Emotion Flashcards
what is an emotion?
A feeling?
o Subjective experience of the emotion, not the emotion itself
A phys response to a stim?
o Similar phys responses can be associated w/ diff emotions – e.g. heart racing – excitement, anger, anx
A behav response, e.g. smiling?
o Can be used to mask true emotions
A combo of the above
Basic theory states that emotions are specific, biologically hardwired, w. dedicated brain mechanisms
Composite theory states they are states of mind assembled from more basic, general causes
categorising emotions
basic
complex
basic emotions
Unique chars
Developed through evolution
Reflected in facial expressions
Inborn instinct
If relevant stim present, it will trigger evolved brain mechanism in same way every time – brain mechanisms automatic
Exist as entities, independent of perception of them – basic emotions are real thing, they’re not just the product of how we perceive something – we could get a phys response and interp it in diff ways – wouldn’t constitute basic emotion
Predictable, measurable changes in sensory, perceptual, motor and phys functions
complex emotions
Combo’s of basic emotions
May be socially/culturally learned
Jealousy, parental love, romantic love
Last for longer – hrs/days/years/lifetime
No universal facial expressions
complex emotions - Ortigue et al. (2010)
meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on romantic love
Love activates a distributed brain network involving many other functions – dopaminergic midbrain reward but also cortical regions – suggests it’s a composite of many emotions
Ekman
Studied facial expressions as a window on emotion
Facial expressions used to indicate a particular emotion are the same across cultures
Basic emotions
o Anger, fear, disgust, sadness, happiness and surprise
Tracy and Matsumoto (2008)
Looked at expressions of pride and shame in Olympic and Paralympic athletes in 2004
Similar facial expressions across events and cultures and in those that are blind
Examined nonverbal expressions of pride and shame at winning or losing
Argued that pride and shame are also basic emotions on the basis that their body language cannot have been learned culturally
theories of emotion generation - James-Lange
Stimulus (e.g. a predator) –-> phys reaction – sweating, fight/flight automatic, nonconscious interp of phys response
E.g. you only feel scared after your body has started running away
You could not have an emotion first without having a bodily reaction
theories of emotion generation - Cannon-Bard
Argued James must be wrong because phys signals can be interp in diff ways – e.g. sweating = anx or excitement
Neuronal and hormonal feedback processes also too slow to account for speed with emotions experienced
Sympathetic NS coords behav reaction
Cortex simultaneously generates ‘feeling’
LeDoux - 2 emotion systems
One system for emotional responses
Another system for generating conscious feeling of emotion
First system evolved to produce fast, automatic responses – amygdala
Second system produces feelings, which are learned by experience
the amygdala
Lesions – lose emotions, particularly fear and don’t show normal fear response
Demonstrated in rat studies
see notes
3 patients w/ bilateral amygdala lesions - Feinstein et al. (2013)
Patients inhaled CO2 – method of inducing panic
Measured rates of panic attacks and subjective fear/panic
100% of amygdala Ps experienced panic attacks – but only 3 patients – could be chance
Also given visual analogue scale
Consistent with earlier suggests that panic is a false biological alarm, the affective response to CO2 may be part of a protective system triggered by suffocation and acute metabolic distress
Amygdala patients and controls who did have panic attacks had similar levels of subjective panic
Intact fearful response to carbon dioxide inhalation
Suggests amygdala role in fear is not in the experience of fear per se, but in the translational of external threats into a fearful response
amygdala connections
Role must be more than simple emotion
Connections to the MTL suggest memory role
Connections to striatum suggest learning role
Connections to PFC suggest attention/WM role
see notes
learning emotion and the amygdala: fear conditioning
see notes
What we know about amygdala comes from fear conditioning paradigm
First present 2 diff stim alone – tone (CS) which elicits no response, and shock which elicits startle response
Next train mouse to associate tone with shock
Then after training present tone alone and this now elicits startle response (conditioned response)
extinction
see notes
In extinction, get rid of association of light with foot shock
Present tone alone repeatedly and after a while the mouse unlearns the association
Eventually unlearns association
lateral amygdala cells - patterns of firing during fear conditioning - Quirk et al. (1993)
On left are cells that fire in response to tone (CS)
After training firing increases, esp. in v. early phase after tone delivery
Plasticity goes away after extinction
see notes
role of the amygdala in fear conditioning - LeDoux (1996)
Amygdala lesions block fear learning
Rats with amygdala lesions don’t learn to associate light (CS) w/ shock (US) to produce startle response (CR)
Information about threatening stimulus reaches the amygdala via 2 pathways – the high road and low road
Info takes about 15ms to go down low road and is fairly crude
Info takes about 300ms to travel down high road and has much higher level of detail – sensory properties of stim analysed in visual cortex before travelling to amygdala
see notes
double dissociation of conditioning and decorative knowledge relative to amygdala and hippocampus - Bechara et al. (1995)
Bechara et al. (1995) studied 3 patients – one w/ amygdala lesion, one w/ hippocampal lesion and one /w damage to both structures
CS: coloured slide/tone
US: boat horn – unpleasant loud noise
Measured Skin Conductance Response (SCR)
Also asked to report explicit knowledge of which CS predicted US
Patient with amygdala damage showed impaired SCR to the conditioned stim but intact factual learning
Patient w/ hippocampus damage showed normal SCR to conditioned stim but impaired factual learning
Patients w/ both lesions showed impaired SCR to conditioned stim and impaired factual learning
Amygdala necessary for implicit learning of threat
see notes
amygdala and explicit learning - Phelps et al. (2001)
Instructed fear paradigm w/ fMRI
Ps told one stim (blue square) predict shock whilst another stim (yellow square) predicts safety (no shock)
No actual shocks administered
Activation in amygdala in first half of threat v safe trials, even though no shock delivered
Correlation between amygdala activation and SCR response positive)
Amygdala plays role in expression of fear response, regardless of how it was learnt
Explicit learning of association with stim and unpleasant outcome
see notes
amygdala and memory - Cahill et al. (1996)
Showed Ps emotional and neutral films and recorded glucose metabolism in the amygdala -
Recall more emotional films than neutral films
Higher activation at time watching films = more emotional info recalled
Correlation not present for neutral films
Key role for amygdala in LTM for emotionally arousing events
Amygdala modulates hippocampal memory processes
see notes
role of amygdala in learning and memory - summary
Amygdala necessary for learning association between stim and threat
Amygdala necessary for implicit learning but can also play a role in explicit learning under some conditions
Amygdala acts to modulate hippocampal consolidation for arousing emotional events
influence of emotion on attention
• Attentional blink
Stream of stim in middle of screen – respond to single/multiple targets
Single = get lots correct
2 = bottleneck
Ps show reduced attention for a second target when it occurs very soon after a first target
see notes
influence of emotion on attention - Anderson et al. (1995)
Introduce emotional stim
Reduction in attentional blink
Attenuates emotional blink
Used emotional words as the second target and asked Ps to identify the 2 green words
see notes
How does emotion influence attention?
Via modulatory influence of amygdala on sensory cortical tuning
