Lecture 10 - Emotion and the amygdala Flashcards
What is emotion?
A mental feeling or affection as distinct from cognitions or volitions
Ekman (1972)
Identified facial expressions associated with 6 distinct emotions (later 7)
CONSISTENT ACROSS CULTURES
How can emotion be measured?
Subjective - ask subject how they feel
Behavioural - What the subject does
Physiological - autonomic changes, eg, heart rate, blood pressure,
–EEG’s, Endocrine responses
James-Lange theory (1884)
Perception of bear –> Physiological reactions –> Feeling of fear
Rutledge and Hupka (1985)
Participants viewed slides and reported their emotions whilst making either a happy or angry facial expression
-Happier when making happy facial expression and vice versa
Limbic system
Important in emotion, focuses on the role of the amygdalin emotion
Bilateral lesions in the temporal lobe (amygdala) leads to…
Placidity
Fearlessness
Lack of aggression
Ingest inedible objects
–Kluver-Bucy syndrome
Schacter and Singer
Induced emotion by giving adrenaline to participants who either did or didn’t know what they had been given
–> Highest level of anger shown by those who were given adrenaline but ignorant of the fact
-> shows that cognitive factors play a role in emotion
LeDoux
used tones as CS to show that a shock was coming (US) Resulting in the rat freezing
LeDoux and auditory cortex
Destruction of auditory cortex did not prevent fear conditioning
–> subcortical route in where the amygdala plays a key role
McGaugh and Cahill
Rat avoidance task showed that the basolateral amygdala is particularly important in memory
Noradrenaline into the amygdala…
Enhances memory
Amygdala damage impacts what kind of memory?
LABAR AND CABEZA 2006
Fear conditioning, but not the learning of factual information
Hippocampal damage impairs which kind of memory?
Factual learning, but not fear conditioning
Tambini 2017
Learning of neutral stimuli is enhanced after learning of emotional stimuli as opposed to before emotional stimuli
CARRY OVER EFFECT
