Lecture 7 Flashcards
What is the Positivity Ratio ?
3:1
For every negative emotional experience, you need to experience at least 3 postive emotional experiences
Who first noticed the fight or flight and rest and digest pattern ?
Walter B. Cannon
Which nervous system causes a fight or flight response ?
Sympathetic
Which nervous system casues a rest and digest response ?
Parasympathetic
Are both nervous system’s acroused in a situation ?
Most situations evoke a combination of sympathetic and parasympathetic arousal
What are the 4 components to an emotional response ?
- Cognition
- Feelings
- Behavioural
- Physiological
What is Pure Autonomic Failure ?
The autonomic nervous system completely ceases activity
What occurs during PAF ?
- Report feeling same emotions, but less intensely
- no change in heart rate, sweating, etc when it comes to emotional stimuli
- emotions becomes situational (i.e., feeling angry because situation calls for anger)
- damage to ganglion cells
What does damage to the right somatosensory cortex cause ?
Typical autonomtic responses but lack subjective experience
What does damage to the prefrontal cortex cause ?
Weak autonomic responses but normal subjective responses
What does physciological responses increase ?
Physiological responses increase emotional intensity
e,g., A horror movie in a cold room is more scarier and you feel more anger when standing than lying down
What is embodied ?
Perceptions of body’s action contribute to your emotions
What is the facial-feedback hypothesis ?
Smiling will make you feel happier, and frowning may make you feel unhappier
What did the pencil experiment want to test ?
That forming a facial expression stregnthens the internal feeling of that expression
What does botox do ?
- blocks tranmissions at synapses and nerve-muscle junctions
- influences emotions - unable to move face
- exhibit a slower response time and weaker emotional responses after watching a emotional clip/video
What is Mobius Syndrome ?
Underdeveloped 6th and 7th cranial nerves
What occurs in M.S ?
- Lack of facial expression
- crossed eyes
- inability to smile/move head
- cannot move faical muscles to make a smile but still express “feeling” happy
What are the 6 basic expressions of emotion ?
- Happiness
- Sadness
- Fear
- Surprise
- Disgust
- Anger
What did Darwin state about emotions ?
- Facial expression of emotion as innate
- They are a unlearned response that…a set of movements on the face
What was stated in the cross-cultural context of emotions ?
Very similar facial expressions for the same emotion across cultures
How are emotions expressed ?
Emotion is expressed in a face-body-voice pattern
What did Heijnsbergen & de Gelder (2005) look at ?
Congruent vs incongruent expressions of emotion influence on reaction time
What did Heijnsbergen & de Gelder find ?
People were worse at recognizing expressions of emotions on incongruent trials
* incongruent - when body language did not match facial expression
What is the limbic system ?
The forebrain areas that surround the thalamus
What is the limibic system known for ?
Traditionally known for being critical for emotion
What is the only emotions that depends on one brain region ?
Disgust - insula
What are basic emotions as continuous dimensions ?
Representing basic emotions within a dimensional framework
* rating emotions: negative or positive
* arousal: low and high
How are basic emotions represented as continious dimensions ?
3 dimensions
1. pleasure vs displeasure (“polarity)
2. Intensity (strength of emotions)
3. Complexity (degree at which the emotion is in conflict)
Where are the 3 dimensions located ?
Right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ)
What occurs in the Behavioural Activation System (BAS) ?
- Low to moderate autonomic arousal
- Tendency to approach
- Left hemisphere activation of frontal and temporal lobe
What occurs in the Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) ?
- Increased attention and arousal
- Social withdraw, fear, and disgust
- Right hemisphere activation of frontal lobe and temporal lobe
What is the right hemisphere important for ?
More important for emotion recognition and emotion expression
What are the functions of emotions ?
Adaptive Behaviours
* Fear - escape
* Anger - attack
* Disgust - avoid
Guide for making quick decision
* Moral decisions
What is the Trolly Dilemma ?
A runaway trolley is headed toward five people on a track. The only way you can prevent their death is to switch the trolley onto another track, where it will kill one person. Would it be right to pull the switch ?
What are the two aspects brought up by the Trolly Dilemma ?
Ulitarian Aspect
* 5 people will die
Emotional Aspect
* How you would feel performing the action
What are the emotional and ulitarian aspect governed by ?
Ventromedial PFC - active when comparing ulitarian and emotional aspects
Where does the neuronal underpinnings of specific emotions occur ?
In the amygdala
What happens in the amygdala ?
- Lateral nucleus received info from other parts of the brain like the thalamus or hippocampus
- Then sends the info the the central nuclues directly and through the basa; and accessory basal (?)
What are the two views on fear ?
- innate vs learned stimuli
- stratle reflex vs CER
What is the most basic form of emotional learning ?
Conditioned emotional respense (CER)
How is fear learned ?
Learning occurs through enhanced amygadala activation
What is the amygadala involved in ?
Involved in emotional response to fear
What occurs in the amygdala fear circuit ?
- Fearful input
- Goes to visual thalamus
- Then visual cortex
- Then to the aymgdala through the visual cortex and thalamus
- Then from the amygdala, the SNS gets activated initiated a flight or fight response
When does the amygdala respond more strongly ?
The amygdala responds most strongly when a facial expression is difficult to interpret
Where does amygdala activity increase ?
Increase amygdala activity in highly reactive people
What does not occur when the amygdala is damaged?
It does not result in loss of emotion
* can classify emotional pictures
* expereicne little arousal from viewing unpleasant photos
What is Urbach-Wiethe disease?
Rare genetic condition that casues calcium to build up in the amygdala until it wastes away
What is the SM Case Study ?
- Experiences fearlessness that is dangerous to her
- Reports feeling angry but not afraid in response to these incidents
- Unable to recognize fear or disgust, or report reduced intensity
- Willing to undergo CO2 challenge again without a second thought
What did SM show ?
- When asked to draw the pirmary emotions, was unable to draw a facial expression of fear but was able to depict fear by body languge (drew a baby)
- Was able to identiy fear as an emotion improved
When is the insular cortex activated ?
Activated when looking at disgusting pictures or faical expression of someone expressing disgust
What occurs when the insula is damaged ?
Damage to the insula results in inability to experience and recognize disgust
What did experimentation with testosterone in women show ?
- Effects of testosterone on behaviour depends on context (threat vs no-threat)
- More time looking at angry faces and dominant behaviour
What does aggresive behaviour depend on ?
Testosterone
What are males more likely to do than females ?
Males are more likely to fight than females, commit more violent crimes, and shout more insults
* more testosterone = more aggression in males
What were the results on experimentation with testosterone in men ?
The results were unimpressive and also behaviour depends on context (threat vs no-threat)
What are the 2 reasons for aggresive behaviour ?
- Reproduction behaviours - getting access to mate
- Defensive behaviours - defending resources
What are the important players in aggression ?
- Amygdala
- vmPFC - less activation, less control
- Serotonergic system - release of serotonin
What is involved in the Serotonergic system ?
- Enabling synaptic connection inhibit aggressive behaviour
- Destruction of synaptic connection increases aggressive behaviour
- Lower serotonin turnover (release and re-synthesis of 5HT)
What did Howell et al (2007) look at ?
5-HIAA (5-hydroxy-indol-acetic acid) in CSF
What did Howell et all find ?
Increased aggression and risk behaviour in low 5-HIAA
What does Low 5-HT turnover link to ?
- Recurrent violent behaviour
- Suicide by violent means
- s variant of 5HT transporter gene and more violent suicide
What did drug studies look at ?
SSRI (Selective serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) and decreased aggression
What did imaging studies with 5HT transporter gene find ?
s carriers show higher rate of activity in right amygdala in response to angry/fearful faces, compared to L carriers
How wass gene x enviornment in relation to aggression looked at?
MAOa (Low vs High)
* Metabolism of neurotransmitter
* MAO: mono amine oxidate
What did the Caspi study look at ?
MAOa gene and childhood maltreatment on anti-social behaviour
What did the Caspi study find ?
That low activity of the MAOa gene caused aggression
How is happiness studied ?
Hapiness can be studied through the emotion of compassion
What goes against eachother in regards to happiness ?
BAS vs BIS
Which behavioual system causes more happiness?
more BAS increases happiness
What did the Sato et al study look at ?
- 51 Japenese men and women
- Rating from Subjective Happiness Scale and Emotion Intensity Scale
What did the Sato et al study find ?
MRI Restuls: Greater volume of right precuneus in happy individuals
What is childhood maltreatment ?
Emotional, physical, sexual abuse, or neglect of children
What did Masten et al study involve?
Maltrated 8-15 year old children were presented with a set of facial expression that slowly morph from happy to fearful
What did the Matsen et al study find ?
Children with a history of maltreatment show faster reaction times to fearful faces and are quicker to detect subtle forms of negative expression when compared to children who are not maltreated
What are mirror neurons ?
A neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another
* parietal lobe; ppfc
What is neurofeedback ?
- Learning-based, non-invasive therapy modality
- Receive real-time feedback about their brain activity
- Shows patients brain functioning - helps change learned patterns activity
