Emotion & Motivation Flashcards
Bottom-Up Processes
involve the transmission and processing of incoming sensory information
Bottom-Up Processes
involve the transmission and processing of incoming sensory information
Top-Down Processes
involve the processing of previously experienced information
James-Lange Theory of Emotion
1st: Event
2nd: Arousal and physiological changes
3rd: Interpretation of the physiological changes
4th: Emotion
- implies that the emotions we feel arise from INTERPRETATION of our physiological states
- different emotions arise from interpretation of different patterns of ANS activity
- Implication: Without any physiological reactions we would not be able to experience emotions
Dutton & Aron Experiment
- empirically studied the idea of interpretation (James-Lange Theory)
- attractive woman conducted survey of men in two locations: high bridge or land, gave number and asked to call
IV: Interviews conducted on high bridge or land
DV: Number of return calls made - men interview on bridge were far more likely to call than those interviewed on land
- confusing physiological arousal from being on bridge with feelings for woman
Cannon/Bard Theory of Emotion
Argued against James-Lange Theory:
- the ANS works too slowly, and emotions occur too rapidly, for physiological arousal to precede emotion
- people are often unaware of ANS changes
- changes in the environment impact the ANS, but we feel no emotions
- the ANS is no sophisticated enough to account for the wide range of human emotions
Instead, two independent streams of neural processing:
- One where stimuli activate the ANS
- another where the same stimuli also activates emotional processing centres
- both act (SEPARATELY) to create an emotion
Schacter-Singer Theory of Emotion
Proposed that both the James-Lange and Cannon/Bard positions were right
- emotions are the result of logical inferences about our physiological states and our environment
A two stage theory, requiring:
- Physiological arousal
- an explanation for the arousal
- emotions are determined by arousal AND environment (work together)
Schacter-Singer Experiment
Hypothesis: emotions arise from physiological arousal and cognitive inferences appropriate to arousal
Method: Ps receive injects of epinephrine (arouses the sympathetic nervous system) and told the true/false effects
- participant then waited in a room in the presence of a confederate (stooge working for the experimenters)
IV: confederate behaves either happily or aggressively
DV: emotional state/reaction of the participant
- if Ps were UNABLE TO IDENTIFY THE CAUSE OF THEIR AROUSAL they felt emotions commensurate with those of the stooges
- evidence shows that physiological arousal does increase ratings of emotional intensity
- aspect of their theory that physiological arousal is UNDIFFERENTIATED is less certain
Ekman, Levenson, & Friesen
- demonstrated that some emotions are associated with different levels of physiological arousal
- the differentiated effect of arousal suggests that arousal and emotions are linked by more than just inferences
- some physiological reactions are associated with only one emotion (ie. extreme differentiation)
Kluver-Bucy Syndrome
- Kluver & Bucy conducted temporal lobe resections on rhesus monkeys during 1930’s
- results indicated that removal of the temporal lobe resulted in two strange and unexpected outcomes:
1. monkeys would try to eat or mate with anything
2. monkeys showed no fear, even to snakes - results supported suspicions that the limbic system (particularly the amygdala and nucleus accumbens) regulated emotions (at least low-level emotions)
Olds and Milner Experiment
- used electrical stimulation of the amygdala in rats
- rats enjoyed the stimulation, and when allowed to stimulate their own amygdalas by turning the current they would continualy press the lever regulating the current, and showed preference to electrical stimulation over food
- showed that the amygdala is responsible for evaluating the valence of incoming sensory stimulus (aka. appraisal)
Olds and Milner Sequence of Events
- Stimulus excites transduction in sensory receptors
- Sensory information is sent to the amygdala
- Amygdala decides on valence (eg. fear/fun)
- Stimulus appropriate emotion is generated
Downer Experiment
- severed the neural connections between right eye and amygdala in monkeys
- when fear inducing stimuli were presented to the left eye, monkey became afraid but when stimulus present to right eye, monkey remained calm
- conclusion: amygdala is able to make extremely rapid appraisals using limited amounts of information
LeDoux - Fast and Slow Pathways
Post-thalamus information is carried on two pathways:
- information is sent to the cortex for cognitive processing
- the same information is sent to amygdala
- after processing, the cortical information is also sent to the amygdala
- CORTICAL PATHWAY IS SLOW (ie. thalamus-cortex-amygdala) and DIRECT PATH TO AMYGDALA IS FAST
- amygdala induces an emotion before the behaviour is engaged, cortex determines whether the emotion should be maintained or terminated
Top-Down Processes
involve the processing of previously experienced information
