Lecture8 Flashcards
List the 3 components of emotion
Physiological changes (not always conscious), subjective feeling & associated behaviour (e.g. facial expression)
Define emotion
A feeling state characterised by physiological arousal, expressive behaviours, & a cognitive interpretation
What are some physiological components of emotion?; Expressive components?;
Cognitive components?
Heart rate, breathing & sweating;
Facial expressions, body movements & voice;
Beliefs & appraisals
What learnt factors depend on how we control our emotions?
Personality, past history/culture, situational factors & mood
How does the autonomic system deal with states of arousal?
Sympathetic - fight or flight; parasympathetic - calming down; enteric - visceral (butterflies/sick to stomach)
The sympathetic nervous system dilates...; Inhibits...; Increases...; Stimulates...; Secretes...; Relaxes...
Pupils; Salivation, digestion & genitals; Respiration & heartbeat; Glucose release; Adrenaline & noradrenaline; Bladder
The parasympathetic system constricts…;
Stimulates…;
Slows…;
Contracts…
Pupils;
Salivation, gall bladder, digestion & genitals;
Respiration & heartbeat;
Bladder
What physiological responses are typically measured on a polygraph?
Galvanic skin response; pulse; blood pressure; breathing & fidgeting
What is the theory about the order of emotions & responses according to folk psychology?
Perceived event (stimulus) leads to emotional experience (e.g. fear response) which leads to physiological & behavioural changes (autonomic arousal)
What is the James-Lange theory about the order of emotions & responses?
Perceived event (stimulus) leads to physiological behaviour (arousal) which leads to emotional experience (e.g. conscious feeling of fear);
In regards to the James-Lange theory, William James says…;
Carl Lange says…
Physiological arousal causes emotion;
Physiological arousal IS the emotion
What are some problems with the James-Lange view?
Visceral responses are not specific enough to determine particular emotions, they would take too long to cause emotion, they can occur without emotions & emotions can occur without visceral responses
How did Maranon find that visceral responses can occur without emotions?;
How did Cannon find the same thing?
Injecting subjects with adrenaline produced physiological responses but no clear emotional states;
Disconnecting viscera from CNS by removing SNS in cats has no effect on emotional expressions
What is the Facial Feedback-hypothesis about emotions?; What’s an example of the strong version of this?;
What’s the weak version?
Expressing a particular emotion puts us into the corresponding emotional state (similar to James-Lange); First you laugh, then you infer “that’s funny” or “I’m happy”;
Facial expression modulates emotion (i.e. fake it till you make it)
How was the Facial Feedback-hypothesis tested?
By asking participants to contract/relax facial muscles important for expressing emotion, then testing intensity of emotion when corresponding muscle groups are active
Why did Duchenne stimulate facial muscles to create grotesque facial expressions?;
What marks a Duchenne smile?
To find out which muscle groups are involved in genuine expressions;
Lines around & under the eyes, raised cheeks, naso-labial folds & corners of mouth pulled back & up
What is the Corrugator muscle involved in?
What does the Orbicularis Oculi muscle control?
The Zygomaticus muscle?
Frowning;
The eye when smiling;
The mouth when smiling
How does a facial EMG measure expression?;
Where do positive emotions increase activity?;
Where do negative emotions increase activity?
Electrodes placed on the face record activity in various muscles;
In the cheeks;
In forehead & brow areas
What evidence did Hennenlotter et al. find about botox injections?
Injecting botox into frown muscles decreases activity in brain regions that process emotions (amygdala & brain stem)
What did Havas et al. find about botox injections on subjects’ reading?
Slow reading of angry & sad sentences but not happy sentences
Physiological states & expressions / behaviour can modulate emotions, so it’s worth trying to…
Fake it until you make it
What is the Cannon-Bard theory about the order of emotions & responses?;
Therefore, emotions are…
Perceived event (stimulus) processed in subcortical brain activity leading to both physiological & behavioural responses (autonomic arousal) & emotional experience (conscious feeling); Separate from ANS response & behaviour
Give an example of step 1 of Cannon-Bard’s Thalamic / Hypothalamic theory of emotion
Dog growls (stimulus); thalamus is activated & sends simultaneous messages to cerebral cortex (I am afraid - emotion) & SNS (My heart is beating fast, I’m breathing hard - bodily changes)
What’s step 2 of the Cannon-Bard theory?;
Hypothalamus evaluates the emotional relevance of environmental events
What’s step 3A of the Cannon-Bard theory?
Step 3B?
Cortex conscious experience - projections from hypothalamus to cortex mediate conscious experience; Brain stem emotional response
Beginning at the olfactory bulb, name the main areas of the Limbic System in a clockwise direction
Cingulate gyrus, thalamus, fornix, hypothalamus, mamillary body, hippocampus, amygdala
What progress was made with rhesus monkeys when assessing emotional behaviours?
Fear conditioning
In classical conditioning, US is…;
UR is…;
CS is…;
CR is…
Unconditioned Stimulus (hardwired);
Unconditioned Response;
Conditioned Stimulus (learnt);
Conditioned Response
What evidence reveals that the amygdala is important for fear learning?;
What do fMRI scans show?
Damage to the lateral nucleus of the amygdala interferes with fear conditioning;
Amygdala activity changes during conditioning, & these correlate with thalamus activity but not cortical activity
What brain region is important for differential conditioning?;
What about contextual conditioning?
Cortex;
Hippocampus
How is context conditioning applied?
No distinct CS, environment serves as CS; context A: CS-US, context B: CS (2 different environments)
What’s an example of differential conditioning?
Animal receives electro shock upon tone in box A but not in box B
Explain LeDoux’s Low Road to emotional processing
Sensory input to the thalamus straight to amygdala - activation of emotions before cognitive processing (unconscious); amygdala controls physiological & behavioural emotional response - no cortex involved
Explain LeDoux’s High Road to emotional processing
Sensory impulses sent from the thalamus to the neocortex for cognitive processing (perceptions & interpretations), then activation of emotions in amygdala (modulated response)
From the thalamus, the amygdala signals a threat which triggers the hypothalamus. What is the process of neurotransmitter activity from this point?;
What occurs simultaneously?
Hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) which activates the pituitary gland & secretes adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) & cortisol is released (stress hormone);
Activation of adrenal gland, which releases adrenaline / noradrenaline (increasing sympathetic response)
What did Feinstein et al. find when testing patients with focal bilateral amygdala lesions for fear?;
No conditioning to aversive stimuli, failure to recognise fearful faces & absence of fear when exposed to fear-provoking stimuli
How did Feinstein et al. test for fear responses with 3 amygdala lesioned patients?;
What were the results?;
What did the controls show differently?
The 3 patients & 12 controls inhaled CO2;
Fear or panic was triggered in all 3 patients & physiological response was the same or heightened; Anticipatory fear response (they could predict)
As well as for conditioning to fear, the amygdala is important for…;
What isn’t it necessary for?;
Who’s theory can’t explain fear response?;
Brain structures that by-pass the amygdala can also…
Anticipation or detection of threat;
Experiencing emotions (fear/panic);
LeDoux’s;
Evoke fear
Provide 4 explanations as to why extinction is not “passive forgetting”
Spontaneous recovery (emergence of conditioned fear some time after extinction); renewal (reappears in a different context); reinstatement (emergence after encounter with CS alone after successful extinction); rapid reacquisition (faster than learning)
What happens with active suppression of fear responses during extinction (learning)?
CS becomes ambiguous
What happens at a neural level with associative learning?
Changing connection strengths between neurons (synaptic weights); changing wiring between neurons (plasticity)
According to Hebbian’s learning rule, what is Synaptic strength?;
What is plasticity?
A synapse between 2 neurons is strengthened when the neurons on either side of the synapse (input & output) have highly correlated outputs (both activated or both inhibited);
What fires together wires together - neurogenesis & changes in wiring of synaptic connections
Name 2 ways of changing synaptic weights
Coincident activity in pre- & post-synaptic neuron strengthens connection; modulatory interneuron can strengthen connections when activity coincides with pre-synaptic neuron
What do neuromodulators do?;
What are 2 important neuromodulators?;
They don’t necessarily depolarize a cell directly but they…
Modulate firing rates (sensitivity) of enervated neurons; Dopamine & Serotonin;
Increase their sensitivity & have longer-lasting effects than neurotransmitters
Extinction is an active process involving what?;
What doesn’t happen during extinction?
Changes in synaptic weights (similar to learning);
True unlearning of fear response (it’s latently there)
Give 2 examples of research approaches to assess detection of threat vs. threat learning
Detection: visual search task; learning: resistance to extinction (conditioning to threatening vs. non-threatening CS+, then compare extinction for threat CS+ & non-threat CS+)
What did Seligman & Maier find in their Learned Helplessness study with dogs?;
What did Hiroto find in the equivalent human experiment with loud noise?
Even though the dogs could escape electric shocks by jumping over a partition, 80% of the group 2 dogs never jumped;
The same results - those in uncontrollable noise condition didn’t learn to move the lever & stop the noise
Learned helplessness is also known as…;
How is this linked to depression?;
What is learned helplessness an example of?
Retardation of learning, learning transfer or consequences of learning;
From learning that outcomes are uncontrollable;
How past learning / experience directly influences how a situation is perceived & how this perception leads to certain emotions / mood states
Give examples of how attributions determine the development of helplessness
Stable v.s unstable attributions > chronic vs. acute helplessness; global vs. specific attributions > broad vs. narrow helplessness; internal vs. external attributions > lower vs. higher self-esteem
Explain the Schachter & Singer 2-factor theory of emotion
Event (stimulus) > physiological changes (autonomic arousal) > cognitive labels (appraisal) > emotional experience & behaviour (conscious feeling)
In the 2-factor theory, what equals emotion?;
Emotion only occurs if…;
How can this be tested?
Arousal + cognition;
Body is aroused; a reason for arousal is located; the labeling of arousal determines emotion; arousal without cognition leads to no emotion;
By making people attach a wrong cognitive label (misattribution) to arousal state
In the experiment where participants were injected with Epinephrine (adrenaline), & either informed or misinformed about arousal effects followed by friendly or angry confederate, what were the results?
In euphoric condition, misinformed were happiest & informed the least happiest or angriest; informed group attributed arousal to the drug & were least effected by the context
In Dutton & Aron’s misattribution experiment, where participants crossed either an unsafe or safe bridge, followed by a survey with attractive experimenter, who were more likely to call her & ask for a date?;
How could this be interpreted?
Those who crossed the unsafe bridge (50%) with only 12.5% of those who crossed the safe bridge;
People crossing the scary bridge misattributed arousal (fear) to the experimenter (attraction)
Attributions can determine…;
What can arise from misattribution?;
What’s a similar theory to this?
The emotions we form or experience;
Misguided emotions;
Cognitive appraisal theory (cognition causes arousal)
Explain the order of different theories of emotion over history
Focus on ANS, visceral responses & behaviour; brain structure & localisation (thalamus, hypothalamus & amygdala); conditioning to alter emotional responses to particular stimuli (& extinction); cognitive appraisal in defining emotions (or arousal)
