Emotion

Question 1

What is emotion?

Answer 1

Shaped by natural selection
Physiological e.g. heart rate, behavioural e.g. smiling/crying and psychological
Helps us to respond adaptively

Question 2

What is a feeling?

Answer 2

Subjective experience of the emotion

Question 3

What did Ekman 1971 find?

Answer 3

Based on facial expressions
Sadness, Surprise, Happiness, Disgust, Anger, Fear
Innate, universal, short lasting and shaped by evolution

Question 4

What are complex emotions? Give examples

Answer 4

Extended duration e.g. months to years
No unique facial expression
Not distinct, may have elements of other emotions

Jealousy: elements of sadness, anger and loneliness
Love: Elements of happiness, maybe fear if the loved one is in trouble

Question 5

What is valence?

Answer 5

Positive or negative emotion
Positive: dopamine increases
Negative: noradrenaline increases

Question 6

What is arousal?

Answer 6

Intensity of the emotion

Question 7

What is approach?

Answer 7

Emotions being classified as the behaviours they motivate
Move towards opportunities
Approach and withdrawal motivations can be mixed

Question 8

What is withdrawal?

Answer 8

Emotions being classified as the behaviours they motivate
Move away from danger
Approach and withdrawal motivations can be mixed

Question 9

What is the physiology of emotion?

Answer 9

Parasympathetic NS: Rest and digest, e.g. heartbeat slows

Sympathetic NS: fight or flight, responding to a threat in our environment, e.g. heartbeat increases

Question 10

What is the Cannon Bard theory?

Answer 10

Emotion and physiological responses happens simultaneously
Stimulus sent to thalamus, from thalamus to the cortex, producing subjective feelings
At the same time, signals from thalamus to the hypothalamus, producing a physiological response
Causes a behavioural response
Happens at the same time but the processes are separate

Question 11

What is the sham rage example of the Cannon Bard theory?

Answer 11

Remove parts of the cat’s cortex
Investigating what emotions are impaired
‘Sham rage’
If just the cortex was taken away then the rage response appeared
If the Hypothalamus was taken away, the rage response was taken away

Question 12

What is the thalamus?

Answer 12

processes stimulus early on, and decides what areas of the brain to send this signal too

Question 13

What is the James Lange theory?

Answer 13

Conscious perception of the stimulus e.g. seeing the threat in the environment, then the physiological response e.g. fight or flight, then the behaviour response is next, last is the emotion related to the experience e.g. running and increased heart rate means you’re scared
Emotion arises after unconsciously interpretating physiological and behavioural signals

Question 14

What is the autonomic feedback example of the James Lange theory?

Answer 14

Autonomic feedback: Emotion attribution task: told short stories and participants had to describe how the character might feel
Those who have issues with the autonomic system were able to understand the emotional responses but not the physiological response
Autonomic system is needed

Question 15

What is the muscle feedback example of the James Lange theory?

Answer 15

Feedback from muscles used for frowning is involved in experiencing negative emotions. Looked at people who had Botox to the forehead to treat frown lines, muscles here are paralyzed, less likely to frown, people scored lower on the irritability-depression-anxiety scales if they had Botox, less likely to feel negative

Participants had a pen in their mouth between their teeth or with their mouth closed. Prevented muscles around the mouth from moving. Participants who looked at cartoons found it funnier when the pen was between their teeth, than when they had to have their mouth closed, because they could still smile. Participants with their mouth closed couldn’t smile.

Question 16

What is the Schachter Singe theory?

Answer 16

Conscious perception of the stimulus e.g. seeing threat in the environment, physiological response next e.g. fight or flight, then behavioural response, then the subjective emotional experience
Emotion arises after consciously interpretating physiological and behaviour signals

Question 17

What is the autonomic activation example of the Schachter Singer theory?

Answer 17

Vitamin study- gave participants different information about the side effects, what they really gave participants was a dose of adrenaline
Participants put into a room with a confederate, the confederate complained about how many questionnaires they had to fill, another confederate was excited and enjoyed being there
Emotions the participants reported relied on the physiological response
If they knew they would get a response from the adrenaline
If the ps were told the effects of the vitamin they would blame how they’re feelings on the vitamin, if they weren’t told the effects of the vitamin they would copy the confederates behaviour

Question 18

What is the misattribution of arousal example of the Schachter Singer theory?

Answer 18

Attractive female experimenter
Male participants
Took the phone numbers afterwards
Higher likelihood of calling back when they were on a shaky bridge rather than the stable bridge
Arousal higher on the shaky bridge
Higher arousal led to mislabelling their anxiety as being attracted to experimenter on the shaky bridge

Question 19

What is the autonomic feedback example of the Schachter Singer theory?

Answer 19

Participants were classified as good or bad heartbeat detectors, those who could detect their heartbeat had intense emotional responses
Watching films
Interplay between physiological signals and experiencing emotions

Question 20

What is the hypothalamus? What is the HPA axis?

Answer 20

Autonomic NS regulated by the hypothalamus
HPA axis: hormones released by this axis to the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and adrenal gland which activates the sympathetic NS
HPA stands for hypothalamus, pituitary glands and adrenaline glands
Hormones such as cortisol are released, stress hormone, decrease inflammatory response, increase blood glucose.
After, the cortisol feeds back an inhibitory signal to the hypothalamus which shuts down the HPA response.
Chronic levels of stress, can cause changes in the HPA function so that the release of cortisol is sustained. This could cause mood disorders or anxiety disorders.

Question 21

What is the limbic system?

Answer 21

HPA is a part of the limbic system
Some parts of this system are crucial for emotion, but not all areas of the limbic system are associated with emotion
Involves the amygdala

Question 22

What is the amygdala?

Answer 22

Located in the Medial Temporal lobes
Kluver Bucy Syndrome: lack of fear, lack of approach in fear inducing behaviours, due to amygdala damage. Which leads to..
Psychic blindness: inability to recognize the emotional importance of events or objects
Amygdala is commonly associated with fear, but can process other important emotions as well
Thalamus sends signals to the amygdala

Question 23

What is evidence of the amygdala processing facial expressions?

Answer 23

Showed different faces
Fearful stimuli triggered increased activity in the amygdala
Activity didn’t increase as much when ps saw happiness, neutral or disgust facial expressions
Unconscious response

Also, when fearful facial expressions are presented subliminally, the amygdala is just as fearful as if the ps was aware they were seeing a fearful expression. Conscious cognition isn’t involved.

Question 24

What happens when the amygdala is impaired? Use neuropsychology evidence

Answer 24

Rated photographs of facial expressions
Unilateral: one side
Bilateral: both sides
Bilateral amygdala damage, ratings dropped for the fear response.

Patient SM had to draw pictures of facial expressions, bilateral amygdala damage patient, struggled to draw a fearful expression, but could draw other expressions. Can recognise fear from the tone of voice however. This patient displayed a lack of cautious behaviour and distrust, she didn’t learn to avoid fearful experiences. Although there seems to be a struggle in recognizing facial expressions, they’re still able to generate and communicate a full range of facial expressions themselves.

Question 25

What part of the body does the amygdala focus on to interpret fear?

Answer 25

White part of eye is important in interpretating facial expressions. Amygdala responds to the whites of the eyes. Maybe the amygdala is responsible for directing visual attention to the eye region of facial expressions, rather than the fear response.

Amygdala responds when given an ambiguous threat
When gaze is averted, the person is considered more of a threat. The amygdala evaluates threats based on facial expressions

Patient SM did not look at the eyes on any face, regardless of what emotion was showed. When she was reminded to look at the eyes, she no longer had any difficulty recognizing a fearful face

In a fearful facial expression, more whites of the eyes are shown. In normal participants, they can identify this facial expression as fearful without any other accompanying facial information.

Question 26

What is the insula?

Answer 26

Inside the lateral sulcus
Processing interoceptive stimuli
Integrates cognitive and emotional information
Commonly associated with disgust
involved with perceiving facial expressions of disgust
Different forms of disgust activate different parts of the anterior insula
Recognise feelings of disgust in yourself as well as feelings of disgust in others

Question 27

What happens with patients who have damage in the insula?

Answer 27

Huntington’s disease causes damage to the insula
Impaired recognise of disgust in facial expressions and vocal expressions
This suggests that the insula is also multisensory

Question 28

What is the orbitofrontal cortex?

Answer 28

Very front of the brain, above the eyes
Involved in decision making
Communicates with the limbic system
Greater activation in this area for pleasant touch and pleasant smells

Question 29

How does the orbitofrontal cortex impact reward?

Answer 29

OFC most activated by affective responses- rewards and punishments
Important for goal directed behaviour
Updates the values of our outcomes

Question 30

What does the case study of Phineas Gage show?

Answer 30

Steel rod shot through his brain as a result of a railroad accident whilst he was working
His behaviour became impulsive and childish
Destroyed his OFC
Caused a deficit in his rational decision making and processing of emotion

Question 31

What are the problems with Phineas Gage’s case study?

Answer 31

Report was compiled 20 years after the incident
Gage had several jobs such as a stagecoach driver, where he was also known to be childish and impulsive
No timeline of recovering using evidence

Question 32

What facial expressions are universal?

Answer 32

Six universal emotions have been identified - Ekman (Sadness, Surprise, Happiness, Disgust, Anger, Fear)
43 muscles used for these facial expressions
Not all expressions are universal, culture and context can influence these interpretations
Anthropomorphise: see facial expressions in animals and objects

Question 33

What is the evidence to show we produce the same facial expressions irrespective of culture?

Answer 33

Pride and shame might be universal: athletes from different countries in Paralympics showed prototypical expressions when winning and losing, including blind athletes

Question 34

What are some facial expressions that are different in different cultures?

Answer 34

East Asian cultures put a greater emphasise on the eyes and mouth, unlike western cultures
East Asian ps thought fearful and disgusted faces were surprised and angry faces

Question 35

Why is body posture useful for emotions?

Answer 35

Useful for understanding emotions
Faster RT and greater accuracy when viewing emotional facial expressions which matched the emotional body posture (Meeren et al. 2005)
Amygdala activation for fearful body postures (Hadjikhani et al. 2003)

Question 36

Why are auditory cues useful for emotions?

Answer 36

• Speech Prosody
  Conveying meaning beyond the words themselves
  Tempo, pitch, timbre
• Vocal Bursts
  Non-linguistic sounds between speech or in the absence of speech (cries, sighs, laughs etc.)
  Predate language, and can be found in other animals
  Screams activate the amygdala
• Music
• Some aspects universal?
  Vocal bursts recognised cross-culturally
  Emotion in speech can be recognised across countries

Question 37

How do people with communication difficulties respond to emotions?

Answer 37

Autism patients
Difficulty interpreting body posture
Sensory over/under-sensitivity
Repetitive behaviours
Highly focused interests and hobbies
Extreme anxiety
Meltdowns/shutdowns

Question 38

Are people with autism able to recognise facial expressions?

Answer 38

People with ASD diagnosis had lower accuracy for recognising happy, neutral, and sad faces vs neurotypical controls
Happy faces interpreted as neutral
Sad faces interpreted as fearful or neutral
Neutral faces interpreted as angry

Children with autism diagnosis look less at the eyes in general
May explain difficulty with emotion recognition

Question 39

What is a mood?

Answer 39

Long lasting state
Enduring subjective feelings without an identifiable object or trigger

Question 40

Is the amygdala a danger detector?

Answer 40

Doesn’t just evaluate fearful faces
Extends to other social judgements
Indicate faces of trustworthy or approachable people
When patients with an unimpaired amygdala rated someone as untrustworthy, the damaged amygdala patient thought they were both approachable and trustworthy

Question 41

What is the Duchenne smile?

Answer 41

Difference between a truly happy smile and a faked one
To see this difference, an involutory muscle contraction is used in a real smile (orbicularis oculi muscle)
Causes eyes to wrinkle and the cheeks to pull up

Question 42

Does the amygdala show explicit measures of racial bias?

Answer 42

FMRI examined amygdala activation
White participants
Amygdala was activated when unfamiliar black faces were shown
Amygdala wasn’t activated when they saw familiar black faces like Martin Luther King

More racial bias in participants was shown when they had higher IAT scores. IAT showed greater activation in the amygdala when black faces were shown

Question 43

What did Olds and Milner 1954 find?

Answer 43

Rats responded to electrical stimulation in the hypothalamus
Repeatedly pressed the lever to produce stimulation
Humans respond in a similar way
Shows evidence for a reward system in the brain as rats wanted to avoid the shocks

Question 44

What’s the differences between the James Lange and Schachter Singer theory?

Answer 44

James Lange: we experience an emotion after a physiological response, physiological response causes emotion depending on how you interpret the events
Schachter Singer: we experience an emotion simultaneously or after a physiological response, physiological response leads to emotion as you identify the reasons for the response