Emotion- Lectures 8&9

Question 1

Defining Emotion

Elkman & Friesen (1971)

Answer 1

6 Universal types of expressions:

• Sad
• Happy
• Angry
• Fearful
• Disgusted
• Surprised

Question 2

Robert Plitchik (1927-2006)

Answer 2

• There is a gradient of emotion

- Each can vary in intensity

Question 3

Plutchik’s Psycho-evolutionary theory of basic emotions

- Ten assumptions

Answer 3

1-Applies to all animals including humans
2-Have an evolutionary history and have evolved various forms of expression in different species
3-Adaptive role in helping organisms deal with survival issues in environment
4-Are common elements, or prototype patterns across species
5-Small number of basic, primary, or prototype emotions.
6- Other emotions (not primary) are mixed or derivative states occurring in combinations of the primary emotion
7-Primary emotions are hypothetical constructs or idealised states
8-Primary emotions can be conceptualised in terms of pairs of polar opposites (happy-sad)
9-All emotions vary in their degree of similarity to one another.
10-can exist in varying degrees of intensity

Question 4

Rolls (1990)- Classification of emotion based on reinforcement learning

Answer 4

-Learn to associate neg./pos. outcomes with specific stimuli
  >Primary reinforcers- 
  directly influence 
  behaviour 
  >Secondary reinforcers- 
  something that you can 
  achieve a specific 
  outcome

-Includes expectation in the model
expect a negative response to a stimuli but experience the opposite, we experience relief

Emotion is what motivates our behaviour- but it is the expectation of emotion

Question 5

Rolls (1995 continued…)

Dimensions of Emotion

Answer 5

> Emotions are graded
Can be externally or internally controlled (stimuli
or expectation)
Emotion modifies behaviour

Question 6

Investigating emotion:

Methods of Eliciting emotion

Answer 6

Mood induction-ask to achieve target emotion

Reward & punishment- give primary or secondary reinforcers for negative or positive emotion

Emotionally Evocative stimuli- International affective picture system

Question 7

Investigating emotion:

Measuring emotion

Answer 7

Direct assessment- self report (introspection..)

Indirect assessment-

• Study choice behaviour
• Measure reaction times

Psychophysiological variables-
Emotion directly affects autonomic nervous system
e.g. look at startle reflex, skin conductance, heart rate

Question 8

Lesion studies

Answer 8

Papez (1937)- Hypothalamus, anterior thalamus, cingulate gyrus and hippocampus

MacLean (1952)- adds amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex & part of basal ganglia

Question 9

fMRI studies

Answer 9

Measures task specific haemodynamic response in different regions of the brain

Question 10

The Amygdala

Answer 10

In medial temporal lobe adjacent to hippocampus

Question 11

Damage to Amygdala

Answer 11

Can cause:

• Loss of fear response (In monkeys)
• Impaired implicit learning and explicit memory
• Social responses
• Vigilance

Question 12

Phelps and LeDoux (2005)
Animal & human Models
-Impact on understanding of Amygdala and emotional processing

Answer 12

Implicates amygdala in fear and other emotional processes:

• implicit emotional learning and memory
• emotional modulation of memory
• emotional influences on attention and perception
• emotion and social behaviour
• emotion inhibition and regulation

Question 13

Amygdala:

Implicit learning

Answer 13

Neutral stimuli can take on aversive properties when paired with aversive events
>Fear conditioning
Individual can become fearful of a neutral non-threatening stimuli if it has previously been paired with a naturally threatening unconditioned stimulus (shock).

Question 14

Implicit learning and Amygdala damage

Answer 14

Impairs conditioned fear response -‘fear learning’ not stimulus perception

I.e. get a fright every time but cannot learn the association

Blocks ability to acquire and express a response to the neutral conditioned response when paired with aversive unconditioned stimulus

Question 15

LeDoux

2 main functional components of Amygdala

Answer 15

1. Lateral nucleus of Amygdala (convergence area):
   - Formation of associations underlying aversive conditioning
2. Central Nucleus of Amygdala (initiating area):
   - Receiving projections from lateral nucleus to initiate emotional response to aversive stimulus

Question 16

LeDoux- 2 main functional components of Amygdala:

Function in implicit learning

Answer 16

Convergent input through 2 routes :
>low and high road

• Low road: Direct from sensory thalamus (quick but unspecific)
• High road: Projections via primary sensory and association cortices (slow but specific)

Question 17

Phelps et al. (1998)

Answer 17

Lesions in Amygdala lead to no physiological response to aversive stimuli (electric shock)
-patients skin conductivity does not increase in line with controls
BUT.. they do have good cognitive understanding and interpretation of experience

Question 18

Amygdala- evolutionary function

Answer 18

Used to respond to early signs of threatening stimuli- involved in very early on stages of responding

Question 19

Amygdala:

Emotion modulation

Answer 19

Emotional responses modulate memory formation

-traumatic/ stressful events are recalled much better than everyday events

Question 20

LaBar & Phelps (1998).

Answer 20

Patients with amygdala damage forget arousing and non-arousing stimuli at the same rate
-Compared to control, this is unusual as arousing stimuli is usually retained for longer

Question 21

Amygdala:

Social Responses

Answer 21

Human amygdala majorly not involved in explicit evaluation of events
1 exception:
-Evaluating fearful facial expressions Adolphs (1994;1999)

Question 22

Breiter et al. (1996)

Answer 22

Largest amygdala activation to fearful expressions

> Behavioural data supported by imaging data

Question 23

Amygdala:
Social Responses
Vigilance

Answer 23

Vigilance in ability to detect fear in others
Fearful expressions in isolation do not trigger emotional responses but activate the amygdala
-activity in amygdala neurones causes increased excitability in other cortical areas (acetylcholine)

Question 24

Amygdala:

Emotional Influence on attention and perception

Answer 24

Emotionally aversive stimuli is often more easily recognised than neutral stimuli

Question 25

The Attentional Blink

Raymond et al. (1992)

Answer 25

After attention is diverted to a target subject, there is a gap in attention afterwards, that means a second target cannot be detected milliseconds after,

Question 26

Amygdala:
Influence on attention and perception
Anderson & Phelps (2001)

Answer 26

Emotional Attentional blink

The attentional blink shows that:
-after identifying a single target stimulus, there is a transient impairment in awareness for a subsequently presented second target
-Consistent with the notion of a differential sensitivity toward significant events, this deficit in perceptual awareness is greatly attenuated for aversive verbal stimuli
»>Control observers identified negative words with greater accuracy than neutral words across all temporal lags

Question 27

Lesions in both left and right amygdala

Answer 27

LHS lesion shows no attentional blink-impair attentional (fast) evaluation of written words.

RHS lesion shows a big attentional blink