation: Neuroimaging, What evidence is there for brain regions associated with specific emotions? Brain activity in emotion, Studies on emotion have not found a simple one-to-one relationship between a particular emotion and a change of activity in a particular brain region. Each emotion activates several brain regions and the same brain region seems to participate in more than one emotion. Complex interactions across a widespread network. Examine different brain regions and their impact on emotion, emotional processing and interactions with cognition. Amygdala, PFC, Hippocampaus , Hypothalamus, ACC, Insula
