Emotion essay Flashcards
How do cognitive and physiological factors interact in the production and expression of emotions?
Emotion can be defined as a mental feeling or affection as distinct from volition or cognition for this reason behaviourist used to think emotions should not be the proper subject of science because they are subjective. Toates (2001) disagrees, believing there are 4 basic aspects of emotion that should be studied; behavioural, physiological, cognitive and subjective. It used to be thought that emotions were unrelated to cognition and directly opposite to reason. It was thought that in order to make good, logical decisions one must suppress one’s emotions. However, Damasio (1994) found that patients who experienced a dramatic loss of emotion due to prefrontal cortex damage tended to make terrible moral decisions. Therefore it is now a consensus within the scientific community that cognition and physiological factors interact in the production and expression of emotion, although there is some disagreement on whether cognition proceeds physiological aspects of emotion or vice versa.
According to James Lange’s theory of emotion (1884) physiological reactions lead to emotion. Laird (1974); Strack et al (1988) attempted to demonstrate this
According to James Lange’s theory of emotion (1884) physiological reactions lead to emotion. The facial feedback hypothesis states that facial movement can influence emotional experience. For example, an individual who is forced to smile during a social event will actually come to find the event more of an enjoyable experience. Hypothesis: putting on a happy or angry face will affect mood. If this is true, physiological factors can cause a subjective emotional experience. Originally, the facial feedback hypothesis studied the enhancing or suppressing effect of facial efference on emotion in the context of spontaneous, “real” emotions, using stimuli. This resulted in “the inability of research using spontaneous efference to separate correlation from causality”. Laird (1974) used a cover story (measuring muscular facial activity with electrodes) to induce particular facial muscles contraction in his participants without mentioning any emotional state. However, the higher funniness ratings of the cartoons obtained by those participants “tricked” into smiling may have been caused by their recognising the muscular contraction and its corresponding emotion: the “self-perception mechanism”, which Laird (1974) thought was at the root of the facial feedback phenomenon. Perceiving physiological changes, people “fill the blank” by feeling the corresponding emotion. Strack et al (1988) attempted to demonstrate this in their study using a facial feedback hypothesis. This proposes putting on a happy face will affect mood. If this is true, physiological responses can cause subjective cognitive experiences. In the experiment, participants held a pen either between their teeth (and therefore capable of smiling) or between their lips (leaving them unable to smile), whilst rating cartoons. Those who help the pen between their teeth rated cartoons as more amusing. However, critics claim this does not show a straightforward causal relationship as rather than the facial expression causing amusement, natural amusement may not have been limited in the teeth condition. Another difficulty is whether the process of manipulation of the facial muscles did not cause so much exertion and fatigue that those, partially or wholly, caused the physiological changes and subsequently the emotion. Finally, the presence of physiological change may have been induced or modified by cognitive process.
Botox and emotion; Hennenlotter et al; Havas et al
In a functional neuroimaging study, Hennenlotter et al asked participants to perform a facial expression imitation task in an fMRI scanner before and two weeks after receiving botox injections in the corrugator supercilii muscle used in frowning. During imitation of angry facial expressions, botox decreased activation of brain regions implicated in emotional processing and emotional experience (namely, the amygdala and the brainstem), relative to activations before botox injection. These findings show that facial feedback modulates neural processing of emotional content, and that botox changes how the human brain responds to emotional situations. In a study of cognitive processing of emotional content, Havas et al asked participants to read emotional (angry, sad, happy) sentences before and two weeks after botox injections in the corrugator supercilii muscle used in frowning. Reading times for angry and sad sentences were longer after botox injection than before injection, while reading times for happy sentences were unchanged. This finding shows that facial muscle paralysis has a selective effect on processing of emotional content. It also demonstrates that cosmetic use of botox affects aspects of human cognition - namely, the understanding of language.
Evidence for cognition proceeding emotion, Adolphs (2009) Pure autonomic failure;
Evidence for cognition proceeding emotion, or even without emotion comes from patients suffering from pure autonomic failure. Patients with this condition experience no change in physiological responses such as blood pressure or sweat when under stress, yet they recognise the emotions they should be feeling. Patients with this disorder have damage to the autonomic nervous system, which includes the amygdala. According to Adolphs (2009) the amygdala may direct attention to salient features and therefore may be important in many emotions, especially fear. Although fear is known to be closely related to amygdala, brain studies have not found a simple one-to-one relationship between a particular emotion and a change of activity in a particular brain region, indicating there are complex interactions across a widespread network that contribute to the production and expression of emotion.
A study by Kawasaki looked at the prefrontal cortex and its role in emotion production and expression.
A study by Kawasaki looked at the prefrontal cortex and its role in emotion production and expression. A brain surgery patient had electrodes implanted in the right ventral prefrontal cortex. Kawasaki found neurons fired differentially in response to unpleasant versus pleasant pictures. More surprisingly, the speed of response, 120ms, was faster than the brain could receive physiological feedback. The researchers concluded we can detect emotionally relevant information without physiological input. However, Fried et al (1998) found results that oppose this conclusion. A 16 year old girl had her prefrontal cortex stimulated during surgery and laughed. She attributed this to the doctors standing around. Thus, inducement of emotion comes before cognitive appraisal.
Rainville (2006), however, advocates that neither cognition comes before emotion or vice versa.
Rainville (2006), however, advocates that neither cognition comes before emotion or vice versa. He asked 43 healthy adults to describe personal emotional memories during physiological recording. The physiological responses differed depending on the emotion relived, but correct emotion was only identified by the blind experimenter 65.3% of the time, arguably not a satisfactory figure. However, Rainville concluded physiological processes affect the strength of our emotional experiences but are not entirely responsible for them.
Similarly, Schachter & Singer (1962) advocate cognition and physiology occur at the same time. “cast in the framework of a study of the effects of Vitamin supplements on vision.”
Researchers told all 184 participants, all male college students, that they would be receiving injections of the vitamin compound “Suproxin.” In reality the injected compound was ½cc of either epinephrine (adrenaline), a glucocorticoid, stress hormone or saline (placebo) solution, creating experimental and control conditions respectively. Secondly, participants who received the epinephrine were assigned to one of three conditions “Informed”, “Ignorant”, and “Misinformed”. In the ”Informed” condition participants were made aware of the injection’s potential side effects (e.g. increased heart rate, shakiness, etc.), thus giving an “appropriate explanation” of arousal.” In the “Ignorant” condition participants were not given any information regarding potential side effects and thus no explanation for arousal. Participants were told it was a new drug and were: –1) told arousing symptoms –2) told different (unlikely) symptoms –3) told nothing –4) placebo injection Lastly, in order to control for effects of introspective anxiety in the face of side effects, the “Misinformed” condition participants were made aware of fabricated side effects. The final variable manipulated was the “cognitive circumstance.” Participants were left alone for 20 minutes with paired stooges (blind to participant condition) who were trained to act in either a “euphoric” or “angry” manner. Emotional state was then experimentally measured via one-way mirror assessments (semiprivate index) of the participants’ behaviour relative to the stooge. A Likert style scale self-report (public index) addressing participant mood and physical condition was then administered immediately after the experiment. The results of the experiment confirmed Schachter and Singer’s original hypothesis. In both the “euphoric” and “angry” conditions participants in the “Ignorant” and “Misinformed” conditions consistently showed significantly higher scores on both activity indices and self-report scales than those in the Informed and Placebo conditions. Participants were placed with a happy or angry confederate, after were asked about drug effects. Participants seem affected by the confederate. Angry when with an angry confederate; happy when with a happy confederate. In the forewarned and placebo conditions, people were much less likely to report emotional experience, regardless of the behaviour of the confederate. The context and interpretation of arousal, had a direct effect on the nature of emotional response. They concluded the context and interpretation of arousal had a direct effect on the nature of emotional response. Therefore they show an interaction of physiological and cognitive responses in the production and expression of emotion.
In conclusion
To conclude, our subjective experience of emotions seem to be based upon an interplay between physiological and cognitive appraisals of our context. This is mediated by a complex neural network including the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, amongst others. The strongest evidence for this comes from Schacher & Singer who’s sample size was large and results sturdy. These findings have implications regarding how much control we have over our own emotions and further research is needed to increase the probability of the interplay theory being correct.
