Lecture 10 Flashcards
What is emotion?
This is defined differenfly depending on the perspective that is defining it. However, from the biological viewpoint, emotion is an overlap of feelings, cognitions and actions. Action involves the autonomic nervous system; unconscious responses to sensory information.
Discuss the ANS
The ANS is split into sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic is intense, quick and increases the heart rate, it prepares the body for fight or flight. The parasympathetic is involved with non emergency preparation, it increases digestion and saves energy. This system calms the body.
What order does a fear response occur?
There are 2 viewpoints. The expected one: scary event… fear… run away. James-Lange’s theory: scary event… appraisal… run away… fear. The appraisal is an unconscious cognitive thought about what action to take.This theory belives you feel fear because you ran away or you feel angry because you acted aggressively. This is supported by various evidence: paralysed people report normal levels of emotion, however, people with autonomic failure have less intense emotions. Also the facial feedback hypothesis shows that if you induce an emotion then the participant will feel that emotion (e.g. physically make them smile), showing a feedback between physiology and feelings.
Is emotion cortical (cerebral cortex) or sub-cortical (inner brain)?
Panksepp believed that emotion systems are sub-cortical, which is an ancient part of the brain. This is known because common ancestors show some emotions that are phycially similar (fear, rage, panic etc.). Research has shown that the amygdala in the limbic system is essentail for emotion as it’s involved with sensory input, behaviour regulation and emotional responses to pain. The amygdala is partly cortical and partly sub-cortical. PET scans also show that emotional activations occur all over the cortex. However, disgust seems to have more cortical localisation than the rest. Disgust responses activate the insula cortex which is the primary taste cortex, however, it’s also activated for moral disgust.
Is there lateralisation for emotion?
Gray believed that the left hemisphere controls the behavioural activation system which has low autonomic arousal, involves happiness and anger and is found in the frontal and temporal lobe. The right hemisphere holds the behavioural inhibition system which causes increased attention and arousal, involves disgust and fear via inhibition and is also found in the frontal and temporal lobe but on the right side. Therefore, this shows lateralisation as if the left side is more active you should be happier and the right side you should be more cautious. However, research has shown that the right hemisphere is more responsive to emotional stimuli and when deactivated, participants don’t report emotion.
What is the function of emotion?
It could be a survival response: certain emotions can cause you to act which can increase your chance of survival. For example, autonomic activity can alert you to a problem before you are conciously aware of it. This is shown with the gambling task: people unconsciously don’t like picking red cards unless they have damage to their prefrontal cortex or amygdala. It’s easy to observe emotions in humans but it’s harder to see this with animals. Also, we know that behaviour is contralateral but emotion is bilateral. When chimpanzees smile, it’s not because they are happy, it’s to show they don’t want to fight. Additionally, there are multiple functions for smiling in humans, we aren’t always happy when we smile.
Discuss Ekman’s research about core emotions
He found that there are 6 core emotions that are universal. The emotions are happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and surprise. These emotions all use symmetrical muscles which are universal, however, we also have non basic muscles which are individual to us and are asymmetrical.
Discuss an emotional response that is unique to humans
Darwin believed that blushing is unique to humans, it’s used to deflect attention and avoid conflict which can be found in other species just other methods are used. Blushing could also be a method to calm the body down via vasodilation which involves the parasympathetic system.
Discuss anger
This is the polar opposite to fear and it involves the fight response. Aggression can have a genetic contribution which has been found with concordance rates. Aggressive people also have higher levels of testosterone, however, there are many confounding variables involved. Aggresion doesn’t have a specific brain area but hypothalamic stimulation can induce aggressive attacks. Widespread stimulation can have the same effect, which is found with intermittent explosive disorder. Low levels of serotonin (a regulatory neurotransmitter) is also linked to aggression, this was found by Valzelli. Monkeys with the lowest levels of serotonin were the most aggressive and also died younger. However, it’s difficult to isolate this because a symptom of depression is low serotonin and they aren’t always aggressive. Furthermore, serotonin is released when being aggressive.
Discuss fear
Some fears are innate (side note). One fear response is the startle reflex: very fast responses to sudden loud noises found from birth. This is also found across many species. Damage to the amygdala disrupts this reflex as it impairs one’s ability to learn which stimuli are scary. The fear response begins at sensory information, then the amygdala, then the midbrain and then the pons. Toxoplasma parasites infect rats and removes their fear response by damaging their amygdala so they then get eaten by cats. Damage to the amygdala also reduces fear in monkeys, this was found when they had Kluver Bucy syndrome. This lack of fear causes the monkeys to sink in the social hierarchy as they cannot maintain dominance. The amygdala responds to most emotional expressions and happens unconsciously before we have time to be consciously aware. The amygdala responds most when someone else’s fear or anger has unclear emotional interpretations. Amygdala damage causes people to struggle interpreting complex emotional stimuli and they can’t produce new fears. Adolphs found that people with damage couldn’t draw a fearful face as they no longer focus on eyes, the most important feature for fear.
