emotion

Question 1

emotions consist of

Answer 1

-cognitions
physiological changes
-subjective feelings
-emotional behaviors

Question 2

conditioned emotional responses

Answer 2

lateral nucleus of amygdala synaptic pairing between CS and US strong and weak synapse

Question 3

a factor analysis

Answer 3

statistical grouping of emotion words towards central key emotion concepts

could break down into VALENCE e.g. positive and negative

or along the lines of intensity (activation amount)

Question 4

stroop task

Answer 4

list of color words colored, emotional stoop task is list of emotion words colored

sad words slower than happy words

but also we process the emotion words concurrent to our actual emotion state faster than not the same words, and same with memory, we retain happy memories when happy and sad when sad better than the non-concurrent emotion

Question 5

polygraphs

Answer 5

detects autonomic arousal which is meant to mean lying cause uncomfortable threatened

emotional discomfort = autonomic activation

increase breathing
salivation

polygraph uses
respiration rate
HR and BP
galvanic skin response, electrical conductance produced by sweat

guilty knowledge test
if they have knowledgr they will lie about it

Question 6

facial thermal imagery

Answer 6

blood flow through face shows emotions

Question 7

fMRI and emotion

Answer 7

anterior cingulate cortex should show lying in fMRI

unless you have any disorder or any other thoughts

Question 8

James Lange theory

Answer 8

Stimuli - (automatic?) cognitive appraisal, then actions then subjective feeling of emotion

Question 9

arguments for J L theory

Answer 9

physiology feedsback to feelings
- botox blocks synaptic transmission, those with it in their faces feel emotions less strongly

• sudden intense SNS arousal without cognition does result in emotion (panic attack)
• gut feelings of emotion response to physiological changes not from external stimulus

Question 10

arguments against J L theory

Answer 10

phys arousal not NECESSARY
- physiological actions not necessary, as quadriplegic still experience emotions
-people with pure autonomic failure (activation failure often or always) still experience emotions BUT less intensely!
or SUFFICIENT for emotion
-excersize doesn’t make you have emotions (but arousal like being cold, standing up, heart pumping excersize does make emotions stronger :o)
- injection of ephinephrine doesnt cause full emotional experience, just activation

walter cannon
- this explanation is too slow, we identify the emotion instantly not feel it after
-the arousal doesn’t help us distinguish between various emotions but we can do that a lot love and fear feel the same physiologically
-

Question 11

the three aspects cognition, action, and feeling or emotion do not always….

Answer 11

go together!

e. g.
- don’t know why feeling
- have thoughts but no emotion sometimes (get flu shot)

emotion as a category is not consistent at all, brain scanning shows different emotions activate all over the place, very little consistency (happiness a little bit more up in the prefrontal) and the bio process is all over the place

emotion is a social construct

Question 12

neurons in the amygdala specific for

Answer 12

perceiving someone else emotion

Question 13

the quest for basic elements

Answer 13

brain research used to be about finding the basic elements of all motivations, different chunks of the brain
not how it works lol way more complicated

emotion is the one topic we are still on to nut out the basics

e.g. Eckman’s basic emotions from cross cultural studies

Question 14

Ekmans basics

Answer 14

-fear
sadness
happiness
disgust
anger
shock 

these studies lack ecological validity, match face to emotion word, use process of elimination, not how its done in real life with context cues, and smaller expressions than in photos of the kind Eckman used
subtler can be recognized with context cues

pleasure and pain faces in isolation cant be distinguished, big body small cowering body show the difference

Question 15

alternate dimensional emotions

Answer 15

2 dimensions;
weak to strong
pleasant to unpleasant

fits with the evidence - activation v inactivation
BIS and BAS!

Question 16

BIS BAS

Answer 16

Behavioral inhibition;
activity in frontal and temporal
increased attention and arousal
inhibiting action and approach
stimulates disgust fear

behavioral activation;
low to moderate activation, tendency to approach
stimulates happiness anger
heightened arousal autonomic symptoms of scary bridge, attributed to beautiful research assistant and called her more frequently than low non scary bridge

left hemisphere related to approach. People with left frontal hemi greater activation happier and outgoing

right hemisphere related to inhibition!! people with greater right hemi activation frontal tend to be socially withdrawn, experience more unpleasant emotions and less satisfied with life

Question 17

damage to the ventro medial pre frontal cortex

Answer 17

• more utilitarian trolley problem
• more cold self centered, reasoned without emotions
  this area is important for COMPARING emotional and reasoning content of moral decision making

phineas gage had pre frontal damage to ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX cold callous childish, unable to make decisions or manage time, laughed inappropriately (this part of the brain also important for jokes and humour)

antonio damasio, expressed no emotions, couldn’t make good life decisions either, could reason consequences, but couldn’t compare those consequences to an emotional feeling to make good choices

he could say - this action results in job loss, but feeling nothing about it would not know if that was a good or bad choice

emotion essential for moral reasoning and life
functioning

people with the strongest arousal emotional make the worst moral decisions in trolley etc problems

emotions are a heuristic for quick useful actions

Question 18

define emotions

Answer 18

not as feeling generators, but as motivators,
emotions are a drive system to motivate us towards pleasant or avoid pain

consciousness of these drives is what emotions are for humans. maybe other animals have drive state emotions, but not the feeling of them, the subjective understanding which requires sapient consciousnesses

Question 19

Studying emotion

Answer 19

• mood induction through instruction, movies, music
• rewards and punishment also possible, money, electric shocks, pictures loud noises
  evocative stimuli e g disgust through photos

measuring emotion
direct - self report (not great, especially animals and young ppl, social desirability bias, demand characteristics (tell the researcher what they think they want to hear) )
indirect proxy measures- emotional stroop tasks, negative words trigger emotional pathways, extra processing forces reaction time to be slower than reading neutral or positive words, implicit association tests
physiological measures are also indirect measures, heart rate, cortisol levels, respiration rates, galvanic skin response (polygraph)

Question 20

Walter Cannon theory of emotion and student Bard (Cannon Bard theory)

Answer 20

when we experience an event it is passed through the thalamus (sensory relay system) to the sensory systems and cortex

it has 2 effects
thalamus to hypothalamus to activate the autonomic nervous system and behaviors

emotional feeling produced via processing in the cortex from the thalamus also

simultaneously but separately

Question 21

Schachter-Singer theory 2 factor theory cognitive theory of emotion

Answer 21

2 theories of cannon bard added with the appraisal component of james lange theory

perception of stimuli 2 simultaneous pathways feeling and physiology, but ALSO the physiology feeds the feeling which also feeds perception of event for the future and attention to stimuli
cycle and panic disorder explained herein

experiment;
injected male participants with suproxin (adrenaline)
does physiology plus appraisal change subjective feeling of emotion

some were told there would be no effect
others were told to expect some symptoms like heart rate increase

then some went into room with confederate that acted angry, some into a room with one who acted euphoric

The informed subjects had much lower emotion
uniformed much higher , especially so in anger case, acting angrier

when a placebo was injected, the confederates behavior did not change there behavior at all

the appraisal of the symptoms is what changed the emotion

Question 22

Schatchers three propositions

Answer 22

• if we are aroused, we will use whatever cognition’s are available to explain or label it
• if the reason is obvious, we will not seek further explanation
• emotion requires arousal, no arousal, no emotion

Question 23

criticisms of the schatcher theory

Answer 23

appraisal is not always unconscious

appraisal and labeling is not always necessary babies have it, and we have it without thinking sometimes

is there really only one pattern of activation for all emotions, there is some evidence that different emotions have different patterns

facial feedback hypothesis - muscles help us appraise feelings e.g. pen in the mouth experiment activated same muscles as smile (but its also silly making you happy)

Question 24

neural structures

Answer 24

cortex

thalamus

hypothalamus

autonomic nervous system

limbic system; hippocampus (memory consolidation), olfactory bulb (evolutionary mating and danger sensign),amygdala, (important for classical conditioning and fear response)

Question 25

the mediating role of the amygdala

Answer 25

the amygdala acts as a filter on new stimulus

• of whether to associate a stimulus to an important event
• is it novel and needs attention
• to approach it is it safe
• do we need to attach an emotion to it
• does it need to be remembered
• do we need to act on it behaviorally

Question 26

ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Answer 26

inputs from

• dorsomedial thalamus
• temporal cortex
• ventral tegmental area (reward dopamine)
• olfactory
• amygdala

outputs to
-limbic system, specifically hippocampus, amygdala and cingulate cortex

seems to INHIBIT emotional responses (by outputting to the limbic) in extinction of classically conditioned pairings
or when we self stop anger responses
extinction is not unlearning, but learning to inhibit the learned response!

Question 27

Polygraph

• control question technique
• the guilty knowledge test

Answer 27

A commonly used technique with a polygraph machine is the guilty knowledge test. The guilty knowledge test involves a set of questions that only the person being examined should know (assuming they are guilty). A larger response to a certain question or piece of information should indicate that they are guilty because they know that this information is correct.

Question 28

anger and fear and animal spirits

Answer 28

cat’s playing is approach and withdraw behaviors, fear and anger, all about BAS SNS activation

Question 29

hereitability of aggression

twin studies

Answer 29

definite diathesis stress need environmental component!

high SES good environment only anti social if gene

also MAOa (breaks down serotonin dopamine and norepinephrine), gene to have low amounts of it AND bad environment means aggressive behavior

seems low levels MAOa = greater emotional reactivity

Question 30

testosterone and aggression

Answer 30

can increase , higher in violent criminals than other criminals, women given it less agreeable more domineering

reducing testosterone surgical castration of sex offenders decreades only sex violence not agression in general

Question 31

seretonin synapses and agression

Answer 31

children who torture animals, marines fired for violence, and violent alcoholics all shown to have low serotonin
could prozac help - doesn’t seem to help

serotonin is reuptaked, some is relapsed (turnover) metabolites in CNS measured can show turnover rat

isolation for rats means low turnover, means more aggression

juvenile rats have lower turnover in general and more aggression in general than adult rats

also low turnover in violent crime, violent suicides, recidivist criminals

Question 32

chemical combo needed for aggression

Answer 32

low serotonin + cortisol + testosterone

• testosterone, in sudden bursts,
• serotonin inhibit impulsive behavior
• cortisol inhibits aggression (increases cautiousness behaviors)
  anger decreases cortisol, anxiety increases it

Low cortisol + high testosterone = aggression and risky behaviors in teenagers

low cortisol = no fear of consequences
high testosterone = anticipation of pleasure (the opportunity to attack is perceived as pleasurable)

OVERALL though its more behavioral interventions than chemical ones that are needed, this is much more important!! lead, hot temperatures (mango madness - suicide season), trauma, witness violence

Question 33

aggressive and defensive behaviors

Answer 33

attack or threat
posturing

hiding covering

predation - attacking another species for food, not emotional, motivated by hunger
sympathetic arousal doesn’t happen in predation

Question 34

problem with researching aggression

Answer 34

lack of ecological validity

self report

confounds as crime rates are used as proxys they might not be agressive criminals always

Question 35

Shake and co cats and aggression brain regions

Answer 35

periaquaductal grey - predation and defensive behaviors

excitatory and inhibitory inputs from the amygdala and hypothalamus influenced the periaquaductal grey

Question 36

startle reflex

Answer 36

moro from birth, startle to loud sounds soon after

people with PTSD or are tense have hightened base level, and startle more vigerously, and people with high anxiety

startle is an important proxy measure of anxiety, much more accurate than other emotion research

Question 37

The amygdala and fear in rodent studies and monkeys

Answer 37

classical conditioning of fear response happens in the amygdala, enhancing the fear response of rats (paired light and sound)

RATS WITH DAMAGE TO AMGDALA don’t learn to fear new things, only old fears remain - they also are less likely to develop stress related illnesses!

toxoplasmosis goes into rats amygdala and damages it so rats don’t fear cats and get eaten
monkeys with amygdala damage don’t show fear to lit matches, larger monkeys, and have poorer social function because they don’t learn who to avoid/approach

sound and visual info comes into the LATERAL and BASOLATERAL amygdala

that transfers to the central amygdala where it is combined with pain and stress information from the thalamus

a learnt fear is when synapses along this route are strengthened

amygdala outputs to the pons which does startle response and arousal

Question 38

fear is a conglomerate of aspects

Answer 38

different pathways between amygdala parts and the different fears, same species threat, predator, other threat, learning safety behaviors all different pathways

Question 39

the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis

Answer 39

the stria terminalis is a bunch of axons connecting the bed nucleus to the amygdala, the bed nucleus create long term adjustments in anxiety

when fears occur in the amygdala it strengthens the bed nucleus, we can get stronger fear to that specific nucleus, and the environemtne (rats fear the cage) and the world in general

Question 40

the amygdala and faces, responds most quickly too…

Answer 40

faces that are harder to interpret, scared looking at you, angry looking away from you, these are both difficult to interpret

happy easy to interpret, less amgdala activation

Question 41

human amygdala variation

Answer 41

inhibited infants become fearful children become adults more startled (enhanced amygdala resposne)
EPIGENETICS and early life experiences

evidence of individual diff and amygdala
- students carried a beeper for a year and recorded emotional state when beeped, those who recorded more unpleasant showed higher amygdala response on fMRI when shown frightening images

• soldiers with greatest amygdala response showed higher combast stress issues after (Israel)

Question 42

amygdala and cortex, reappraisal

Answer 42

anxiety is not just amydgala overactivity, but also you can reaappraise threats using your vast cognitive abilities, that gun shot was probably a car bacfirign,

Question 43

amygdala damage

SM urbach wiethe disease

Answer 43

stroke damage to amygdala, LONG TERM POTENTIATION problems, e.g. cant classically condition fear, to have stronger startle responses when paired with the learnt fear
they can classify images correctly, they cognitively get emotions, but don’t learn fear

calcium build up distroyed her amygdala, no fear to scary movies, snakes, close contact people, and only fear during CO2 expiriemnt which was horryfing at the time, but she agreed to do again later as if she had no memory of the fear, no ability to recall it

co2 effects the body directyl, not through a sensory orgin that the amygdala has to interpret

she could not even imagine to draw a fearful face

BUT she never looked at people eyes! and when asked to, she could recognise fear, the amygdala directs our attention to emotionally salient stimulus such as eyes

the amygdala does not FEEL fear, but DETECTS emotional information and directs our attention to it

Question 44

ANXIETY and anxiety disorders

Answer 44

elevated fear irrationally where there is no threat, but anticipation of a threat

general fears build up anxiety, many small incidences

twin studies show some genetic predisposition, and early life experiences

Question 45

panic disorder

Answer 45

elevated SNS response, fear of it occuring again, increase stress
low levels of GABA and increased orexin involved

panic disorder is fear of the fear itself (occurs in 15% of people with joint laxity! and those who dont have stronger than average fears)

panic disorder is associated with HYPOTHALAMUS abnormalities and decreased GABA and increased orexin (wakefullness and activity - high levels might cause hyper-vigilance of panic disorder)

block orexin and panic is blocked!

increased amygdala, decreased ventro medial, and increased cingulate cortex might also be implicated in panic disorder

Question 46

PTSD

Answer 46

PTSD is trauma, distinct time big changes, increased responsivity

lab studies mice and human stress impairs hippocampul function

PTSD have smaller hippocampus (but predisposition - monozygot twin who didnt go to war also had smaller hippocampus, or as a result , probably both)

Question 47

releif from anxiety

Answer 47

• reappraisal
• social support
• excersize
• distraction
• control situation

pharmacological
- anxiolytic - benzodiazapines which bind to GABAa (GABAa let Cl- into cell hyperpolerising or counteracting sodium, so inhibitory) benzoes facilitate GABA to bind more easily to twist open the CL- channel

benzoes work on the amygdala, hypothalamus and midbrain
alcohol does the same thing, binding to GABAa receptors letting cl- flow in, inhibiting hence its a depressant

Question 48

Stress

Answer 48

not an emotion, but a response to emotions

Question 49

lateral nucleus of the amygdala

Answer 49

inputs from the thalamus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (involved in emotional appraisals of moral judgements e.g. domasio), hippocampus

function: acquiring conditioned emotional responses, THE CS AND US CELLS IN LATERAL NUCLEUS OF AMYGDALA HAVE SYNAPSES BETWEEN THEM STRENGTHENING IN CONDITIONED LEARNING strengthening synaptic connections and forming associations between meaningful stimuli through LONG TERM POTENTIATION

outputs to the ventral striatum - reward/reinforcement
dorsomedial nucleus of thalamus connects to the prefrontal cortex

Question 50

basal nucleus of amygdala

Answer 50

inputs from lateral goes to central

Question 51

central nucleus of amygdala

Answer 51

expression of emotion
outputs to;
hypothalamus midbrain pons and medulla to produce fear repsonses autonomic physiological responses etc

OUTPUTS;
lateral hypothalaum ; SNS activation
dorsol motor nucleus of vagus nerve; PNS
VTA; dopamine and reward
locus correalius; vigilance (norephinephrine)
periaquaductal grey; freeze response
facial motor nuclie; facil expression of fear
paraventricular nucleus; stress hormones
nuclues basalis; activates outer cortex

Question 52

frontal cortex and

ventromedial prefrontal cortex and CC

Answer 52

ventro medial does inhibition of CC responses in anger, and fear, for extinction

cognitive restructuring is where frontal cortex can inhibit amygdala activation