Jan 23 Flashcards
Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory
theory of constructed emotion (TCE aka PCT)
theory of constructed emotion BACKGROUND
takes an entirely different approach to understanding emotion
proposed as an ALTERNATIVE to a basic emotion approach
Lisa Feldman Barrett - argues what about basic emotion approaches?
argues that they’re TOO SIMPLISTIC and don’t account for the COMPLEXITY of HUMAN EMOTIONS
as human emotions are shaped by individual experiences, culture and context
Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotion posits that emotions are _______ through interactions between…
CONSTRUCTED
brain, body and environment
Lisa Feldman Barrett critiques what about basic emotion theories?
critiques them for not adequately taking into account the ROLE OF COGNITION and CULTURE in creating emotions
theory of constructed emotions: do they argue that emotions are innate?
NO
they argue they’re CONSTRUCTED FROM SENSORY INFO and COGNITIVE PROCESSES
what assumptions does TCE/PCT challenge?
challenges assumptions that emotions are based on SPECIFIC, FIXED NEURAL STATES
^ that are triggered by certain stimuli
TCE/PCT argues that emotions aren’t specific to…
- aren’t specific to particular BRAIN REGIONS of PATTERNS OF BRAIN ACTIVITY
(ie. emotions don’t have a specific ‘neural essence’)
- each instance of emotion is UNIQUELY CONSTRUCTED (within and between people)
unlike BET, TCE proposes that emotions aren’t hardwired in the brain, but rather are…
CONSTRUCTED
based on PAST EXPERIENCES and CURRENT CONTEXT
TCE: views on neural essence and universality
- emotions don’t have a specific neural essence
- emotions aren’t universal
INSTEAD, EMOTIONS ARE CONSTRUCTED AND HIGHLY INDIVIDUALIZED
does TCE believe in central emotion states?
no, challenges their existence
refers to them as “black-box functionalism”
challenges existence of emotion categories with coherent responses
where does TCE fundamentally start?
start with biology/the brain
“the brain is a network of neurons”
neurons send and receive many inputs
one:many and many:one mapping
this makes neurons ‘multipurpose’
also means a group of neurons can create an ENORMOUS number of DIFF PATTERNS OF ACTIVITY
TCE: what makes neurons ‘multipurpose’?
fact that neurons send and receive many inputs
one:many and many:one mapping
this means that concept of dedication “fear” or “happiness” neurons doesn’t make sense
why does TCE not believe in dedicated “fear” or “happiness” neurons?
because of many:one and one:many mapping of neurons
makes them multipurpose because a group of neurons can create an enormous number of diff activity patterns
TCE: how does the brain achieve complexity?
degeneracy
degeneracy
capacity for DISSIMILAR REPRESENTATIONS
to give rise to INSTANCES OF THE SAME CATEGORY
in the SAME CONTEXT
ie. the activity of distinct groups of neurons can create the same emotion (anger)
degeneracy contrasts with what view?
hardwired functions
(because suggests that the activity of distinct groups of neurons can create the same emotion)
degeneracy makes systems robust to what?
failure
makes them robust to failure/damage
why would biological systems favour degeneracy?
because it makes them robust to damage
ie. if there’s redundancy, there’s a backup if one system fails because another can take over
quote about degeneracy
“degeneracy means instances of emotion are created by MULTIPLE SPATIOTEMPORAL PATTERNS in varying populations of neurons”
“therefore, it is UNLIKELY THAT ALL INSTANCES OF AN EMOTION CATEGORY SHARE A SET OF CORE FEATURES (ie. a single facial expression, autonomic patterns, or set of neurons)”
PCT: “emotions are biological categories”
biological categories such as species are
^ they are CONCEPTUAL and don’t exist in a real sense
a biological category can be conceptualized as a grouping of highly variable instances
the “average” doesn’t actually exist in nature
a biological category can be conceptualized as a grouping of…
highly variable instances
PCT: emotions are biological categories - example of fear
what we think of as FEAR is a CATEGORY that GROUPS a COLLECTION of UNIQUE INSTANCES
we experience emotions as coherent, consistent categories because the brain constructs these unique instances effortlessly
PCT: why do we experience emotions as coherent and consistent categories?
because the brain constructs these unique instances and effortlessly slots them into categories
primary function of brain
to COORDINATE and REGULATE the body in the most energy efficient way possible
so that the animal can SURVIVE and REPRODUCE
how does the brain coordinate and regulate the body in the most energy efficient way possible?
by ANTICIPATING METABOLIC NEEDS
not simply by reacting to needs
“core task of the brain”
allostasis
allostasis
the MAINTENANCE of functional physiological systems THROUGH CHANGE
this is a PROCESS whereby the brain regulates the body
according to costs and benefits
allostasis: the body anticipates & adjusts…
its energy use
according to the environmental demands
the body budget
body anticipates and adjusts its energy use according to environmental demands
systems involved in allostasis
autonomic nervous system, immune system, endocrine system
^ all regulated by the brain
multipurpose brain regions
brain regions that implement allostasis OVERLAP with circuits presumed to control EMOTION
these regions perform both emotional work and allostasis
homeostasis versus allostasis
HOMEOSTASIS: ability to MAINTAIN STABLE CONDITIONS through a constant set point
ALLOSTASIS: achieves STABILITY THROUGH CHANGE to adapt to challenge
homeostasis _______, while allostasis ________
corrects
predicts
allostasis performance: brain only has access to…
SENSORY DATA from the internal and external world
must use this data to determine how best to respond
allostasis performance: how does the brain assess sensory data?
through running an INTERNAL MODEL (simulation) of that body in the world
internal model represents both internal and external environments
interoception
representing and using info about the INTERNAL environment
what is interoception central to?
central to the brain’s INTERNAL MODEL
results from allostasis
process of constant adaptations and adjustments to the environments calls for attention to interoception
do neurons wait for stimulation in order to process sensory info?
no, they’re CONSTANTLY PROCESSING and SHAPING incoming sensory info
this ongoing neural activity is the brain MODELING THE WORLD from the perspective of the body’s physiological needs
what does the brain do with incomplete incoming sensory info?
uses it to PROBABILISTICALLY PREDICT the current state of the internal and external world
and to determine the ACTIONS REQUIRED to continue meeting physiological needs
brain works to assign ______ to ______ experience and to do this, what does it use?
MEANING to SENSORY EXPERIENCE
to do this, the brain uses PAST EXPERIENCE to create simulations (predictions) of incoming sensory events
internal model in relation to the image of the bee on the flower
how you perceive the image is influence by having seen the full image
prediction signals
these are the brain CHANGING NEURAL FIRING to plan visceromotor actions to regulate the body (allostasis)
and then receive incoming interoceptive (sensory) signals that are the consequences of these actions
sensory signals can confirm these signals, or change them if there’s something unexpected
internal mode: what happens when there’s an error in the prediction?
this changes the future prediction (learning occurs)
GOAL is to predict better & more efficiently next time
predictions
brain simulations to continuously anticipate the changing environment
prediction in relation to how the brain constructs experience
predictive processing is fundamental to how the brain operates
it underlies all perceptual and cognitive processing (and emotion)
brain CONSTRUCTS experience through PREDICTIVE MODELS’ INTERPRETATION of INTEROCEPTIVE SIGNALS
for a given event, perception follows action (action is general here: ie. actions taken to achieve allostasis)
PCT: affect arises from…
interoception
interoceptive sensation leads to the experience of affect
ie. valence, arousal
the fact that affect arises from interoception suggests that affect isn’t specific to…
affect is NOT SPECIFIC to emotion
but is a basic feature of consciousness
because interoception happens all the time and regulates all sorts of actions (alongside emotion)
PCT: is interoception the origin of feeling?
YES
it’s the origin of feeling, but it IS NOT THE SAME as feeling
and these sensations DON’T HAVE DISCRETE QUALIA
PCT: how does emotional information emerge?
from the relationships between:
- incoming SENSORY signals
and
- PREDICTION signals constructed in the brain
PCT: what two things merge to create emotional information?
- sensory signals (interoception)
- predictive signals (allostasis)
PCT: what gives rise to affective properties?
brain generates low dimensional SUMMARIES of your budgetary state
and these give rise to AFFECTIVE PROPERTIES (ie. valence)
PCT: affect can be thought of as the brain’s…
best guess about the current ‘budgetary state’ of the body
PCT: emotion is the brain giving meaning to…
sensory signals
(brain implements the internal model as concepts to categorize sensations)
concept
a population of predictions
ie. the group of patterns of neural activity
PCT: incoming sensory info helps to select from…
from the internal model’s predictions
to find the BEST FIT
as a result, incoming sensory events = categorized as similar to some set of past experiences
brain uses emotion concepts to categorize sensations in order to construct…
an INSTANCE OF EMOTION
goal: to GUIDE ACTION to fit the situation
result: PERCEPTION of an emotion
so emotion is a side-product of this process of creating actions to respond to situations
PCT: neuroanatomical basis of internal model - 5 emotion states
maps of BRAIN REGIONS activated by 5 EMOTION STATES converge on similar functional brain networks
^ default mode networks and salience networks
default mode/salience networks
maps of brain regions activated by 5 emotion states CONVERGE ON SIMILAR FUNCTIONAL BRAIN NETWORKS
what neuroanatomy underlies the brain’s internal model?
the default mode networks/salience networks
internal model: what initiates the simulations?
the default mode network
it contains low dimensional summary that INITIATES SEQUENCE OF PREDICTIONS throughout distributed cortical areas
the RESULTING NEURAL ACTIVITY is the concept (group of predictions)
default mode network: how does it generate concepts?
contains a low dimensional summary that initiates sequence of predictions
the resulting neural activity is a concept (group of predictions)
salience network: what does it do?
TUNES the internal model
by PREDICTING which sensory info to pay attention to
ie. altering the gain on neurons that compute prediction error
how does the salience network function to adjust the internal model to changing conditions?
the model tunes to changing conditions by PREDICTING which sensory info to pay attention to
emotion is constructed using the same fundamental…
CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM
that is used for ALL COGNITION and PERCEPTION
allostasis in a nutshell
predictively regulating the internal milieu
interoception
representing the internal milieu
what are 2 core NS functions?
interoception and allostasis
and these result in the experience of affect (as a side product)
concepts are collections of…
whole brain representations that predict:
- upcoming sensory events
- the best actions to deal with these impending events
- how these events will impact allostasis
brain compares concepts with what?
with incoming sensory information
to identify the most probable causal explanations for sensory inputs
emotion is a brain state that arises in…
making sense of the sensory info
does PCT think emotions are an illusion?
no
they’re real, they just don’t have distinct neural ‘essences’ (ie. they aren’t hardwired)
does PCT think there are emotion-specific neurons?
no
but does suggest neurons have some specificity
PCT: understanding neural bases of emotion will require focusing on individual or ensembles of neurons?
ensembles
neurons at the population level, not individual level
PCT: what is meant by “not everything is cortical”
instances of emotion engage subcortical pattern generators
to elicit relevant actions
PCT: do animals have emotions?
yes
but we can’t know this
because emotion depends on the perceiver (because they’re constructing it)
implication of PCT: every instance of emotion is unique and although ‘patterns’ of neural activity associated with neural activity associated with emotions can be detected…
this is NOT A BRAIN STATE of an emotion
it’s just a STATISTICAL SUMMARY of a set of highly variable set of instances
implication of PCT: behaviours are not specific to emotions
suggests that circuit mapping studies that link emotion to specific circuits are JUST REVEALING MECHANISMS of behavioural control
implication of PCT: “you are not at the mercy of your emotions”
emotional experience can be CHANGED THROUGH EXPERIENCE
because we construct our emotional experience, we can therefore also change it
PCT takehome message
emotions are CONSTRUCTIONS of the world, not reactions to it
