Emotion

Question 1

What are emotions

Answer 1

Primarily they are responses to stimuli in the environment. Stimuli can be external like behaviour of other people or internal consisting of physiological changes dictated by memories

Involves affect states that involve a pattern of cognitive physiological and behavioural reactions to events

Question 2

What are the functions of emotion

Answer 2

1. ADAPTIVE: some emotions like fear and alarm are part of an emergency arousal system that increases chances of survival as we fight or flee
   Positive emotions like joy help form intimate relationships FREDRICKSON 1998
2. SOCIAL COMMUNICATION: act as cues about internal states and intentions and affect how others behave towards us. Eg happy adults tend to attract others and have more supportive relationships DIENER 2006
3. TYPE OF EMOTION: POSITIVE: Shown to facilitate decision making and problem solving (ISEN 1987). Also help recovery from negative emotional experiences. FREDRICK SON 1998 showed in study that positive emotions build sense of self and showed that positive emotions interact with negative ones and can undo its effect

Question 3

Describe emotion features

Answer 3

CHARACTERISTICS

1. Are mind-body responses triggered by a chunk of information
2. Short duration of generally a few seconds but can last for few hours
3. Subjective experience: triggered by appraisal of stimuli giving perceived meaning
4. Generate action tendencies where each emotion increases the likelihood of people acting in specific ways
   - Instrumental behaviours: doing something about the emotion evoked from situations
   - Expressive behaviours
5. Accompanied by recognisable facial expression making them a quick and efficient way to communicate our feelings

STRUCTURE
1. EMOTIONAL RESPONSE
The actual changes that takes place in your body and mind
2. EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE
Whenever you become conscious of such changes

GENERATION: Phillips et al. (2003):
1. STIMULUS PRESENTATION
2. APPRAISAL
in charge of evaluating the emotional relevance of the incoming stimulus: this module outputs an emotional response which is forwarded to the affective state module
3. AFFECTIVE STATE
holds current emotional state. When no emotional responses influence its content, the components returns the baseline value which is mood. When emotional response is triggered the emotional system tuned the values of valence and arousal so as to match the query and trigger pattern of responses that triggers response that characterise emotion
4. REGULATION
when emotional response is carried out the feedback from our senses informs consciousness about our emotional state and this is when the emotional experience start
Automatic regulation: starts when the emotion is triggered and before the process reached the stage of emotional experience
Conscious thought: arrives sfter we become aware of changes in mind and body

Question 4

What are the categories of emotions

Answer 4

1. ) BASIC EMOTIONS
2. ) COMPLEX EMOTIONS
3. ) DIMENSIONS OF EMOTIONS

Question 5

Describe the early concepts of neural systems involved in emotional processing

Answer 5

Early attempts to identify the neural basis of emotion viewed emotion as a unitary entity that could be localised to one circuit such as the limbic system, known as a locationist view of emotions. This view hypothesises that all mental states belonging to the same emotion category are produced by activity that is regularly associated with a specific region of the brain.

PAPEZ 1937: the ‘papez circuit’
Papez proposed that a number of limbic regions were involved in emotional response - Suggested emotional responses involve a network of brain regions made up of the hypothalamus/anterior thalamus/cingulate gyrus/hippocampus.

MacLean (1949, 1952) extended the network to include the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex and regions of the basal ganglia

The term “limbic system” is widely used in emotion research, however, it can be used to describe different brain regions.

So - suggested the limbic system is equal to the emotional brain.

Question 6

Evaluation of early concepts of the neural basis of emotion

Answer 6

Most of the current research that includes this theory is cause of the focus on the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala.

1. Other research does not support this theory: such as it has been found that many brainstem nuclei that are connected to the hypothalamus are not part of the limbic system (BRODAL, 1982)
2. Also, it is difficult to establish criteria for defining which structures and pathways of the limbic system should be included in the system.
3. Many of the structures previously thought to be included in emotional processing have been found to be more important for other nonemotional processes. For example the hippocampus has been shown to be influential in memory. Therefore, MacLeans research has been deemed more descriptive than functional in our current understanding of the neural basis of emotion.

Question 7

Why have new concepts of the neural basis of emotion been developed + describe them

Answer 7

Scientific investigations have become more detailed and complex - brain responses have been measured to emotionally salient stimuli which has revealed different results that oppose early hypotheses such as MacLeans

Emotion is now viewed as a multifaceted behaviour that may vary along a spectrum from basic to more complex and thus not contained to one single neural circuit and is dependent on the emotional situation as to which neural system is involved.

Question 8

What is the core issue of emotion research

Answer 8

Whether emotions as psychic entities that are specific, biologically fundamental and hard wired with dedicated brain mechanisms. Or are emotional states assembled from more basic general causes.
Thus researchees don’t agree on the generation of emotions such as the timing of emotional responses and experience

Question 9

Describe basic emotions + the main research

Answer 9

Compromise a closed set of emotions, each with unique characteristics and reflected through facial expressions.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS:

1. ) these emotions are suggested to be carved by evolution where they reflect an inborn instinct. If a relevant stimulus is present, it will trigger an evolved brain mechanism in the same way, every time.
2. ) Reflected through facial expressions which are easily observance and automatic reactions of inner feelings.

Ekman et al. (1969) theorised that there are six basic, universally-recognised, emotions
Anger - Disgust - Fear - Happiness - Sadness - Surprise
MAIN HYPOTHESES:
1.) emotions varied on a pleasant and unpleasant scale
2.) the relationship between a facial expression and what it signified was learned socially
3.) the meaning of facial expressions vary among cultures

Question 10

Describe complex emotions

Answer 10

Combinations of basic emotions some of which may be learned culturally and socially which can be identified as evolved and long lasting feelings.

Emotions such as jealousy or love have been suggested to be called ‘emotional complexes’ which are refined cognitive versions of basic emotions that are culturally specific or individual
- love for example is not seen as basic because there is no universal facial expression that exists for love (EKMANN; ORTIGUE 2010)
Love has been associated with many different regions of the brain such as within the subcortical reward, motivation and emotion systems and the higher order critical brain networks involved in complex cognitive function = love is complex and not basic.

Question 11

Evaluation of categories of emotions

Answer 11

– Debate exists as to whether any single list of emotions is adequate to capture the full range of emotional experiences - most researchers have reached the conclusion that all basic emotions share 3 main characteristics - innate, universal and short-lasting.

BASIC EMOTIONS have been demonstrated to exist: EKMAN’s study of facial expressions evidenced this where he studied different cultures and found that whether people were from the Bronx, NY or Beijing people showcased the core emotions the same way facially

However there is debate as to which emotions are basic or complex.

1. TRACEY (2008) studied facial expressions following emotions at the Paralympics and found that amongst 37 cultures, the different competitors even those who were blind showed prototypical expressions of pride or shame when winning or losing a judo-match. Thus suggesting that these emotions are innate and basic.
2. Emotions such as jealousy or parental love have been described as ‘emotional complexes’ by Ekmann.

– Categorising emotions does not adequately capture all our emotional experiences. These categories are better suited to act as frameworks to be used within further scientific investigations.

Question 12

Describe dimensions of emotion

Answer 12

These are the emotions that are fundamentally the same but that differ along one or more dimensions (Valence or Arousal) in reaction to stimuli.

1. SO some researchers find it better to categorise emotions by the extent to which how arousing or pleasant. VALENCE or AROUSAL: By tracking these dimensions researchers can more correctly assess the emotional reactions elicited by stimuli

Valence: pleasant - unpleasant or good - bad

Arousal: the intensity of the internal emotional response e.g. high - low

2. Another dimensional approach is APPROACH or WITHDRAW: suggested that different emotional reactions can motivate us to either approach or withdraw from a situation. e.g. happiness motivates to engage in a situation whilst fear does the opposite Whilst some stimuli can motivate us too do both

Question 13

Describe + Evaluate the James-Lange Theory (1885).

Answer 13

Emotional experience is largely due to experience of bodily changes. Thus we ‘feel sad because we cry’ and not the opposite. Proposes that you will interpret your physical reactions and conclude that you are frightened

1. SUPPORT:
   – From the facial feedback hypothesis: STRACK (1988) asked participants to watch a cartoon while holding a pen in their mouth so to induce or inhibit a smiling expression. When the pen was hold with the teeth so to induce a smiling expression people perceived the cartoon as being more humorous than when they held the pen with their lips so inhibiting the smiling expression.
   – DAVIS ET AL 2010 evidence from ppts who received Botox injections experienced a decrease in strength of emotional response relative to those who received Restylane, particularly in response to a mildly positive
   (intended neutral) video clip. Values represent change in strength of emotional experience from pre- to post-treatment. Lower scores indicate a relative decrease in the strength of emotional experience

These studies seem to indicate that though the physiological or behavioural feedback is not necessary for emotional experience to occur, it can affects the strength of the perceived emotions in some instances

2. CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE: studies with patients with limited or no feedback from the the body (e.g., paralysed and and with autonomic failure) are not greatly impaired in their ability to experience emotions (e.g., Cobos et al., 2004; Heims et al., 2004)
3. Physiological changes always occur with emotions so they might be what is causing an emotion, however it is difficult to discriminate emotions based on these physiological reactions because they overlap for different emotions, e.g., our skin reddens when we feel anger or we are embarassed, our pupils constrict for both fear and anger, also we have the same physiological changes even when we do not feel emotions, i.e., when exercising.

Question 14

Describe + Evaluate Singer-Schacter Two Factor Theory (1962).

Answer 14

Introduced the role of cognition in emotion generation:
This theory suggests that the physiological arousal occurs first, and then the individual must identify the reason for this arousal to experience and label it as an emotion. A stimulus leads to a physiological response that is then cognitively interpreted and labeled which results in an emotion.

• The intensity of physiological arousal tells us how strongly we are feeling something but situational cues give us info we need to label the arousal and tell ourselves what we are feeling.
• If appraisal and arousal affect one another then by manipulating appraisal we should be able to influence cognitive appraisals of situation

1. SUPPORT: DUTTON+ARON 1974: If a reason for the physiological change/arousal is not available or is available concurrently to another alternative reason, participants tend to misattribute/misinterpret these changes. The study used two bridges situation a very high and narrow bridge made of wooden and a low and sturdy bridge. In both situations an attractive female or male experimenter approached a male after he crossed the bridge and ask to write a story based on a cartoon…after that the experimenter left her/his card to the person in case he had any question. ppts approached by attractive female more likely to be sexual in awnser and make post study contact. fear induced misattributed to attractiveness of female
2. ZAJONC: Theory important to introduce the role of cognition for emotional experience, but it required the conscious recognition of physiological arousal. However, sometime we feel emotions before we are at all aware of physiological changes, e.g., when we are embarrassed.
   For Zajonc cognition and emotion are partially distinct processes, and though emotion can exist without cognition the latter often affects emotion at a later stage of processing. So affective judgement occurs first and without cognition.

Question 15

Describe + Evaluate the Appraisal Theory of Emotion Generation

Answer 15

LAZARUS 1982: Emotional processing is dependent on the stimulus and its interpretations - Many different types of appraisal theories as appraisal is subjective: Lazarus focused on the concept that emotions are a response to the reckoning of the ratio of harm versus benefit in a persons encounter with a stimulus

Emotion does not come first, cognition (appraisal) come first, and appraisals start the emotional process including the physiological and behavioural changes. Therefore there is no emotion without cognition. Both conscious and unconscious cognition as affecting emotional experience

• -> cognition and emotion cannot be separated, and there are 3 types of cognitive appraisal:
  1. Initial assessment of the situation and its valence (positive, negative, neutral/irrelevant etc…) provides the person with basic info on what to do
  2. Assessment of the resources we have to deal with the situation
  3. Continuous monitoring of the situation until it is resolved: first and second evaluations are integrated to determine on course of action

EVALUATION:
1. One of the first to experimentally manipulate appraisal and study its effects in a causal manner rather than self report. Caution must be taken though as not possible to completely control for participants own tendencies to appraise situations in certain ways

2. SUPPORT: , Speisman et al. (1964) examined how differences in cognitive appraisal can influence physiological arousal. they presented participants with videos that produced a marked stress reaction (as assessed by skin conductance measure), and superimposed to the videos three different soundtracks aimed to modify the observers interpretation of the videos’ content (trauma, intellectualization and denial).
   - trauma sound elicited greater arousal than intellect showing that evaluation of stimuli affects arousal.
3. BUT MERE EXPOSURE EFFECT: Zajonc 1980, showed that in study although no cognitive appraisal of stimuli shown to ppts, there is an affective response towards familiar items. SO, emotional responses are too quick for cognition and this means that emotion must come before cognition not after it. —- but cog appraisal needs not happen at a conscious level so just because there was no recognition doesn’t mean there was no cognition occurring
4. focused on the structure of appraisal rather than the processes involved. Emphasised the contents of any given appraisal but largely ignored the underlying mechanisms involved in producing appraisals.
5. it is assumed that appraisal causes emotional experience, but appraisal and emotional experience often seem to blur into each other –> two factor theory shows that appraisal and emotion can influence each other
6. REAPPRAISAL: The ability to regulate our emotional responses and states is a critical component of normal social function and adaptive interactions with the environment.
   - OCHSNER (2002), subjects viewed pictures of emotional and neutral scenes. For some scenes, the subjects were asked to simply attend to their natural emotional reactions. For other scenes, subjects were instructed to reappraise the emotional significance of the situation presented in the scene. EG. “reappraise” the emotional scene, by instead of funeral imagine that crying in joy at the wedding. Reappraisal is similar to viewing the cup as half full as opposed to half empty. Reappraising the scene can alter the experience of emotion (Gross 2002).

Question 16

What is the brain structure most involved in emotional processing

Answer 16

The Amygdala

Question 17

Describe the Amygdalas’ structure

Answer 17

Part of the limbic system:
– Two small, almond-shaped groups of nuclei located in the medial (middle) temporal lobe next to the anterior (near the front) portion of the hippocampus.

• • Divided into three different groups:
    1. the basolateral nuclei: largest area which is the gatekeeper of the amygdala input from all the different sensory systems. Important for controlling instrumental behaviour such as running away when scared.
    2. the corticomedial nuclei: smallest complex where its primary input comes from the olfactory bulb + cortex
    3. the central nucleus: output region for innate emotional responses including behavioural, automatic and endocrine responses.

– most connected part of the forebrain: it has many connections to various structures which signal its importance in learning, memory and attention

– While it is geared to cause you sudden tension, the amygdalae are anatomically considered to be a part of the basal ganglia (BG), a gray bundle of neurons, which enable you to consciously control your actions and thoughts. The dominance of BG grants you the power to still the knee jerk reactions of the amygdalae.

Question 18

Describe the amygdala’s role in emotional processing of FEAR

Answer 18

– FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENCES: between the right and left amygdala. In one study, electrical stimulations of the right amygdala induced negative emotions, especially fear and sadness. In contrast, stimulation of the left amygdala was able to induce either pleasant (happiness) or unpleasant (fear, anxiety, sadness) emotion

• • FEAR
    1. (Feinstein etal, 2011) There are cases of human patients with focal bilateral amygdala lesions, due to the rare genetic condition Urbach-Wiethe disease. Such patients fail to exhibit fear-related behaviors, leading one, Patient S.M., to be dubbed the “woman with no fear” who couldn’t. This finding reinforces the conclusion that the amygdala “plays a pivotal role in triggering a state of fear

2. CALDER + YOUNG: found that patients with bilateral amygdala lesions could not demonstrate recognition of fear. Patients who could recognise all other emotions such as sadness when interpreting pictures of facial expressions, failed to do so when shown the facial expression of fear in comparison to people with intact amgydalas. Supports S.M.’s inability to recognise fear.

HOWEVER…
3. ADOLPHS (2005) studied S.M. the woman with no fear and reported that this was because she couldn’t or would not look into the eyes of the facial expressions shown to her. When explicitly told to focus on the eyes, S.M. could identify the emotion of fear suggesting that eye gaze focusing is a mechanism within the amygdala that enables fear recognition and that fear may not be necessarily specialised to the amygdala.

4. BUT.. FEINSTEIN (2013): Researchers were also able to trigger a fear response in S.M. herself and other patients with amygdala lesion damage by having them inhale carbon dioxide. This makes the body feel like it’s suffocating, and the so-called “fearless” patients panicked, much as anyone would.

Question 19

Describe how emotions can affect the cognitive process of decision making

Answer 19

DAMASIO 1990s based on their previous research developed the ‘somatic marker hypothesis’;
Suggests that when emotional information in the form of physiological arousal is needed to guide decision making.

When presented with a situation that requires a decision to be made, we react emotionally. This emotional reaction manifests in our bodies as somatic markers (changes in physiological arousal). Somatic markers are associations between reinforcing stimuli that induce an associated physiological affective state. Within the brain, somatic markers are thought to be processed in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex ( a subsection of the orbitomedial PFC). These somatic marker associations can recur during decision-making and bias one’s cognitive processing.

When one has to make complex and uncertain decisions, the somatic markers created by the relevant stimuli are summed to produce a net somatic state. This overall state directs (or biases) one’s decision of how to act. This influence on our decision-making process may occur covertly (unconsciously), via the brainstem and ventral striatum, or overtly (consciously), engaging higher cortical cognitive processing. Damasio proposes that somatic markers direct attention towards more advantageous options, simplifying the decision process.

The amygdala and VMPFC are essential components of this hypothesized mechanism and therefore damage to either structure will disrupt their proposed action in mediating the development and action of somatic markers. A major source of supporting evidence for this theory is provided by experiments using the Iowa gambling task.

Question 20

Evidence of how emotions can affect the cognitive process of decision making

Answer 20

1. BECHARA 1996: compared performance of normal ppts with those suffering from lesions in prefrontal cortex (has connections to the insular cortex, amygdala and hypothalamus) which processes emotions. Results showed that ppts with lesions lost ability to compete emotional value of an item thus impairing their ability to feel difference between positive and a negative feedback on ones action which can leads to BAD DECISION-MAKING SKILLS as they cant assess losses or gains.
2. Changes in mood can influence the decision-making process. YUEN+LEE (2003), for example, induced different moods in participants by showing to them happy, sad and neutral movie clip. The level of risk-taking was measured with the Choice Dilemma Questionnaire (Kogan and Wallach, 1964). After watching the sad movie people were less willing to take risks = BECAME RISK-AVERSIVE
3. Lesions to the Orbitofrontal cortex has been shown to reduce decision making skills. CAMILLE ET AL 2004 The emotion of regret is disliked by individuals so they learn from experience to avoid it - however people with OFC damage do not feel regret and thus don’t learn from their regret inducing decisions or anticipate negative consequences. CORICELLI 2005 induced regret in healthy ppts by making them make a gambling choice and then telling them the opposite choice was better. Using fMRI the researchers found that enhanced activity in OFC correlated with increased regret.

Question 21

Describe the amygdala’s role in emotional processing during MEMORY FORMATION + MODULATION

Answer 21

• • MEMORY FORMATION/STRENGTH
    1. CLARK 1995 The amygdalae have been noted to assist in the memory formation of emotional events. In experiments on caged rats, the animals receive painful footshocks, accompanied by specific sounds. Later, the sounds alone are observed to induce stresses in the animal. The sound signals were noted to generate stronger responses in the input synapses of the amygdalae. The neural junctions receiving the signals increased intracellular calcium, leading to protein synthesis. The sound to pain relationship was retained in memory as long-term potentiation (LTP), a persisting potential, causing the amygdalae to react more readily to signs of danger.

2. CARLSON 2012 There have been studies that show that damage to the amygdala can interfere with memory that is strengthened by emotion.
   One study examined a patient with bilateral degeneration of the amygdala. He was told a violent story accompanied by matching pictures and was observed based on how much he could recall from the story. The patient had less recollection of the story than patients with functional amygdala, showing that the amygdala has a strong connection with emotional learning

– The amygdala, especially the basolateral nuclei, are involved in mediating the effects of emotional arousal on the strength of the memory for the event, as shown by many laboratories including that of McGaugh. These laboratories have trained animals on a variety of learning tasks and found that drugs injected into the amygdala after training affect the animals’ subsequent retention of the task

Question 22

Describe what lesion studies have shown about emotion

Answer 22

Lesions to areas of the brain involved in emotion processing lead to a variety of effects on and individual’s ability to process emotion and have shown evidence of distributed roles where each emotion is not localised to one area of the brain

AMYGDALA LESIONS:
1. CALDER et al. (1996) – Amygdala important for processing FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. Woman could recognise the faces of famous people, and could match different views of unfamiliar individuals. However, could not match different pictures of the same individual if expression differed

2. ANDERSON+ PHELPS (2000) – patient SP at 48 years, SP had her right amygdala and adjacent tissues removed for treatment of epilepsy. Her left amygdala was already damaged. SP showed average intelligence and normal perceptual abilities. Severe impairments in others’ facial expressions of fear (and to a lesser extent; disgust, sadness and happiness). Could spontaneously express various emotions when asked. Further evidence that amygdala is involved in perceiving facial expressions of emotion, especially FEAR CONDITIONING
3. FEINSTEIN (2011) - Patient SM had focal bilateral amygdala damage: Compared to healthy controls, when watching film clips, SM showed less FEAR emotions
   - - However, although lesions to the amygdala were traditionally thought to lead to an abolishment of the ability to recognise and feel fear. Recent evidence suggest that this may not be so. Instead, amygdala lesions may lead to the suppression of the ability to feel fear.
4. BUT.. FEINSTEIN (2013): Researchers were able to trigger a fear response in S.M. and other patients with amygdala damage by having them inhale carbon dioxide. This makes the body feel like it’s suffocating, and the so-called “fearless” patients panicked, much as anyone would.
5. MCGAUGH, 2000: emotional memories are often the most persistent ones and this is related to the action of the amygdala during emotional arousal. Studies using rats showed that lesions to the amygdala had reduced arousal-induced enhancement of memory
   - - CAHILL 1995: human studies also conducted, it has been shown the people with lesions to their bilateral amygdala had blocked arousal effects in declarative memory.
6. CARLSON (2012) - the bilateral lesion to amygdala is associated with disability in explicit emotional learning. The violent story told to brain damaged patient study.

Question 23

What is the role of the amygdala in emotional learning

Answer 23

The amygdala plays a critical role in implicit emotional learning, as shown by fear conditioning. Through interactions with the hippocampus it is also involved in explicit emotional learning and memory.

Question 24

Describe implicit emotional learning

Answer 24

The amygdala is involved in implicit learning as shown by fear conditioning (a form of implicit learning) which is a form of classical conditioning in which the unconditioned stimulus is aversive.

The conditioned stimuli is a neutral stimulus that though classical conditioning will eventually evoke a response. The unconditioned stimulus is the stimulus that evokes a response. The unconditioned response is the response naturally elicited without training by the unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned response is the response that is elicited by the conditioned stimulus. Usually the unconditioned response and the conditioned response are the same.

NEURAL MECHANISMS UNDERLYING LEARNING
DAVIS 1992: The lateral nucleus of the amygdala is the region where sensory input from multiple regions converge allowing for the formation of associations that underlie fear conditioning. It receives this input along two separate but simultaneous pathways: one goes directly from the thalamus to the amygdala without being filtered by conscious control. Signals sent by this pathway (low road) reach rapidly.
Sensory input about stimulus is being projected to amygdala via cortical pathway (high road) which is slower but analysis is less crude and more complete.
Having two systems allows for rapid response to threatening stimuli

Question 25

Describe explicit emotional learning

Answer 25

– Explicit memory depends on the hippocampus which when damaged impairs the ability to explicitly report memory for an event. People can learn explicitly due to their ability to learn and remember information using the hippocampal memory system.

– AMYGDALA: is also important for explicit memory of emotional events (although it is not necessary for it like it is for implicit) The amygdala plays a role in modulating the expressions of fear responses as well as modulating the activity of the hippocampus: it influences what you learn and remember about an emotional event

1. It is necessary for normal indirect emotional responses to stimuli whose emotional properties are learned explicitly, by means other than fear conditioning.
2. It can also enhance the strength of explicit (or declarative) memories for emotional events by modulating the storage of these memories.

The interactions between the amygdala and hippocampus help to ensure we remember important and emotionally charged information and events for a long period of time. These memories ultimately effect our bodily responses to threatening stimuli which is adaptive and useful.

Question 26

Support for implicit emotional learning

Answer 26

Learning is expressed indirectly through a behavioural response and involves the role of the amygdala.

1. Patients with bilateral amygdala damage fail to acquire a conditioned response during fear conditioning demonstrating that the amygdala is necessary for such conditioning to occur.
   - - ANDERSON+PHELPS 2001: SP had bilateral damage to relieve epilepsy - unable to recognise fear in the faces of others and showed dissociation between intact explicit knowledge of the events that occurred during fear conditioning and impaired conditioned responses SO, didn’t feel fear during events that were previously associated with a conditioned fear response, suggesting the damage shows that the amygdala is implicated in this area.
2. CLARK (1995) rats and the association of fear and electric shock study

Question 27

Evaluation of emotion research

Answer 27

1. Caution must be taken where an oversimplification is not made where emotions are associated with a single brain structure: different areas of the brain appear to be involved or different emotions such as the amygdala for fear and Insula for disgust.
   - - Many of the structures previously thought to be included in emotional processing have been found to be more important for other nonemotional processes. For example the hippocampus has been shown to be influential in memory or the orbitofrontal cortex associated with anger is also involved in drawing upon social knowledge to make sense of social interactions (STONE 1998)

–FUSAR-POLI 2009 conducted a meta-analysis of 105 fMRI studies and concluded that the processing of emotional faces was associated with an activation of a variety o brain areas.
Consistent with constructionist models, however, no region demonstrated functional specificity for the emotions of fear, disgust, happiness, sadness or anger. Based on the existing scientific literature, the authors proposed different roles for the brain regions that have traditionally been associated with only one emotion category. So an integrative approach is necessary to have a deeper understanding of the neural basis of emotional processing.

2. Then go into the Lindquist, CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE and how it is a more useful method for understanding the areas associated in emotional processing, evidenced by contradictions in lesion studies of the amygdala and fear responses.
3. METHADOLOGY: Study of the areas involved in emotional processing mainly involve the use of investigating individuals with lesions such as to the amygdala and inferring any emotional deficits with this area.
   – However, humans lesions are often caused by tumours or strokes within the individuals, and thus it cannot be certain as to how neurologically healthy the patients were prior to the brain damage (thus lesions purposefully caused in animals within the lab offer more usefulness).
   Furthermore, lesions are rarely localised and damage often occurs to larger areas whereby neural pathways surrounding it are often also damaged. Due to brain plasticity the brain can start to reconfigure rapidly following damage. This reconfiguration is helpful for recovery, but makes it difficult to infer the original function of the healthy brain.
   Therefore, it is difficult inferring a causal relationship between the brain region implicated and the emotion, reducing the usefulness of this method which dominates the emotion field of study.
4. HIGH PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
   - - VIVYAN 2010 The knowledge that emotions can distort our cognitive functions, we can develop strategies to prevent this from happening. Emotional regulation methods can be introduced and taught such as increasing positive emotions or CBT to change the way individuals think about external stimuli.
   - - Also, LEDOUX 1998 controversy abounds over the definition of emotion, the number of emotions that exist, whether some emotions are more basic than others, the commonality of certain emotional response patterns across cultures and across
   species. Therefore, the study of the neuroscience of emotion can help to contain the concepts regarding the nature of emotion and help reach a conclusion.
   - - Disorders of fear regulation make up an important set of psychopathologic conditions. To the extent that we understand the anatomy of these systems, we will be in a better position to develop more selective drug therapies that are targeted for the specific brain networks involved in fear regulation. In addition, knowledge of the anatomy of fear may help us understand some other aspects of pathological fear, and perhaps other emotions, as well.

Question 28

Support for explicit emotional learning

Answer 28

Role of amygdala in modulating activity of hippocampus.

1. MCGAUGH, 2000: emotional memories are often the most persistent ones and this is related to the action of the amygdala during emotional arousal. Studies using rats showed that lesions to the amygdala had reduced arousal-induced enhancement of memory
2. CAHILL 1995: human studies also conducted, it has been shown the people with lesions to their bilateral amygdala had blocked arousal effects in declarative memory.
3. CARLSON 2012: One study examined a patient with bilateral degeneration of the amygdala. He was told a violent story accompanied by matching pictures and was observed based on how much he could recall from the story. The patient had less recollection of the story than patients with functional amygdala, showing that the amygdala has a strong connection with emotional learning

Question 29

What is the evaluation between categories of emotion and amygdala

Answer 29

The amygdala as part of the limbic system may reflect the production and generation of basic, evolved emotions such as fear. However different regions of the brain is implicated in complex emotions such as love:

LOVE is implicated in many areas of the brain (CACIOPPO - review of all fMRI studies on love) included the ventral tegmental area, the posterior hippocampus, the parietal lobe etc which in turn reflects the complexity of love as an emotion demonstrating that not all emotions are specialised to one module in the brain such as fear.

1. FISCHER etal. 2005: 17 ppts were recruited and was interviewed individually to establish the intensity and duration of their romantic relationship. After these questionnaires and interviews, these participants’ brains were scanned for a particular set amount of time, as they took turns staring at a picture of their romantic partner and then staring at a picture of a neutral stranger whom they did not know.
   The right ventral tegmental area was one of the central parts where they found activation while looking at their romantic partner’s picture. Remarkably, this same area of the brain is the central part of the brain’s reward system that is activated during arousal, focused attention, and the motivation to acquire rewards.
2. ARON etal. 2005: found that the length of time in love correlates with the cerebral activation in particular regions such as the insular cortex and inferior frontal gyrus.

EMBARRSMENT: STRUM 2012: right pregenual anterior cingulate cortex involved in this complex emotion.

Sturm studied patients with a form of frontotemporal dementia, a degenerative brain disease that causes profound changes in personality and behavior. Patients with the disease often say or do socially inappropriate things without seeming to feel any humiliation. She found that a brain region called the right pregenual anterior cingulate cortex was smaller in people who suffered from the disease.
Sturm found that healthy control subjects who weren’t easily embarrassed by watching videos of themselves singing the 1964 hit “My Girl” had a smaller pregenual anterior cingulate cortex than healthy controls who were more mortified by the performance.

Question 30

Describe the two approaches people taking when understanding emotion

Answer 30

LINDQUIST+BARRET 2012: Faculty psychology takes the view that emotions are produced and originated from distinct/discrete mechanisms within the brain, such as fear within the amygdala.

In contrast, a constructionist view suggests that emotions are psychological events that emerge out of more basic psychological operations that are not specific to emotion. Therefore, emotion (e.g., an experience of anger at a friend) emerge from basic, interacting psychological ‘ingredients which are hypothesised to include representations of the body (“core affect”), representations of prior experiences (called “concept knowledge”),
The authors propose that the amygdala, anterior insula, orbitofrontal cortex each contribute to “core affect,” which are basic feelings that are pleasant or unpleasant with some level of arousal. The amygdala, for example, appears to play a more general role in indicating if external sensory information is motivationally salient, and is particularly active when a stimulus is novel or evokes uncertainty.

So, the brain is always using prior experiences to disambiguate and make meaning of sensations from the body and world. A person experiences an emotion (e.g., anger at a friend) when he makes a “situated conceptualization” of his core affective state in a given context using concept knowledge about emotion.

Based on neuroimaging/lesion studies, this view is the most supported: the empirical evidence suggests that certain brain regions are not specific to certain emotions. Research shows that the human amygdala has neither consistent nor specific increases in activation during instances of fear. Individuals with amygdala lesions can still perceive fear on others’ faces when they are specifically directed to look at the diagnostic features of fearful faces (Adolphs 2005). Individuals with amygdala lesions can even experience intense fear when deprived of oxygen (Feinstein et al., 2013).

Also, brain regions demonstrating increased activity during emotion experiences and perceptions appear to play core affective, conceptual, sensory, and executive control roles across other psychological domains such as moral judgments, empathy, autobiographical memory, and even visual perception. So, human emotions involve networks that are not themselves specific to emotion.

Question 31

Overall view of the neural basis of emotion

Answer 31

PESSOA
In a nutshell, the neural basis of emotion and cognition should be viewed as governed less by properties that are intrinsic to specific sites and more by contextually determined interactions among multiple brain regions. In this sense, emotion and cognition are functionally integrated systems, namely, they more or less continuously impact each other’s operations (see Bechtel & Richardson 2010). What ensue are organisms that navigate their ecological niches successfully.

Question 32

Describe the role of the orbital frontal cortex

Answer 32

OFC has been associated with the processing of the emotion of ANGER however the OFC is a large structure and has admittedly been linked to many other psychological phenomena.

SUPPORT:
1. SIGLEMAN 2001: Using EEG, greater activity in the left PFC is associated with instances of anger experience in response to an insult

2. FERRIS (2008): Aggressive behavior in rats is associated with increased activity in the ventral forebrain (including the OFC). Found that lesions of the OFC produced lower levels of aggression in monkeys thus suggesting that the OFC is involved in producing aggression and anger emotions.
3. BLAIR (1999) found during a PET scan that ppts who were shown expressions of faces demonstrating anger showed greater activity within the OFC compared to when interpreting other emotions such as happiness or sadness which did not activate the same regions suggesting that the OFC is specialised to anger emotion.

Question 33

Start of any emotion essay

Answer 33

Emotion is so ubiquitous and essential for how one sees the world that becomes necessary to view emotion in a new way in order to interpret it scientifically. The main functions of emotion such as social interactions indicate it is important to investigate the mechanisms underlying this process.

Question 34

Describe the basic anatomy of emotion in the brain

Answer 34

Each of the primary limbic system areas and their chief contribution to emotion is listed below:

1. Thalamus: Central hub for taking in and beginning to process sensory data. Certain parts of the thalamus already tag certain environmental information as being emotionally salient- such as a rapidly approaching object signaling fear or a pleasant smell signaling comfort. These “tagged” sensory cues are then sent to the appropriate regions to be interpreted and compiled together into the whole situation
2. Hippocampus: As might be expected, the hippocampus can connect experiences with memories, along with the either positive or negative feeling that comes along with those memories. When the hippocampus is “deciding” what information to store as memories, it relies heavily on what emotional reaction that information is provoking.
3. Amygdala: As one of the most important regions for emotion, the amygdala does a wide array of crucial functions, from ascribing levels of emotional significance to inducing fear and anger and much more which is just now being discovered.
4. Hypothalamus: Due to its relationship with the endocrine system, the hypothalamus is very important in getting the proper hormonal response that accompanies emotional states, especially those of fear and anxiety.
5. Anterior cingulate cortex: Although a specific function is difficult to pinpoint, the anterior cingulate is highly activated by emotional situations and plays many complex roles in processes like personality.