Lecture 10: Emotion and Decision-Making Flashcards
what did darwin suggest were 6 innate basic emotions?
- anger
- fear
- surprise
- sadness
- disgust
- enjoyment
what criteria for “basic” emotions did ekman propose?
- 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
who proposed the dimensional view of emotion?
russel and barrett
what is the dimensional view?
- a single core affect comprising of two dimensions (valence and arousal)
- can place any given emotion on these dimensions
- continuous dimensions
what evidence is there for non-universal emotions?
use of newer tests –> facial perception of emotion is not universal
- use culturally learned emotion concepts
what is the james-lange view of emotion?
- percept triggers physiological changes, sensing these changes is the emotion
what did cannon argue about emotion?
- emotions are not dependent on physiology
- people without peripheral inputs still experience emotion
- peripheral arousal doesn’t recreate emotion
- peripheral states not sufficiently differentiated
what did a recent meta-analysis find about predicting emotions from physiology?
- not robust
- not likely, more like chance
- difficult to predict
what did a study conclude where ppts were injected with “suproxin” and then either informed or not informed of the side effects?
- cognition plays a key role in interpreting physiology
is the amygdala linked to emotion?
yes
what can lesions in the amygdala lead to?
- reduced fear conditioning
- selective recognition of fear from face photos
- lack of enhanced memory for emotional components of narrative
is there evidence that recall of emotional information can be predicted by amygdala activation at encoding?
yes
when there is damage to the vmPFC [ventromedial prefrontal cortex], what effect does this have on emotion?
- 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
who was patient EVR?
- had vmPFC damage
- normal intellect, impulsiveness, memory and reasoning ability
- lacked emotional reactions and engaged in poor real-world decision-making
what is the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)
- have to turn over cards and try and earn the most money
- have to learn which cards will result in the most money earned
what happens when you give the IGT task to ppts with vmPFC damage?
- control ppts learned to choose the most beneficial decks
- ppts with vmPFC damage chose decks which would result in most money lost
what was the change in physiological arousal for ppts with vmPFC when anticipating, reward and punishment?
anticipatory: low SCR (control high)
reward: lower SCR than control
punishment: lower SCR than control
what is skin conductance response?
common measure of emotional response
when comparing SCRs for ppts with amygdala and vmPFC damage when completeing the IGT, what was found? (reward and punishment)
amygdala: no chance in arousal when experiencing reward and punishment
vmPFC: do show a change in SCR response for reward
implies role for amygdala
when comparing SCRs for ppts with amygdala and vmPFC damage when completeing the IGT, what was found? (anticipatory)
amygdala: no difference between good and bad decks and SCR
vmPFC: no difference between good and bad decks and SCR
using IGT, what are people conscious of? (controls)
- 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
using IGT to assess what people are conscious of, what was concluded?
for controls, ppts were using unconscious biases to guide behaviour before conscious knowledge
using IGT, what are people conscious of (patients)
- fewer people reach conceptual period, those that do continue to choose the bad decks
what are some problems with the somatic marker hypothesis?
- we may not need somatic cues
- 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
- no need to posit unconscious knowledge –> previous experiment that asked ppts to say everything they know was not scientific
- 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)
what is the intuitive reasoning task? (IRT)
- 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
what did results from IRT find?
- people with greater introspection did better on this task = more in tune with their physiological state and allows them to make better decisions
