Introduction to emotion - CE1

Question 1

What is the thing that differs humans and computers?

Answer 1

emotional experience

Question 2

What do cognitive theories often lack and why is this a problem?

Answer 2

they ignore emotion when explaining basic systems like memory
cognition and emotion often interact so they should be considered together

Question 3

What kind of emotions can we feel and how can we define them?

Answer 3

on a continuum from strong and overwhelming to subtle or ambiguous

Question 4

What is special about moral emotions?

Answer 4

they are communicative and can help to regulate social behaviour
they are powerful but not necessarily logical or rational

Question 5

What roles does emotion play? (4)

Answer 5

• guide our lives and we learn from them
• provide meaning to life
• related to mental health
• monitor our current state and adjust behaviour accordingly

Question 6

what are the 3 ways of defining emotion?

Answer 6

• the cognitive component/conscious experience
• overt expression of internal state
• physiological experience

Question 7

What happens when comparing facial expressions and judgements of these expressions cross-culturally?

Answer 7

they are similar

Question 8

What did cross-cultural studies of facial expressions help to develop?

Answer 8

the 6 basic emotional expressions

Question 9

What are the 6 basic emotional expressions?

Answer 9

anger, disgust, fear, happy, neutral, sad, surprise

Question 10

What happened when the emotional expressions of blind athletes was compared to sighted athletes? What can we conclude from this?

Answer 10

They were the same
Emotional expressions are innate

Question 11

how can facial expressions and body language interact?

Answer 11

they can be congruent or incongruent, which can provide more nuanced detail into what someone is really feeling

Question 12

What are the uses of facial expressions for others? (3)

Answer 12

• helps us to infer how others are feeling and what they may be thinking about us
• relevant to whether or not we want to approach others
• significant to attracting friends and intimate partners

Question 13

What are emotions usually accompanied by?

Answer 13

arousal of the autonomic nervous system

Question 14

How does a polygraph test work?

Answer 14

most people find lying stressful so they will sweat more and their heart rate will raise
a baseline is established then the state when answering the questions is compared to this

Question 15

In what order do things happen in the James-Lange theory of emotion?

Answer 15

stimulus –> autonomic response –> experience of emotion

Question 16

What was found when participants had to hold a pen in their mouth to make them smile or not smile? What does this evidence suggest?

Answer 16

• They thought jokes were funnier when already smiling
• Suggests that physiological experiences come before the experience of emotion and cause them to happen

Question 17

What was found when participants wore a gel mask on their face when judging facial expressions?

Answer 17

they were worse at perceptual discrimination of facial expressions, but not nonface stimuli

Question 18

What can botox injections do?

Answer 18

inhibit muscles associated with anxiety/worry so reduce feelings of depression

Question 19

How do beta-blockers work and what theory of emotion do they support?

Answer 19

They suppress signals from the body to stop the autonomic response, then you don’t feel the fear
Support the James-Lange theory

Question 20

Why can’t the James-Lange theory explain emotion by itself?

Answer 20

the autonomic responses can be ambiguous so how do we interpret them as different emotions?

Question 21

What order do things happen according to the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion?

Answer 21

stimulus –> emotional experience –> autonomic response

Question 22

What happened when an attractive woman approached men on a scary or safe looking bridge? Why could this happen?

Answer 22

• they were more likely to call her back on the scary bridge than the safe bridge
• they may be mistaking the autonomic fear response from the bridge with sexual attraction

Question 23

How can James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories work together?

Answer 23

• JLT gives a quick autonomic response that is ambiguous
• CBT provides the context of what the stimulus is
• All this information is used together to decide on a behavioural response

Question 24

What is the amygdala mainly involved in?

Answer 24

fight or flight as a fear response

Question 25

After the stimulus, where does the information travel to?

Answer 25

• to the thalamus
• then either to the cortex for slower, conscious processing (then to the amygdala) (CBT)
• or straight to the amygdala for rapid, autonomic processing (JLT)
• these happen simultaneously
• then you get the emotional response

Question 26

What happens in monkeys after bilateral lesions of the amygdala? (3)

Answer 26

Kluver-Bucy syndrome
- unusual tameness
- blunting of emotional responses
- impaired learning from emotional stimuli

Question 27

What happens in humans after amygdala lesions? (2)

Answer 27

• impair the recognition of fear in others’ faces
• deficit of emotions such as anger and distrust

Question 28

What is the anterior cingulate cortex involved in? (3)

Answer 28

• processing the emotional aspects of pain
• empathy
• detecting errors so you can avoid emotions in the future

Question 29

What does the insula do? (3)

Answer 29

• involved in emotional aspects of disgust
• empathy for when others feel disgust
• involved in bodily sensations

Question 30

Which disease can cause insula damage and what is the result?

Answer 30

• huntington’s
• deficits in recognising expressions of disgust

Question 31

What does the orbitofrontal cortex do? (2)

Answer 31

• computes the motivational value of rewards
• associated with regret if expected reward > actual reward

Question 32

What does the ventral striatum do? (2)

Answer 32

• pleasure and reward
• part of the dopamine network