Lecture 2

Question 1

The problem with commonsense views of emotions

Answer 1

• Familiarity with emotional experience fuels an illusion of knowledge, which limits scientific progress
• Recognizing this is an illusion is necessary to advance

Question 2

Emotion according to Inside Out

Answer 2

• There are a few primary emotions
• These emotions are rigidly triggered by specific external stimuli
• Emotions control behavior
• Different emotions reside in different, discrete parts of the brain
• Emotions are homunculi

Question 3

Unpacking assumptions - there are few primary emotions

Answer 3

Many theories propose a relatively
small, fixed number of ‘primary’
emotions (ex. Paul Ekman argued that facial expressions can be recognized across all human cultures and that these correspond to basic categories of human emotion).
In the film, this is illustrated by each primary emotion being a distinct, unique character with fixed & non-overlapping identities & functions.

Question 4

Assumption 1 linked to “there are few primary emotions”

Answer 4

“Emotions are irreducible” (primary emotions are distinct and cannot be further broken down). There is not a lot of evidence for this, and it’s also possible that emotions could be composed of distinct and overlapping collections of building blocks. This is an empirical question to be further studied.

Question 5

Assumption 2 linked to “there are few primary emotions”

Answer 5

“Primary emotions are those that we have names for in English”. There is an idea that our words for emotions e.g. ‘happiness’, ‘anger’ etc correspond to a scientifically valid category of emotion. However, words for emotions vary across languages. Emotions likely predate language. There is a need a scientifically grounded taxonomy of emotion.

Question 6

Questions linked to there are few primary emotions”

Answer 6

• Are different emotion states made up of shared features?
• Are some emotions made up of combinations of other emotions?

Question 7

Unpacking assumptions - emotions are rigidly triggered by specific external stimuli

Answer 7

Inside out depicts emotions as characters waiting at a control panel watching a projection of the outside world. They jump into action when a specific stimuli appears.
This suggests emotions are simple, inflexible stimulus-response events that could be understood by a list of rules describing stimulus-emotion relationships.

Question 8

Assumption linked with “emotions are rigidly triggered by specific external stimuli”

Answer 8

“Emotions are like reflexes”: Emotions can be triggered by external stimuli but there is a lot to understand about which stimuli trigger which emotion in which circumstances. Reflexes are similar in all people across all contexts, however, emotions vary widely across people and contexts.

Question 9

Questions linked with “emotions are rigidly triggered by specific external stimuli”

Answer 9

• What factors influence if and how and external stimulus evokes an emotion/ which specific emotion?
• How is this influenced by learning and
  development?
• Is this different from a simple reflex?

Question 10

Unpacking assumptions - Emotions control our behaviour

Answer 10

In Inside Out, the emotion characters operate joysticks on the control panel, controlling the little girl like a puppet.

Question 11

Assumption linked with “Emotions control our behaviour”

Answer 11

“Specific emotions rigidly cause specific behaviours”. Some theories of emotion (e.g. William James) argue that emotions are consequence not cause of behaviour (“I feel afraid because I run from the bear”). However, any mapping between emotions and behaviour is complex and depends on context, learning etc. Again, there is flexibility.

Question 12

Questions linked with “Emotions control our behaviour”

Answer 12

*What influences if and how an external stimulus evokes an emotion/ which specific emotion?
* How is this shaped by development and learning?
* Is this different from a reflex
(Those are the same questions as for “emotions are rigidly triggered by specific external stimuli”)

Question 13

Assumption linked with “Different emotions reside in different discrete brain regions”

Answer 13

“Different emotions are found in anatomically distinct modules of the brain”. fMRI and lesion studies led to this idea (ex. “fear is in the amygdala”). However, more recent work points to distributed networks of brain regions.

Question 14

Questions linked with “Different emotions reside in different discrete brain regions”

Answer 14

• How is emotion processed across the brain?
• Can we identify neural substrates of specific emotion states?
• Could we predict the precise emotion of an individual purely from examining their brain?

Question 15

Unpacking assumptions - “Emotions are conscious homunculi”

Answer 15

The idea that our subjective experience is created by a little person inside our brain that transfers perceptions, reactions, etc., to us.

Question 16

Assumption linked with “Emotions are conscious homunculi”

Answer 16

“Emotions are purely subjective experiences (i.e. distinct from a biological embodiment)”. The biological basis of conscious experience remains largely a mystery (but doesn’t involve little people
watching screens in our heads). Brain cells decode information but exactly how this occurs is an active area of research. The conscious experience of emotion emerges from the the function of brain systems but the experience is at the level of the person/animal. For example, vision emerges from the function of retina, thalamus, cortex but doesn’t exist in any of these uniquely.

Question 17

Questions linked with “Emotions are conscious homunculi”

Answer 17

• How do emotions arise in the brain?
• Can we separate subjective, conscious experience of emotions from emotion states?

Question 18

What is needed for a science of emotion?

Answer 18

• Expose and examine our intuitive ideas about emotion and separate these from scientific insight
• Develop clear questions that we can investigate with the scientific method to advance our understanding
• Develop clear and useful definitions
• Recognize that an emotion state can be described by different kinds of data

Question 19

From what data can emotions can be inferred?

Answer 19

• Observation of behavior
• Neuroscience measures
• Conscious experience
• Psychophysiology/endocrine measures

Question 20

Functional approach to inferring emotions from data

Answer 20

Different scientific traditions use different methods and also different concepts & terminology to describe emotion phenomena. Relating different fields can be a challenge, like translating between
languages.
A functional approach to studying emotion that is built on clear definitions may help lead to an integrate science of emotion that draws on insights from behavioral science, psychology and neurobiology. Neuroscience aims to explain emotions through their underlying mechanisms.

Question 21

Reflexes

Answer 21

The knee jerk reflex is a simple reflex – tapping the relaxed knee tendon in a specific position causes the leg to extend. A specific stimulus elicits a specific response. it only requires an intact spinal cord.
Reflexes are robust and powerful. They are also rigid and narrow - survival requires more behavioural flexibility.

Question 22

Emotions are more complex than reflexes but simpler than planned actions

Answer 22

Emotions could be thought of as a layer of control a bit like a reflex in that the behavioural response is constrained and has a specific function but more flexible in that many stimuli can produce the response. Focusing on the function of emotion states can help clarify this.

Question 23

The function of disgust

Answer 23

Avoid poisonous or contaminated food. It is accompanied by a disgust reflex (spitting food). But poisons or contaminants can be indirectly learned about by watching other people experience them. We can learn disgust through experience (e.g. getting
food poisoning after eating a food). Disgust can also be overcome (e.g. survival tactics). There is a level of flexibility that goes beyond reflexive control mechanisms. The emotion of disgust could be a central state that can be applied to organize and flexibly control behaviour in response to a wide range of disgust-evoking stimuli. This has evolved beyond poisons/contaminants to
different kinds of abstract disgust (ex. moral disgust)

Question 24

Central emotion states: an interface between stimuli and brain function

Answer 24

• A flexible central state allows emotion information to interact with many other brain processes e.g. attention, memory, cognition
• For example, remembering where and what you ate that made you sick
• Emotions profoundly influence behaviour, but also cognitive processes

Question 25

Reading - What is an emotion? (The debate)

Answer 25

Ralph Adolphs & Lisa Feldman Barrett are both human emotion researchers and yet they have very different perspectives
* Points to the need for a unified framework
* Some of the disagreements are about language ‘affective features of percepts’ vs ‘emotions’. Some relate to the explaining phenomena at different levels (ex. Adolphs is not concerned with conscious experience, but Barrett focuses primarily on conscious experience). There are some core differences (ex. Adolphs: human inference identifies emotion, Barrett: human inference constructs emotion)

Question 26

Key insights form the reading “What is an emotion?” (the debate)

Answer 26

• All existing taxonomies that are anchored in folk psychology categories … are not a
  useful guide for scientific investigation’
  (Barrett)
• ‘The evidence argues for homologous
  emotion* circuits that are shared by humans and many other mammals.’ (Adolphs). *Barret calls these ‘action circuits
• ‘What we learn (or fail to learn) about
  emotion in any experiment is determined by how we define emotions in the first place.’ (Barrett)