Introduction to emotion Flashcards
what is an emotion?
Oxford Eng Dictionary: ‘a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood/r’ships with others, instinctive/intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning/knowledge’
– Occurs in response to an event
– Also, subject experience – physical changes
– Indv diffs
stages of emotional processing
regulation
affective state
appraisal
stimulus presentation
the expression of the emotions in man and animals (Darwin, 1972)
Suggested emotional expressions conserved across humans in diff cultures and of diff ages
Emotions evolved for adaptive value in dealing with fundamental life stats (aids survival)
Cross-species similarities in emotional expression (emotions evolved)
Emotions signify what the animal is likely to do next – if behavs beneficial they become effective means of communication and original function/associated action may be lost – opposing messages often signalled by opposing movements/postures
Animals convert emotion based on action about to take
basic emotions exist across cultures
(Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise)
Basic emotions innate neural and bodily states that are elicited rapidly and automatically in response to certain stimuli/stations
Should be universal, automatic and have discrete neural and/ bodily state associated with them
basic emotions exist across cultures - Ekman and Friesen (1971/2)
Spontaneous expressions
Tribesmen from Papua New Guinea posed emotions - shown to American undergrads – could identify expressions – never met – can be generalised
indv functions of emotions
Expressions change info taken in, e.g.:
- Widening of eyes in fear helps to detect threat
- Wrinkling of eyes and nose in disgust helps us avoid ingesting contaminating stimuli
- Senses more alert
Emotions adapt behaviour to help achieve goals
indv functions of emotions - Oatley and Johnson-Laird (1987)
Cognitive Theory of Emotion
- Emotions evolved to help indvs chances of survival by managing behaviour to meet one’s goals
- Specific emotions occur to adapt behaviour when progress on specific types of goals interrupted
basic emotions exist across cultures but there are culture-specific ‘display rules’
Diffs in display of emotions that may be culturally bound
Gender diffs in emotion reg and expression believed to be rooted in bio and social/cultural factors
what sort of evidence would suggest that emotions are innate?
Blind people use same emotional expressions
- Expressions hard-wired into genes
- High degree of correlation
Babies expressions – crying and smiles
- Facial expressions develop in the womb
classification of emotions
Simple dual-system theories, e.g. Schneirla (1959) categorise emotions in terms of approach and withdrawal
Jeffrey Gray (1970/80s) - Behavioural approach (reward) and inhibition (punishment) systems (distinct brain circuits)
Davidson’s ‘valence-asymmetry hypothesis’
- Left-sided prefrontal cortex = approach-related (pos) goals and right-sided PFC = goals requiring inhibition and withdrawal (neg)
- Left and right hem involved in diff emotions
circumplex model
(James Russell, 1980)
some neg emotions can be associated with approach responses so more complex models have been proposed, with 2 axes/dimensions – arousal and valence
Widespread support
the role of facial expressions of emotion
Lack of replication of embodying emotion study
emotion expression - Ekman et al. (1980)
Do facial expressions reflect emotional experience?
Ps watched movies (pos and neg)
- Self-reported subjective experience
- Facial expressions while watching movies videoed
- Coded using FACS – Facial Action Coding System
Ps who showed particular smile movement (‘action unit 12’) reported more happiness
Ps who showed more ‘neg’ facial movements reported more neg emotion
emotion expressions - Fridlund (1991)
Are facial expressions shaped by social context?
- Ps viewed ‘pleasant’ video
- 4 conditions:
1. Alone
2. Alone but believing friend nearby doing another task
3. Alone but believing friend also watching same tape
4. Watching tape with friend - Smiling measured by EMG
- Smiling increased as settings became more social
- Not as function of self-reported emotion
Smiling affected by context (audience) more than by actual felt emotion?
- Argues facial expressions communicate motives, rather than emotion states
emotion expression - Hess et al. (1995)
Similar paradigm to Fridlund
But
- Also varied intensity of emotional stimuli
- Slightly funny v very funny
- And r’ship to other P
- Friend or stranger
Measured:
- EMG
- Skin conductance
- Self-reported emotions
Findings:
- Intensity of smiling affected by sociality of context
- But also (more strongly) by funniness of film
- Social context and internal emotion state play a role
- But effects only emerge with friends
- Emotion expression influenced by emotion state, social context, and r’ship with audience
measuring emotional expressions - Ekman and friesen (1978)
Developed FACS
Other tools also developed
EEG
- Facial EMG measures subtle activity in corrugator (frown) and zygomatic (smile) muscles
- EMG pos correlated with emotion perception ability and shows gender diffs (fem > male)
- Measures muscle activity by detecting and amplifying tiny electrical impulses that are generated by muscle fibres when they contract
measuring emotional expressions - Kunecke et al. (2014)
Pos correlation between activity in corrugator and average emotion classification accuracy in response to angry and sad faces
Not sig in response to happy faces
emotions also social
Emotional expressions key form of interpersonal communication, so it’s imp to consider social functions of emotions
social functions of emotions
Wide eyes in fear = threat signal, white of eye helps to quickly direct attention to gaze location
Happy/angry = reinforcers (distinguished from 3 months old) – changing an infant’s behav (operant conditioning)
Sadness = elicits caregiving – increase affiliative bonds when support needed
James-Lange theory (1885)
Emotions = sets of bodily responses that occur in response to emotive stimuli
Diff patterns of bodily change code diff emotions
‘The bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and our feeling of the changes as they occur is the emotion’
facial expressions can be differentiated on the basis of evoked HR response - Critchley et al. (2005)
HR for correctly identified sad and angry faces > happy or disgusted faces
Expressions of disgust mis-identified as sadness/anger evoked HR changes more typical of sadness and anger than disgust, as predicted by the James-Lange model
Cannon-Bard theory (1920s)
Cannon argued against James because:
- Emotions occurred even if brain disconnected from viscera (internal organs)
- Bodily changes not emotion-specific
- Bodily changes too slow
- Stimulation of bodily change doesn’t emotions
But
- Emotions occurred even if brain disconnected from viscera (less intense)
- Bodily changes not emotion-specific (they are partly)
- Bodily changes too slow
- Stimulation of bodily change doesn’t emotions (i.e. CCK panic)
Emotions depend on brain mechanisms
2-factor theory of emotion - Schachter and Singer (1962)
Gave (misinformed) Ps adrenaline injections; resulting arousal/emotions interpreted on basis of contextual cues (provided by stooges)
Emotion is function of both cog factors (appraisal) and phys arousal
‘People search immediate env for emotionally relevant cues to label and interpret unexplained phys arousal’
appraisal and emotion - Lazarus (1991)
Relational meaning
- Emotions not caused by events in env
- /by intra-psychic factors (i.e. within indv)
- But by person-env r’ships that can change over time and circumstances
- Emotion rooted in appraisal
appraisal for emotion - necessary? - Strack et al. (1988)
Hold pen in mouth or teeth exp
Some replication failures
the emotional brain
Limbic system – earliest suggested emotion networks in the brain
MacLean proposed limbic system integrates sensations from world with info from body to generate emotional experience
Papez neural circuit of emotion (1937)
Sensory messages concerning emotional stimuli that arrive at thalamus directed to both cortex (thinking) and hypothalamus (feeling)
Feelings occur when cingulate cortex integrates signals from hypothalamus with info from sensory cortex
Cingulate cortex projections to hippocampus and hypothalamus mediate top-down control of emotional responses
modern affective neuroscience
Brain imaging
Behavioural exps
Lesion studies
Electrophys recordings
amygdala - plays an imp role in emotion processing
Amygdala lesions in monkeys changes in social behav (Kluver-Bucy syndrome): Hyper-orality, social disinhibition, absence of emotional motor and vocal (e.g. fear) reactions
Lesions in humans result in emotional blunting and reduced fear conditioning, impaired perception of facial expressions of fear
Electrical stimulation results in autonomic reactions associated with feelings of fear
Joseph LeDoux - 2 amygdala pathways (1986)
Quick and dirty’ subconscious route for fear stimuli to reach amygdala and subsequently affect behaviour via outputs to motor/phys structures – e.g. the sight of a snake on a dirt path with travel from the visual thalamus to the amygdala in a few thousandths of a s
Human amygdala contains cells that fire in response to facial expressions and may also react to objects of fear
Phys fear response triggered before person consciously aware of snake
Second slower pathways travels from thalamus to visual cortex and then to amygdala – stimulus analysed in detail and message relayed to amygdala
Abort signals if not needed
amygdala response to pictures signalling threat influenced by genes - Hariri et al.
This study found that people carrying the short form (S) of an allele involved in the regulation of the serotonin transporter (the 5-HTTLPR) showed a greater amygdala response to negative emotional faces (fear and anger) compared to those carrying the long form (L/L).
This S-allele results in altered transcription and reduced serotonin transporter availability, which is thought to make it less effective at mopping up serotonin so more is present in the synaptic cleft, increasing activation of regions like the amygdala
association between number of stressful life events (between ages 21-26) and depression outcomes at 26 as function of genotype - Caspi et al. (2003)
the effect of life events on depression was stronger among indvs carrying an s allele
Association between childhood maltreatment (between the ages of 3-11 years) and adult depression (ages 18-26) as a function of genotype
Childhood stress predicted adult depression only among indvs carrying the allele
Controversial finding
More recently researchers have found that having the s- allele makes individuals more emotionally sensitive in general – this has given rise to the “Orchid hypothesis”
Also, the type of stress may be important - social stressors (but not non-social stressors) interact with 5-HTTLPR variation to predict major depressive disorder onset
Social stressors may be particularly important for the development of depression.
Those with the s-allele but who have strong social support may be protected against the effect of environmental adversity.
patients with major depression suffer from following symptoms - depressed mood
Anx
Lack of pleasure
Helplessness, hopelessness
Suicidality
Guilt
Low self-esteem and confidence
patients with major depression suffer from following symptoms - psychotic symptoms
Nihilistic delusions (death, destruction)
patients with major depression suffer from following symptoms - cog and bio symptoms
Poor sleep, appetite and concentration
Reduced libido
Low energy and motiv
when you ask depressed people to identify the emotion in faces - Surguladze et al. (2003)
Compared with healthy people, depressed patients less likely to say mildly happy face is happy – less sensitive to pos stimuli
Patients with anx and depression often show subtle changes in sensitivity to emotional expressions (emotional bias) compared with healthy people
E.g. depressed indvs may be less sensitive to pos expressions/more sensitive to neg expressions (neg emotional bias)
antidepressants decrease amygdala response to neg facial expressions - Sheline et al. (2001)
8 weeks SSRI
which comes first?
Drugs decrease depression decreases emotional response?
Antidepressants decrease emotional brain responses decreased depression
disgust - insula cortex
Insula – animal studies
- Conditioned taste aversion in rats
Human lesion/stimulation studies
- Stimulation: perception of unpleasant tastes, nausea, salivation and swallowing (Penfield)
- Lesions: decreased subjective experience and recognition of disgust
Insula lesions
- E.g. patient NK – perceived and felt disgust less
what is FACS?
Facial Action Coding System
Anatomically based system for describing all observable facial movement for every emotion
Each observable component of facial movement called an action unit/AU and all facial expressions decomposed into constituent core AUs
what is the ‘Orchid hypothesis’?
If an s-allele carrier is raised in a positive, nurturing environment they will thrive but if in a negative, adverse environment they will be particularly negatively affected
