Lecture 10: Emotion and Decision-Making

Question 1

what did darwin suggest were 6 innate basic emotions?

Answer 1

• anger
• fear
• surprise
• sadness
• disgust
• enjoyment

Question 2

what criteria for “basic” emotions did ekman propose?

Answer 2

• rapid onset
• brief duration
• unbidden occurrence - don’t choose to have
• distinctive universal signals
• specific physiological correlates , can identify emotions by looking at changes in physiology

Question 3

who proposed the dimensional view of emotion?

Answer 3

russel and barrett

Question 4

what is the dimensional view?

Answer 4

• a single core affect comprising of two dimensions (valence and arousal)
• can place any given emotion on these dimensions
• continuous dimensions

Question 5

what evidence is there for non-universal emotions?

Answer 5

use of newer tests –> facial perception of emotion is not universal
- use culturally learned emotion concepts

Question 6

what is the james-lange view of emotion?

Answer 6

• percept triggers physiological changes, sensing these changes is the emotion

Question 7

what did cannon argue about emotion?

Answer 7

• emotions are not dependent on physiology
• people without peripheral inputs still experience emotion
• peripheral arousal doesn’t recreate emotion
• peripheral states not sufficiently differentiated

Question 8

what did a recent meta-analysis find about predicting emotions from physiology?

Answer 8

• not robust
• not likely, more like chance
• difficult to predict

Question 9

what did a study conclude where ppts were injected with “suproxin” and then either informed or not informed of the side effects?

Answer 9

• cognition plays a key role in interpreting physiology

Question 10

is the amygdala linked to emotion?

Answer 10

yes

Question 11

what can lesions in the amygdala lead to?

Answer 11

• reduced fear conditioning
• selective recognition of fear from face photos
• lack of enhanced memory for emotional components of narrative

Question 12

is there evidence that recall of emotional information can be predicted by amygdala activation at encoding?

Answer 12

yes

Question 13

when there is damage to the vmPFC [ventromedial prefrontal cortex], what effect does this have on emotion?

Answer 13

• no elevated skin conductance response for emotional stimuli with “social significance”
• more likely to overcome an emotional response during a moral dilemma, e.g., the trolley problem
• heightened emotional reactivity hypo-emotionality

Question 14

who was patient EVR?

Answer 14

• had vmPFC damage
• normal intellect, impulsiveness, memory and reasoning ability
• lacked emotional reactions and engaged in poor real-world decision-making

Question 15

what is the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)

Answer 15

• have to turn over cards and try and earn the most money
• have to learn which cards will result in the most money earned

Question 16

what happens when you give the IGT task to ppts with vmPFC damage?

Answer 16

• control ppts learned to choose the most beneficial decks
• ppts with vmPFC damage chose decks which would result in most money lost

Question 17

what was the change in physiological arousal for ppts with vmPFC when anticipating, reward and punishment?

Answer 17

anticipatory: low SCR (control high)
reward: lower SCR than control
punishment: lower SCR than control

Question 18

what is skin conductance response?

Answer 18

common measure of emotional response

Question 19

when comparing SCRs for ppts with amygdala and vmPFC damage when completeing the IGT, what was found? (reward and punishment)

Answer 19

amygdala: no chance in arousal when experiencing reward and punishment
vmPFC: do show a change in SCR response for reward

implies role for amygdala

Question 20

when comparing SCRs for ppts with amygdala and vmPFC damage when completeing the IGT, what was found? (anticipatory)

Answer 20

amygdala: no difference between good and bad decks and SCR
vmPFC: no difference between good and bad decks and SCR

Question 21

using IGT, what are people conscious of? (controls)

Answer 21

• in pre-punishment and pre-hunch stages, ppts cannot tell you what is going on
• in hunch stage, ppts describe hunch
• in conceptual stage, ppts can describe what is going on
• changes in SCR occur (higher for bad decks) in pre-hunch stage

Question 22

using IGT to assess what people are conscious of, what was concluded?

Answer 22

for controls, ppts were using unconscious biases to guide behaviour before conscious knowledge

Question 23

using IGT, what are people conscious of (patients)

Answer 23

• fewer people reach conceptual period, those that do continue to choose the bad decks

Question 24

what are some problems with the somatic marker hypothesis?

Answer 24

1. we may not need somatic cues
2. somatic cues may not signal outcomes –> modified version of IGT led to higher SCR responses for good decks. SCR may actually be measuring variance in outcome (e.g., amount of money won/loss) not just which deck is good/bad
3. no need to posit unconscious knowledge –> previous experiment that asked ppts to say everything they know was not scientific
4. an alternative explanation for patient data –> vmPFC lesions are less likely to unlearn associations, e.g., associate win for first 8 trials, difficult to unlearn association when this deck then leads to a loss (reversal learning)

Question 25

what is the intuitive reasoning task? (IRT)

Answer 25

• choose a deck
• predict card colour when turned over (2 options)
• people learn to choose good decks
• see high SCR for bad decks
• heart rate slows for good decks

Question 26

what did results from IRT find?

Answer 26

• people with greater introspection did better on this task = more in tune with their physiological state and allows them to make better decisions