Emotional behaviors Flashcards
What is an emotion?
- Psychologists define emotion in terms of these components
- Cognition (e.g. thinking, memory, judgement, thinking “this is dangerous”)
- Action (physical response to stimuli, e.g. run away)
- Feeling (emotional state/reaction, “I feel scared”)
- Physiological changes (e.g. breathing, rapid heartbeat)
Emotions and autonomic arousal
- Emotional situations arouse the autonomic nervous system
- ANS divided into sympathetic (fight flight, increase heart rate)) and parasympathetic (rest and digest system,
- Most situations (incl emotional situations) evoke a combination of sympathetic and parasympathetic arousal
- Fear can not only elicit sympathetic activity, but also parasympathetic (e.g. FREEZE response when threat is at distance rather than closer)
The James-Lange Theory of Emotion
the autonomic arousal and skeletal actions come before the emotion.
An emotion includes cognitions, actions, and
feelings. The cognitive aspect comes first. You quickly appraise
something as good, bad, frightening, or whatever. Your
appraisal of the situation leads to an appropriate action, such
as running away, attacking, or sitting motionless with your
heart racing. When James said that arousal and actions lead
to emotions, he meant they lead to the feeling aspect of an
emotion
- James-Lange theory leads to two predictions:
- People with a weak autonomic or skeletal response should feel less emotion
- Increasing one’s response should enhance an emotion
(These are to some degree supported, but it seems there are also other components involved in emotion)
James-Lange theory leads to two predictions:
Do they hold?
- People with a weak autonomic or skeletal response should feel less emotion
- Increasing one’s response should enhance an emotion
• Do the james lange predictions hold?
• Research findings
• Paralyzed people report feeling emotion to the same degree as prior to their injury
• They have skeletal damage (they have physiological response, but action can’t happen) = emotions don’t require feedback from whole body movements
• Pure autonomic failure
• Output from autonomic nervous system to body fails – we would expect such people to report no emotions.
• People with this condition have no autonomic response to stress – they report feeling same emotions, but less intensely = decrease in emotional feeling IS consistent with james lange theory
Taken together = there are other factors involved in perception and emotion (I guess beyond the physical response as emphasized by james lange)
people with damage to the right somatosensory
cortex have normal autonomic responses to emotional music but report little subjective experience. People with damage to part of the prefrontal cortex have weak autonomic responses but normal subjective responses. These results suggest that autonomic responses and subjective experience are not always connected to each other.
BOTOX – how does it affect Autonomic and Emotional Responses?
- Botox can fix wrinkles + handle migraines
- BOTOX blocks transmissions at synapses and nerve-muscle junctions
- People with BOTOX injections report:
- Weaker than usual emotional responses after watching short videos
- Implies feeling a body change is important part of feeling an emotion
Physiological Arousal and Emotions - is it necessary/sufficient?
- According to the James-Lange theory, emotional feelings result from the body’s actions
- But is physiological arousal sufficient for emotion to occur? (probably no, e.g. we don’t feel an emotion after tough exercise = physical arousal – but panic attacks is another case!
- Although physiological responses are seldom sufficient to produce emotional feelings, they increase the feelings (e.g. in cold room = shiver = rate horror movie as scarier).
- Cannon-Bard theory: disagrees with james lange theory - feedback from the viscera is neither necessary nor sufficient for emotion – no consensus.
- Panic attacks are marked by intense sympathetic nervous system arousal ((sometimes brought on by) rapid heartbeat, fast breathing, etc.)
- Only if perceived as occurring spontaneously
- Creating certain body actions may also slightly influence emotion
- Smiling slightly increases happiness
- Inducing a frown leads to the rating of stimuli as slightly less pleasant
- Indicates that perception of the body’s actions do contribute to emotional feeling
The Limbic System - role and evidence in emotion
• Emotional experiences arouse many areas of the brain
• The limbic system includes the forebrain areas surrounding the thalamus (and brainstem)
• Includes amygdala important for fear
From google: The primary structures within the limbic system include the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, and cingulate gyrus.
• Traditionally regarded as critical for emotion
• PET and fMRI studies suggest particular cortical areas are activated during an emotional experience – when we review brain imaging studies, what emerges is NO evidence for localization of emotion/single area critical to emotion in general without being behavioral aspects. – many emotions elicit activity in many different areas.
• Much of the cerebral cortex also reacts to emotional situations
• Some part of amygdala maybe specialized for PERCEIVING emotion in someone’s expression
• with the possible exception of happiness, no brain area appears to be specific for experiencing any particular emotion
Do People Have a Limited Number of Basic Emotions?
Do People Have a Limited Number of Basic Emotions?
• Main support for the idea of basic emotions
• Facial expressions exist for happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, and perhaps other emotions
• if shown a set of faceial expressions, and a list of emotion terms, most people in cultures throughout the world pair them up with greater-than-chance accuracy.
• We rarely interpret emotion based solely on facial expressions, because…
• Two or more emotions can be present in a single facial expression
• Context and gestures important
• Both of these contribute to what the emotion really is.
• (We are better at recognizing expressions of people from our own culture)
Contributions of Left and Right Hemispheres - (2) dimensional approach to emotions
- An alternative view to this basic emotions thing
- Emotional feelings vary along two (or more) continuous dimensions (support from physiology)
- Example: weak to strong, pleasant to unpleasant, approach versus avoid
- Behavioral Activation System (BAS) - activation of the left hemisphere, especially frontal and temporal lobes
- Marked by low to moderate arousal and tendency to approach
- Can characterize happiness or anger
- Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) - increased activity of the frontal and temporal lobe of the right hemisphere
- Increases attention and arousal
- Inhibits action
- Stimulates emotions such as fear and disgust
- (seems to be more responsive to emotional stimuli)
The difference between the hemispheres relates to personality:
On the average, people with greater activity in the
frontal cortex of the left hemisphere tend to be happier, more
outgoing, and more fun-loving. People with greater right hemisphere
activity tend to be socially withdrawn, less satisfied
with life, and prone to unpleasant emotions
• Behavioral Activation System (BAS)
activation of the left hemisphere, especially frontal and temporal lobes
• Marked by low to moderate arousal and tendency to approach
• Can characterize happiness or anger
People were quicker and more accurate at identifying happy faces when the information went to the left hemisphere
- Emotional feelings vary along two (or more) continuous dimensions (support from physiology)
- Example: weak to strong, pleasant to unpleasant, approach versus avoid
• Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS)
increased activity of the frontal and temporal lobe of the right hemisphere
• Increases attention and arousal
• Inhibits action
• Stimulates emotions such as fear and disgust
• (seems to be more responsive to emotional stimuli)
They had an advantage in
processing sad or frightened information when the information
went to the right hemisphere
- Emotional feelings vary along two (or more) continuous dimensions (support from physiology)
- Example: weak to strong, pleasant to unpleasant, approach versus avoid
The Functions of Emotion? what are they good for?
- Emotion has adaptive value (e.g. fear alerts us of danger)
- Examples: fear leads to escape, and anger leads to attack
- Adaptive value of other emotions is less obvious
- Emotions help communicate needs to others
- And understand others’ needs
- Aid in quick decision making (from gut feeling)
Emotions and Moral Decisions
- Emotions important Making important moral decisions
- We pay much attention to how the outcome will make us feel
- Contemplating moral decisions activates the prefrontal cortex and cingulate gyrus (areas responsive to emotions)
- Moral decisions are seldom made rationally
- One decision or the other just “feels” right
- We rationalize after decision has been made
Decision-Making after Brain Damage - role of PFC damage in decisions and emotions
- Damage to parts of the prefrontal cortex blunts emotions
- Impairs decision-making (If confronted with trolley dilemma, more likely to choose utilitarian option, saving 5 people)
- Leads to impulsive decision-making without pausing to consider consequences
- Those with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex show (Phineas gage):
- Inconsistent preferences
- Decreased guilt (would say yes to murder someone they hate) and trust (in dictator and trust game, they show very little concern for others (keeping more to themselves)
- Damasio investigated man with frontal cortical damage, expressed basically no emotionality = does not equal rational decision making, he had bad decision making, costing him job, marriage and savings.
- Ventromedial parts – damage result in loss of guilt.
- Damage to amygdala or PFC = slow at processing emotional information.
Attack and Escape Behaviors
Anger and fear are closely related both behaviorally and physiologically.
• Attack and escape behaviors and corresponding emotions (anger and fear)
• Closely related physiologically and behaviorally
• Role of the amygdala important (in cortex, near medial temporal lobe, almond shaped) – important in fear and escape behaviors. - no coincidence that we describe the sympathetic nervous system
as the fight-or-flight system.
if we have “attacked” once, a shot after intruder will increase our likelihood of attack. activity builds up in the corticomedial area of the amygdala and as it does so, it increases the hamster’s probability of attacking
the role of Heredity and Environment in Violence
- Individual differences in aggressive, violent, or antisocial behavior depend on both heredity and environment
- Environment
- If person was witness or victim of violence in childhood
- Living in a violent neighborhood
- Abused children are more likely to express violent behavior
- Exposure to lead (bly på dansk) harms developing brains
- Heredity
- Twin studies indicate significant amount of heritability although there is some debate about experimental design (e.g. measuring aggression)
- Furthermore, heritability for antisocial behavior is fairly high in middle-class neighborhoods, but much lower in the most impoverished neighborhoods (The interpretation is that extremely bad environment can elicit antisocial behavior in almost anyone. The same behavior is less common in wealthier environments and more likely to have a genetic predisposition.)
- MAOA gene—low activity form of this gene shows a link to aggression (lowactivity form of the gene increased violent behavior only in people who had a seriously troubled childhood environment. - possibly less active form is linked to greater emotional reactivity)
Take home message: interaction between genes and environment in aggression!
Effect of Hormones—Aggressive Behavior
- Testosterone is important – males are more aggressive than women generally (in animal kingdoms, when convicted, etc)
- Male aggressive behavior heavily depends on testosterone
- Young men have highest rates of aggressive behaviors and violent crimes
- Testosterone levels where highest for criminals of violent cries than less violent crimes
- On average, men engage in more aggressive and violent behaviors than women – is this due to testosterone? (injecting testosterone vs placebo is better, than looking at correlational studies, because subjects may be different in other regards than testosterone too)
- Increasing testosterone in women
- Increased the amount of time looking at angry faces (increase response in amygdala in response to angry faces)
- Results in more arguing during collaborative tasks
Serotonin Synapses and Aggressive Behavior
- Impulsiveness and aggressive behavior have been linked to low serotonin release
- (typically measured by) Serotonin turnover
- The amount of serotonin that neurons released, absorbed, and replaced
- Measured by the concentration of 5-HIAA in the cerebrospinal fluid
In mice:
methods of decreasing serotonin turnover also increase aggressive behavior
In humans:
• Low serotonin turnover found in people with history of violent behavior (and people attempting suicide by violent means)
• Arson & violent crimes
• Suicide by violent means
• People with lower serotonin turnover has higher chances of re-conviction.
• Relationship between serotonin and aggression is small
• Cannot be used to make predictions about an individual
Testosterone, Serotonin, and Cortisol - the role of NT interactions/combinations
• Aggressive behavior does not correlate strongly with any one chemical because it depends on a combination
• Testosterone, facilitates aggressive, assertive, dominant behavior
• Serotonin tends to inhibit impulsive behaviors
• Cortisol inhibits aggression
• Aggressive behavior depends on ratio of testosterone to cortisol
But even a combined measure of testosterone, cortisol, and serotonin provides only a modest relationship to aggressive behavior. Several medications for restraining anxiety are effective enough to justify their use in some cases. No pill is likely to be effective in controlling violence.
Fear and Anxiety, role of amygdala, and startle reflex
• Proneness to approach, avoidance, and anxiety varies with the situation and the individual
• Role of the amygdala
• Important for enhancing the startle reflex (startle reflex = response one makes to sudden, unexpected loud noises-auditory stimulus stimulates pons in brainstem, commands tensing of muscles in neck, info reaches brainstem in 3-8 ms – startle response occurs within 2 tenths of a second – more likely to occur of we are already tense (more common in PTSD))
• Startle reflex
• Extremely fast response to unexpected loud noises
• Can be used as a behavioral measure of anxiety
Although you don’t have to learn to fear loud noises, your current mood or situation modifies your reaction. Your startle reflex is more vigorous if you are already tense.
startle reflex
startle reflex = response one makes to sudden, unexpected loud noises-auditory stimulus stimulates pons in brainstem, commands tensing of muscles in neck, info reaches brainstem in 3-8 ms – startle response occurs within 2 tenths of a second.
• Startle reflex
• Extremely fast response to unexpected loud noises
• Can be used as a behavioral measure of anxiety
Although you don’t have to learn to fear loud noises, your current mood or situation modifies your reaction. Your startle reflex is more vigorous if you are already tense.
Neuroanatomy of Fear and Anxiety (amygdala)
- The amygdala is important for knowing what to fear.
- If a person is attacked or has a fearful experience, he/she becomes fearful in a wide variety of circumstances (long term generalized emotional arousal is associated with bed nucleus)
- Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (stria terminalis itself if the projection/axons connecting bed nucleus to amygdala)
- Brain area that controls long-term, generalized emotional arousal
Much input from sensory
systems including vision and hearing goes to the lateral and
basolateral areas of the amygdala, which relay the information
to the central amygdala, which combines it with pain and
stress information that it received from the thalamus
Learning a fear strengthens synapses at several of the connections along this route
stronger connections between the lateral and central amygdala is characterized by heightened anxiety in many cases (in mice)
By stimulating or damaging parts of laboratory animals’
amygdala, researchers have found that one path through the
amygdala is responsible for fear of pain, another path for fear
of predators, and yet another for fear of aggressive members of
your own species (Gross & Canteras, 2012). Also, one part of
the amygdala controls changes in breathing, another controls
avoidance of potentially unsafe places, and another controls
learning which particular places are safest (Kim et al., 2013).
= what we call fear is a conglomerate of separate aspects, not a single indivisible state
Klüver-Bucy Syndrome
- Damage to the amygdala
- Monkeys with this syndrome are tame/placid
- Display less than normal fear of snakes and larger, more dominant monkeys
- Have impaired social behaviors (largely because they don’t seem to learn which monkeys to approach with caution.)
- monkeys with such damage are impaired at learning what to fear
Human Amygdala (fMRI) Studies
- fMRI studies show the amygdala responds strongly to photos that arouse fear or photos of faces showing fear or anger (also to a less degree to faces showing happiness or sadness)
- Response is stronger when the meaning (in facial expression) is unclear and likely does so because it requires some processing to make sense of.
- Responds more strongly to a frightened face directed toward the viewer and angry faces directed elsewhere
amygdala’s response to a frightened face emerges in the remarkably fast time of just 74 milliseconds (ms) after presentation (faster than fysiform gyrus)
