PSY260 - 7. Emotional Memory Flashcards
How are emotions remembered?
-
Are emotions remembered?
you remember you had a feeling + circumstances, but you don’t feel the emotion
What is emotion?
- Controlled by distinct neuronal circuits within brain
- experienced emotion consciously – cognitive element, most likely involving cerebral cortex
- outcome of interaction of peripheral & central factors
What is emotion?
•distinct but interrelated phenomena: physiological responses, overt behaviours + conscious feelings
Physiological responses – changes in heart rate, perspiration levels, respiration, and other body functions
Overt behaviors – facial expression, vocal tone + posture
Conscious feelings – subjective experiences of sadness, happiness
Emotional Behaviours
-sadness, fear, joy, disgust, surprise
•Paul Eckman – small set of universal emotions, hardwired in human from birth: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust + surprise
•All humans feel these emotions + can recognize markers of these emotions in others
Emotions
-guilt, grief, awe, curiousity
What is emotion: Emotion versus feeling
things we are conscious of, expression of feelings (anxiety)
feelings: way our body reacts (hungry)
Outward expression of a feeling
emote: give a signal - tell ourselves what is going on in the body
expression we + others interpret
Value of Emotion
- Primary senses tell us about what we need
- tell us something about our relationship with world, especially with other people
our memory: time/place linked to emotions
Value of Emotion
- help us communicate that relationship + tell others what we are feeling
- strengthen our recollection of other images.
we remember events, but we don’t always react the same way
emotions are either remembered/conjured up along with recollections of circumstances that brought about emotion before
Video Clip
if it created emotional memory: lamp looks sad, being discarded, rain is falling, being replaced
these are images that conjure up emotions because we generalize previous experiences into this situation which generates emotional response
Generalization vs. discrimination
we project feelings upon objects/situations
we generalize/discriminate in order to find what is important + requires our attention
Wanting vs. liking (hedonic vs. motivational)
motivational properties, we don’t think, we just react as opposed to emotional response to various items
some we want, some we need: response to food when hungry
diff emotional response to what we want/like/need
Premack principle
extention of Skinner’s operant conditioning
we are being operant conditioned all the time: allows us to determine whether we’re on the right track
we are integrating external world - paying attention to what we can get - with internal world - what our body is saying
our emotional responses allow us to do this
Chocolate entrainment - rats
they run on the running wheel before food is presented
food anticipatory behaviour - foraging
if deprived: eat a lot during small period same amount during whole day
if you give them chocolate: they get fat - they don’t regulate
Peripheral Responses
prepare the body for action
•Communicate emotions to other people
Peripheral Responses
fear: increased heart rate & respiration, dry mouth, tense muscles, sweaty palms
Autonomic Nervous System & Emotion
mediate emotional states
create physiological correlate of emotion
changes in emotional state = change in physiological periphery
signal of what happened sent to brain
collection of nerves + structures that control internal organs + glands - primarily an effector system
Autonomic Nervous System & Emotion
controls smooth muscles, heart, exocrine glands
involuntary response to stress
•brain senses challenge or threat, send signal to adrenal gland, which release stress hormones: hormones throughout body to turn fight/flight on + off
•Stress: any event or stimulus that causes bodily arousal and release of stress hormones
•Epinephrine + glucocorticoids (cortisol)
•Strong pleasant emotions (happiness) can cause physiological arousal
Three Divisions of the ANS: Sympathetic
body’s way of preparing you to face a challenge or threat - fighting/running away
•BP + heart rate increased, bloodflow is diverted toward body systems most likely to help you in this effort – brain, lungs, + muscles in legs
Three Divisions of the ANS: Parasympathetic
–rest and digest
–Normal conditions
Three Divisions of the ANS: Enteric
-
Summary
integration among central + peripheral systems
Central systems receive info from ambient world
Messages sent to peripheral systems, changing peripheral activity
Activity in peripheral systems detected by the central systems
integration = plasticity - value of stimulus changes when integrated with another stimulus
Three Divisions of the ANS
Central systems distinguish among sensory + internally generated signals, discriminating betw sensory input + “feelings”
The Papez Circuit
James Papez- 1930’s
•emotion system that links cortex to hypothalamus
Emotion is determined by activity of cingulate cortex
Emotional expression governed by hypothalamus
The Papez Circuit
group of structures, connected by major fiber tract
cingulate cortex projects to hippocampus, which projects to hypothalamus through fornix; hypothalamus projects to the anterior nuclei of thalamus, which reach back to cortex
Papez Circuit
stimulus ⇒ thalamus ⇒ sensory cortex ⇒ cingulate hippocampus ⇒ hypothalamus ⇒ ant. thalamus ⇒ cingulate cortex ⇒ feeling
thalamus ⇒ hypothalamus ⇒ bodily response
Papez Circuit
brain regions operate in loop
•Some structures included important, but not restricted to processing emotional info
•left out some structures - amygdala
•no specialized emotion circuit
•Each emotion activate many diff brain regions
Theories of Emotion: William James & Karl Lange - 1884
experience we call emotion occurs after cortex receives signals about physiologic changes
Emotional expression precedes emotional experience
Physiological changes occur in response to stimuli, then
we feel emotions
Theories of Emotion- James & Lange
Emotion consequence of info from periphery
–We feel sorry because we cry
Theories of Emotion- James & Lange
Bodies respond to an emotional situation with physiological changes; conscious feelings follow as mind interprets physiological response
Somatic theories of emotion: physiological responses to stimuli come first and these determine/induce emotions
Critique of James & Lange
Emotions experienced even if physiological changes aren’t sensed
Patients & animals with transected spinal cords do not have lessened emotions
Critique of James & Lange
same physiological changes accompany different emotions + can have other causes
–fear, anger & disease can all increase heart rate & cause sweating
Theories of Emotion: Walter Cannon and Phillip Bard - 1927
Stimuli cause emotional experience
Emotional experience can occur independently of emotional expression
Theories of Emotion – Cannon & Bard
thalamus plays pivotal role in emotional sensations
Emotions produced when signals reach thalamus directly from sensory receptors /descending cortical input
emotion determined by pattern of activation of thalamus
Theories of Emotion – Cannon & Bard
stimuli simultaneously evokes both emotions + arousal
•Epinephrine injection’s cause bodily arousal, which each volunteers brain interpreted according to context in which individual had been placed