emotion and the brain Flashcards
what is ‘affect’ compromised of?
emotion
mood
define emotion
- short-lived
- intense feeling
- clear target
define mood
- longer in duration
- going on in the background
- no real target
what are the 6 basic emotions according to Ekman?
- anger
- disgust
- fear
- surprise
- happiness
- sadness
outline Ekman et al. (1969) task
- showed ppts a picture of a facial expression
- asked ppts to identify what emotion best describes this picture
what did Ekman et al. (1969) conclude?
- concluded that basic emotions = universal
- these emotions are present in all human societies
- basic emotions do not need to be learnt
identify criticisms of Ekman’s approach
(Gendron et al., 2014)
- emotions may not be universal
- Gendron et al. (2014) tested Ekman’s approach on Himba tribe in Nambia
- tasked with sorting face pictures into piles
- happy and fearful consistently recognised
- sadness, disgust and anger not consistently recognised
identify criticisms of Ekman’s approach
(Cowen & Keltner, 2017)
- basic emotions fail to describe richness of human emotional experience
- Cowen & Keltner (2017) identified 27 fuzzy categories
how are emotions represented in the brain?
two basic extreme positions:
1/ complete specialisation
2/ complete dispersion
explain complete specialisation
- idea that the brain has particular centres for each basic emotion
- one centre for anger, one centre for sadness
explain complete dispersion
- idea that each brain area equally relevant for processing every emotion
what does evidence show with regards to how basic emotions are represented in the brain?
- evidence shows we have a spectrum of intermediate positions between complete specialisation and complete dispersion
explain Papez (1937) idea on intermediate position
- he suggested we don’t have a particular centre and we our brain is not always doing everything
- believes we have a circuit
- we have some areas that are responsible for emotions
- this forms a circuit
- this circuit processes all emotions
evaluate Papez (1937) circuit theory
- not all areas in circuit play major role in emotion processing
- also, areas not in circuit do play a major role in emotion processing (e.g.: amygdala
what is part of the Papez circuit?
- cingulate gyrus
- parahippocampal region
- hippocampus
- fornix
- mammillary body
- anterior thalamic nuclei
what do we consider emotions to be nowadays?
- dynamic
what type of mappings do we use to view emotions?
- network mappings
- because emotions viewed as dynamic, they are seen to be distributed
evaluate the distributed representation view of emotions
- we can classify emotional states in the brain
- emotional states are not random, they have something driving them … therefore should be able to identify them
what are some problems with human research into emotion?
- issues with neuroimaging methods
- no neuroimaging technique has spatial resolution (measure of the smallest object that can be resolved by sensor)
- no neuroimaging technique has high temporal resolution (time taken to take multiple measurements)
- no neuroimaging technique has whole-brain coverage
outline animal studies into fear conditioning
- rat in cage
- every time rat = fearful, it freezes
- cue an auditory response with foot-shocks
- as training goes on, every time foot-shocks happen with the auditory, the rat freezes
- after training, placed in one of two cages
- one cage was a contextual fear test: cage remained same with no auditory stimulus
- other cage was different but auditory stimulus was present
- rat froze a lot more in the contextual fear cage
what did the rat cage foot-shock study show in brain mapping?
- study showed that primary sensory thalamus and associated cortex is feeding into the amygdala
- forming a circuit
- some parts of circuit will be inhibited
what is optogenetic simulation?
- genes for light-sensitive proteins are introduced into specific brain cells
- in order to monitor activity of neurones using light signals
- allows researchers to control how nerve cells communicate
what can optogenetic stimulation of the lateral amygdala in the rat do?
switch fear conditioning on and off
