Emotions Flashcards
How do levels of anger and fear change in people who had spinal injuries depending on how high/low along the spine the damage is?
People who have their spine damaged closer to the cervical area (in neck) experience an important decrease in anger and fear.
However, people who had injuries closer to sacral area (tailbone) experience an increase in fear.
Which part of the brain is in charge of cognitive process of emotions (like thinking of sadness and forcing a frown on your face)
Neocortex
Tyler has volitional face paresis.
1. What can’t he do
2. What can do
3. What part of the brain is damaged
- he can’t voluntarily control his face muscles (he can’t force a smile)
- He can express genuine emotion
- Damage in the primary motor cortex
Ken has emotional facial paresis. What can he do and what can’t he do
He can’t express genuine automatic facial displays of emotion (like laugh) but he can voluntarily control his face (force a smile)
What are the arguments against
1. anthropomorphizing animals to study emotions in humans
2. anthropectomizing animals (denying they have any feelings)
- We shouldn’t anthropomorphize bc animals don’t have complex cognition or culture & it’s not appropriate to apply same emotional concepts to animals in lab settings
- We shouldn’t anthropectomize bc animals come from the same evolutionary background as us, & it’s undeniable that animals exhibit some humanlike emotional characteristics
- Where are streams of thought processed
- Where are streams of feelings processed
- specifically, where is fear processed
- cerebral cortex
- limbic system (fear is processed in amygdala)
Would a rat in a lab setting be willing to go through more pain for food or for increase of dopamine release?
Increase of dopamine release
What effect does the stimulation of GABA neurons in the posterior dorsal quadrant of the medial amygdala have on rats? (when stimulated a little bit vs when stimulated a lot)
It causes social behaviour - When stimulated a bit more than usual, they exhibit exaggerated social desires & behaviour (try to have sex with any rat they see)
When stimulated a lot (15-20 times a second), the behaviour turns into aggressive, intense rage
What effect does the stimulation of glutamate neurons in the posterior dorsal quadrant of the medial amygdala have on rats?
Causes reduced social behaviour -
When stimulated, rats disengaged socially & went in a corner of their cage to groom themselves
What’s the Common Sense view of emotion?
That a stimulus is what causes an emotion and then a physical response (duh common sense)
What is the James Lange theory of emotion?
That the emotion is preceeded by a physiological response - if you can’t have a physical response in the first place, you can’t feel emotions either
What are criticisms of the James Lange theory
- Our internal organs are pretty insensitive & don’t rly respond quickly enough to influence our feelings
- Cutting sensory nerves between internal organs & central nervous system doesn’t abolish emotional behaviour in animals
- Artificially activating a particular autonomic response (heightened heart rate) doesn’t increase corresponding emotion (anxiety)
- What’s the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)in emotion processing
- What happens if it’s damaged?
1.It regulates the exspression of emotion (usually has inhibitory influence, specifically on fear)
2. If damaged, can’t control emotions & act more childlike; can’t calm themselves when they get frustrated
What happens to a learned fear response that was extinguished if the connection between the vmPFC and the amygdala is lesioned?
The extension is disrupted and the original fear response is restored
Who was phinneas gage & what happened to him?
Gage had a very bad damage to his vmPFC. Before the accident, he was good-natured, kind and responsible. After the accident, he had many emotional outbursts & couldn’t make plans. Also didn’t think of others feelings
