Lecture 10 - Emotion and the Brain Flashcards
1
Q
Emotions recap
A
- Emotional response = behavioural, autonomic, hormonal
- Affect = umbrella term encompassing emotion and mood
- Emotion = short in duration, intense, clear target
- Mood = longer in duration, on background, no real target
2
Q
Describe Ekman’s basic emotions theory
A
- Facial expressions may provide meaningful insight into cognitive-affective states (Dimberg, 1986; Hofling et al., 2020)
- One approach = basic emotions
- Paul Ekman = 7 (originally 6, no ‘contempt’) associated with particular facial expressions
- Anger, disgust, fear, surprise, happiness, sadness, contempt
3
Q
Describe the task and main findings in Ekman et al.’s (1969) study
A
- Image of facial expression and choose which emotion best describes that picture
- Labels were given so that expression could only fit within the seven labels
- Ekman says – basic emotions are universal (present in all human societies) and do not need to be learned
4
Q
How did the New Guinea and Borneo population data challenge Ekman’s claims?
A
- Most frequent response was predicted = only 50% accuracy
- Stimuli where more than 70% agreed = less than 50% accuracy
- Happy stimuli recognised consistently
- Fear and anger seemed to be confused with each other
- Surprise and fear seemed to be confused
- Not as universal as Ekman claimed, his own research did not support this
5
Q
What are some criticisms of Ekman’s approach?
A
- Are basic emotions really universal?
- Gendron et al. (2014) tested this on the Himba tribe in Namibia
- Task: sort face pictures into piles – no labels given (free sorting)
- ‘Happy’ and ‘fearful’ consistently recognised
- But not sadness, disgust and anger
6
Q
Describe the study by Cowen and Keltner (2017)
A
- Basic emotions fail to describe the richness of human emotional experience
- Cowen and Keltner (2017) – identified 27 (fuzzy) categories (can’t be put into a box)
7
Q
What are some further criticisms of Ekman’s approach?
A
- Replications? – yes, within the same lab with the same method, however Sorenson (1975) failed to replicate when using free labelling
- Language influences cognition e.g. colour perception (Anthasopoulos et al., 2010) so could it influence emotion?
- Some emotions are complex e.g. is grief an emotion or mood?
8
Q
Ekman’s sketchy past
A
- Why didn’t Ekman revise his theory given the failed replication by Sorenson (1975)?
- One possible explanation – Ekman was funded by DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency)
- DARPA has some “interesting” research that it funds, such as MAD-FIRES which is a program to develop self-guided (homing) bullets
- Not that emotions were useless to DARPA but they were more interested in using this for deception detection for defence purposes
- So, they threw more money at the problem, repeatedly renewing grants with Ekman
- Most notably, Ekman developed a tool for lie detection (Micro-expression Training Tool - METT)
- Ekman’s theory for METT was that people show fleeting expressions of “felt emotions”
- So, when people attempt to mask, emotions consistent with their “actual state” will appear briefly as some facial muscles are difficult to control
- METT has been sold as part of the SPOT system to various border control agencies etc. (recognition of terrorism)
- However, METT does not stand up consistently in testing (Bond & DePaulo, 2006; Jordan et al., 2019) and is therefore dangerous
- Denault et al. (2020) – SPOT checks inflate the risk of racial and religious profiling
9
Q
How may the criticism to Ekman’s approach be notwithstanding?
A
- Approx. 80-90% of emotion researchers view the following emotions as empirically established (Ekman, 2016): anger, fear, disgust, sadness and happiness
- Importance for survival relatively clear
10
Q
What are the 2 extreme positions for how brain structures are involved in emotion processing?
A
- 2 extreme positions – complete specialisation (e.g. one centre for anger, one centre for fear) vs. complete dispersion (i.e. entire brain involved in anger or fear, entire brain network deals with emotions)
- Compelling evidence that these extreme positions are wrong
11
Q
What is Papez’s (1937) approach?
A
- One popular intermediate position from the past = there is a set of brain areas involved in processing all emotions (Papez, 1937)
12
Q
How was Papez wrong?
A
- Papez was also wrong
- Not all areas in the circuit play a major role in emotion processing
- E.g. mammillary bodies and hippocampus more important for long-term memory in general
- On the other hand: areas not part of the circuit do play a major role in emotion processing (e.g., amygdala, insula etc.)
13
Q
What are distributed representations?
A
- Emerging view of emotions as dynamic, distributed representations in brain networks
- Some areas of the brain e.g. amygdala involved in emotion regulation may be involved in other processes such as arousal
- Other brain networks may be involved in other things (dynamic)
14
Q
Evaluate approaches to emotional representation in the brain
A
- Can we classify emotional states in the brain? – can and should
- Then again, how could we not?
- If emotional states are not random brain states, in theory, we should be able to identify them
- Then the question really is: Are our methods sensitive enough to pick up the relevant information?
15
Q
What are some limitations of neuroimaging methods in studying emotion?
A
- Problem with human research = no neuroimaging method has high spatial resolution (location), high temporal resolution (time) and whole-brain coverage
- Representations are distributed but a more fine-grained functional-anatomical understanding is possible in theory
- Animal research might be able to fill some gaps
- E.g. fear
16
Q
What is cued fear conditioning?
A
- Only shock = unconditioned emotional response (increased heart rate, blood pressure etc.)
- Tone + shock – conditioning
- Tone = conditioned stimulus (CS)
- Shock – tone – elicits freezing (species specific) = conditioned response (CR)
17
Q
What is context fear conditioning?
A
- Rat with blue base and shock = UCR (afraid of blue)
- Rat with purple base = rat not afraid with tone
18
Q
Fear brain areas - amygdala
A
- Brain stimulate a rat with different anatomical targets
- See what it does to behaviour
- With this information, can build fear networks (still a current field of research)
19
Q
What has been shown about extinction in mice?
A
- When CS is presented repeatedly without the aversive stimulus, CR eventually disappears – becomes extinguished
- Change context, still freezing response
- Once context is changed and tone is given, learn aversive stimulus not happening anymore
20
Q
Evaluate extinction
A
- Extinction is not the same as forgetting
- Instead, learns that CS is not followed by aversive stimulus and so CR is inhibited
- But memory of CS and CR is not completely erased
21
Q
What are the 3 main areas according to Curzon et al. (2009) involved in fear?
A
- Amygdala = fear response
- Hippocampus = association between CS and CR
- Frontal/PFC = attention/conscious control
22
Q
Emotion regulation and cognitive reappraisal
A
- Anterior Insula (AI), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and PFC (lateral and medial) - important for voluntary control over amygdala activation
23
Q
Describe the study by Oschner et al. (2002)
A
- Participants were asked to reappraise negative images
- E.g. crying in grief – change meaning – crying with joy
- Decreased activation in amygdala and increased activation in PFC (lateral and medial)
24
Q
Describe the study by Vergallito et al. (2018)
A
- Brain stimulation – rVLPFC would regulate negative affect in preventing dangerous situations regardless of intensity (e.g. by dampening amygdala)
- Interestingly, coactivation between AI, ACC and PFC also shown in regulating and processing:
- Interoceptive – heartbeat, arousal etc.
- Exteroceptive – environmental changes
25
What are some implications of emotion regulation research?
- Important for anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, aggression, impulsivity
- In everyday life, you could use cognitive appraisal strategies e.g. for presentations, public speaking or social communication
- Brooks (2013) = reappraise anxiousness as excitement (negative to positive)
