introduction to emotion Flashcards
what is an emotion?
strong/instinctive feeling responding to one’s circumstances, mood or relationships with others
distinguished from reasoning or knowledge
what is Rottenberg’s description of mood?
slow moving feeling states that are weakly tied to specific objects or situations
what are the 4 stages of emotional processing according to Phillips neuro-anatomical model?
- stimulus/thought presentation
- appraisal process to work out value of stimulus
- affective state (short lived emotional response)
- automatic emotion regulation of affective state to behave in appropriate way (mood when goes on for a while)
what is Darwin’s theory of emotion?
emotions evolved for their adaptive value in dealing with fundamental life tasks
emotions indicate what you are likely to do next
cross-species similarities in basic emotional expression
what are the basic emotions which exist across cultures?
who proposed this?
anger disgust fear happiness sadness surprise
Ekman
what did ekman do to study universality of emotions?
asked tribesmen to pull different faces for different emotional situations
asked them to identify which facial expression corresponded to which situation of americans
examples of changing expression to take in certain info?
widening eyes in fear helps detect a threat
evidence suggesting facial expressions innate?
- born blind still show same facial expressions as others suggesting hard wired into genes
- blindsighted (cortically blind) people responded to emotion shown to blind hemisphere
- first 6 weeks can smile and cry and may be able to develop facial expressions in the womb
example of simple dual-system theory to classification of emotion?
Schneirla categorise emotions in terms of approach and withdrawal
what did Gray theorise?
behavioural approach (reward) and inhibition (punishment) systems have distinct brain circuits
what is Davidson’s valence-asymmetry hypothesis?
left prefrontal cortex more related to approach related goals
right prefrontal cortex related to goals requiring inhibition and withdrawal (negative)
example of a negative emotion being an ‘approach’ response?
trying to approach goal but becoming angry
what are the 2 axis in the circumplex model?
arousal and valence
what did Ekman do to study relationship between emotional expressions and emotional experience?
watch positive or negative movies and rate how feeling when watching them
see if expressions during correlated with subjective reported experience
ppts who showed smile movements (watching positive movie) reported more happiness and vice versa
what does emg measure?
muscle activity e.g in the face to measure expression
what does FACS stand for?
facial coding system
which muscle is used to smile?
zygomatic major muscle
which muscle is used to frown?
corrugator muscle
relationship between emg and emotion perception?
emg positively correlated with emotion perception ability
what are some of the social functions of emotions?
wide eyes in fear (lots of white) so threat can be detected by others by seeing whites of eyes and pupils pointing in direction of threat
sadness elicits caregiving
happy/angry act a reinforcers (esp. for babies)
are facial expressions shaped by social context?
yes, more exaggerated facial expressions in social context (in particular around friends over strangers)
what is James-Lange theory?
physiological response to environmental stimuli and interpretation of that response results in emotion
don’t run because afraid, afraid because realise running away form a threat
different patterns of bodily change code different emotions
support for James-Lange’s theory?
expressions of disgust mis-identified as sadness or anger evoked heart rate changes more typical of sadness and anger than disgust
what is the Cannon-Bard theory in disputing James-Lange’s theory?
emotions occured even if brain disconnnected from viscera (internal organs)
bodily changes not emotion specific and too slow
stimulation of bodily change doesn’t lead to emotions
what do emotions depend on?
brain mechanisms
describe embodied emotion as bodily state being represented in brain?
when one has experienced a bodily response to a stimulus it is encoded in memory and representation of it can be reactivated even if the original bodily state is not fully reactivated
describe the two-factor theory of emotion?
physiological arousal and cognitive label give rise to emotion
how is modern affective neuroscience used to study emotion in the brain?
brain imaging
lesions
behavioural experiments
electrophysiological recordings
what is the role of the amygdala in emotion?
studies showing the effect of lesions?
important role in emotion processing
lesions in monkeys lead to changes in social behaviour
lesions in humans leads to emotional blunting and less effective fear conditioning
what are the 2 pathways of the amygdala?
low road = eyes to thalamus to amygdala so trigger flight/fight response before consciously aware
high road = eyes to thalamus to sesnory cortex to amygdala (2x as long as low road)
when is amygdala activated?
in response to facial expressions of emotions but particularly fear
how do genes affect amygdala responses?
serotonin transporter less efficient at recycling into pre-synaptic (more serotonin around so stimulating post-synaptic neuron more)
increases activity of the amygdala
also more likely to develop depression
findings regarding depressed people and emotional perception?
less likely to say a mildly happy face is happy so less sensitive to positive stimuli
what is meant by depressed people having emotional bias?
changes in sensitivity to emotional expressions
negative emotional bias - more sensitive to negative expressions
study on depressed patients and amygdala activation?
how altered and effect on normal patients?
increased amygdala response to negative facial expressions
normalised after SSRIs taken and reduce amygdala response in healthy controls as well and reduced recognition of negative expressions
neural correlate of disgust?
basal ganglia and insula (anterior)
studies on disgust regarding the insula?
lesions & stimulation studies
insula lesion means won’t develop disgust conditioning in rats
insula stimulation in humans leads to feelings of nausea
lesions in insula in humans worse at recognising and feeling disgust
what do ocd patients have in relation to disgust?
elevated disgust response (as shown by elevation in activity in insula and correlated with how anxious felt) especially those with washing symptoms
