emotion Flashcards
emotions consist of
-cognitions
physiological changes
-subjective feelings
-emotional behaviors
conditioned emotional responses
lateral nucleus of amygdala synaptic pairing between CS and US strong and weak synapse
a factor analysis
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)
stroop task
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
polygraphs
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
facial thermal imagery
blood flow through face shows emotions
fMRI and emotion
anterior cingulate cortex should show lying in fMRI
unless you have any disorder or any other thoughts
James Lange theory
Stimuli - (automatic?) cognitive appraisal, then actions then subjective feeling of emotion
arguments for J L theory
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
arguments against J L theory
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
-
the three aspects cognition, action, and feeling or emotion do not always….
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
neurons in the amygdala specific for
perceiving someone else emotion
the quest for basic elements
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
Ekmans basics
-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
alternate dimensional emotions
2 dimensions;
weak to strong
pleasant to unpleasant
fits with the evidence - activation v inactivation
BIS and BAS!
BIS BAS
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
damage to the ventro medial pre frontal cortex
- 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
define emotions
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
Studying emotion
- 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)
Walter Cannon theory of emotion and student Bard (Cannon Bard theory)
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
Schachter-Singer theory 2 factor theory cognitive theory of emotion
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
Schatchers three propositions
- 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
criticisms of the schatcher theory
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)
neural structures
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)
the mediating role of the amygdala
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
ventromedial prefrontal cortex
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!
Polygraph
- control question technique
- the guilty knowledge test
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.
anger and fear and animal spirits
cat’s playing is approach and withdraw behaviors, fear and anger, all about BAS SNS activation
hereitability of aggression
twin studies
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
testosterone and aggression
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
seretonin synapses and agression
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
chemical combo needed for aggression
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
aggressive and defensive behaviors
attack or threat
posturing
hiding covering
predation - attacking another species for food, not emotional, motivated by hunger
sympathetic arousal doesn’t happen in predation
problem with researching aggression
lack of ecological validity
self report
confounds as crime rates are used as proxys they might not be agressive criminals always
Shake and co cats and aggression brain regions
periaquaductal grey - predation and defensive behaviors
excitatory and inhibitory inputs from the amygdala and hypothalamus influenced the periaquaductal grey
startle reflex
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
The amygdala and fear in rodent studies and monkeys
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
fear is a conglomerate of aspects
different pathways between amygdala parts and the different fears, same species threat, predator, other threat, learning safety behaviors all different pathways
the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis
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
the amygdala and faces, responds most quickly too…
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
human amygdala variation
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)
amygdala and cortex, reappraisal
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,
amygdala damage
SM urbach wiethe disease
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
ANXIETY and anxiety disorders
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
panic disorder
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
PTSD
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)
releif from anxiety
- 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
Stress
not an emotion, but a response to emotions
lateral nucleus of the amygdala
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
basal nucleus of amygdala
inputs from lateral goes to central
central nucleus of amygdala
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
frontal cortex and
ventromedial prefrontal cortex and CC
ventro medial does inhibition of CC responses in anger, and fear, for extinction
cognitive restructuring is where frontal cortex can inhibit amygdala activation
