task 5 - emotional learning and memory

Question 1

james-lange theory of emotions

Answer 1

conscious feelings of emotion occur when the mind senses the physiological responses associated with fear or some other kind of arousal

• arousal: collection of bodily responses that prepare the body to face a threat → also known as fight-or-flight response
• types of hormones: stress, epinephrine, glucocorticoid, cortisol

Question 2

theory for james-lange theory of emotions

Answer 2

physiological responses come first and cause our conscious feelings of emotion: somatic theory

Question 3

cannon-bard theory

Answer 3

conscious emotions stimulate appropriate behaviors and physiological responses, neither causing the other

Question 4

theory for canon-bard theory

Answer 4

stimuli simultaneously evoke both emotions and physiological responses

Question 5

two-factor theory

Answer 5

combo of cognitive apprasial and perception of biological changes together determines oir experience of emotion

Question 6

theory for two-factor theory

Answer 6

emotions posits that emotions are produced through interaction between our cogitive appraisal of the situation and our physiological responses

Question 7

fear response

Answer 7

a cluster of physological, motor, and consciousness reactions that accompany the emotions of fear. in a labatory these physological changes and motor behaviors are often taken to imply presence of fear whether or not the accompanying conscious experience of fear can be documented

Question 8

piloerection

Answer 8

a fear response in mammals in which body hair stands on end, making the animal look bigger and more threatening than it is

• pufferfish type shit

Question 9

conditioned emotional responses: learning to predict danger

Answer 9

see that blood pressure spikes with CR

Question 10

conditioned escape: learning to get away from danger

Answer 10

an experimental design in which animals learn to make particular responses in order to escape from or terminate an aversive stimulus

→ form of operant learning

Question 11

conditioned avoidance: learning to avoid danger altogether

Answer 11

an experimental design in which animals learn to make particular responses to avoid or prevent exposure to an aversive stimulus

Question 12

two-factor of theory of avoidance learning

Answer 12

avoidance learning is actually classical and operant conditioning (classical is first and operant goes second)

Question 13

learned helpnessness

Answer 13

a phenomenon in which exposure to an uncontrollable punisher teaches an expectation that responses are ineffectual, which in turn reduces the motivation to attempt new avoidance responses

Question 14

effects of emotion of declarative memory

Answer 14

• strong mood or emotion causes biological responses and subjective feelings → they can be incorporated into the memory like other contextual cues
• a kind of memory cue

Question 15

encoding and emotion of memories

Answer 15

experiment done to show that participants shown a more emotional story were able to remember more than the other group of participants given the neutral story

Question 16

retrival and emotion of memories → mood congruency of memory

Answer 16

eaiser to retrieve memories that match our current mood or emotional state

Question 17

flashblub memories

Answer 17

a memory formed under conditions of extreme emotions that seems especially vivid and long lasting

• episodic memories that are experienced with great vividness and confidence
• not fully trusted because accuracy is not great

Question 18

key nuclei of the amygdala and their major connections: lateral nucleus

Answer 18

primary entry point for sensory info into the amygdala. comes from thalamus and cortex

Question 19

key nuclei of the amygdala and their major connections: central nucleus

Answer 19

input from other amygdala nuclei and projects out of the amygdala to the ANS system. main expression of physiological responses such as arousal and release of stress hormomes and also to motor centers for behavioral responses

Question 20

key nuclei of the amygdala and their major connections: basolateral nucleus

Answer 20

input from the lateral nucleus and projects to the cerebral cortex and the hippocampal region which allows for the amygdala to modulate memory storage and retrival in those structures

Question 21

epinephrine

Answer 21

helps mediate the various components of the flight-or-fight responses

• cannot effect the brain directly
  
  • cannot cross the blood-brain barrier

Question 22

norepinephrine in the basolateral amygdala

Answer 22

the amount of it present in the amygdala and it is a good predictor of how well that rat will remember the learn experience

Question 23

purpose of the ability of stress hormones in context of already aquired memories?

Answer 23

the ability of stress hormones to affect previously acquired memories allows the amygdala to tinker with the strength of the memory later when the delayed consequences become apparant

Question 24

cahill findings

Answer 24

blocking stress hormones reduces the ability of emotions to enhance memory

Question 25

lesions of the central nucleus of the amygdala

Answer 25

disrupt the ability to learn and display new emotional responses

• deficits in learning emotional responses

Question 26

experiement to discover the emotional aspects of conditioning: lesions of the central nucleus of the amygdala

Answer 26

SCR (skin conductance response) is measured after a loud noise (US) is played for control, amygdala lesion, and hippocampal lesion participants. SCR increased for control and HL but not for AL, therefore stating how the amygdala is important for learning and expressing conditioned emotional responses

• the distruption in the CR occur because the central nucleus provides major outputs from the amygdala to the ANS and to motor centers that drive the freezing response

Question 27

optogenetics

Answer 27

→ a technique for causing specific cells (neurons) to become sensitive to light after which researchers can use light siultation to turn those specific neurons “on” and “off” at will

→ photosensitive proteins are present in various organisms

→ can examine whether activity in some neurons actually causes changes in other parts of the brain

Question 28

so what???? (optogenetics)

Answer 28

→ Proteins open ion channels upon specific light wavelengths, leading to ion influx that depolarizes or hyperpolarizes the cell.

→ Channelrhodopsin reacts to blue light by allowing positively charged ions into the cell.

→ Proteins can be introduced into neurons by incorporating their coding genes into harmless viruses’ genetic material.Injecting these viruses into the brain enables them to infect neurons and start expressing the proteins, which integrate into the cell membrane.

→ Genes can be modified so that the proteins only express in specific neuron types.

→ This setup allows for observing the effects of activating or deactivating specific neuron types in precise brain regions.

Question 29

phobia

Answer 29

excessive and irrational fear of an object, place, or situation that leads to anxiety and panic attacks

• little albert - famous case

Question 30

ptsd

Answer 30

a psychological syndrome that can develop after exposure to a horrific event; symptoms include re-experiencing the event, avoidance of reminders of the trauma, emotional numbing, and heightened anxiety

Question 31

treatment for phobias

Answer 31

therapy for phobias in which successive approximinations of the fear-evocking stimulus are presented while the patient learns to remain relaxed; eventually, even presentation of the stimulus intself does not elicit a fear reaction

→ extinction theory

• smaller hippocampal volume
• higher amygdala activity to negative emotional stimuli