Task 5 - Emotional learning and memory Flashcards
Emotion
s a cluster of three distinct but interrelated phenomena: physiological responses, overt behaviours, and conscious feelings – produced in response to an affecting situation
Fear response
A cluster of physiological, motor, and conscious reactions that accompany the emotion of fear. In the laboratory, these physiological changes and motor behaviors are often taken to imply presence of fear whether or not the accompanying conscious experience of fear can be documented
small set of universal emotions, hardwired in humans from birth
this set includes happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise
Arousal
a collection of bodily responses (including increased blood flow to muscles, increased respiration, and depressed digestion and immune function) that prepare the body to face a threat; also known as the fight-or-flight response
Fight-or-flight response
A collection of bodily responses (including increased blood flow to muscles, increased respiration, and depressed digestion and immune function) that prepare the body to face a threat; also known as arousal
Autonomic nervous system (ANS)
A collection of nerves and structures that control internal organs and glands
- When the brain senses a challenge or threat, the ANS sends a signal to the adrenal glands, which release stress hormones
Stress hormones
hormones that act throughout the body to turn the fight-or- flight response on and off – examples include norepinephrine and the glucocorticoids
Stress
Any stimulus or event that causes bodily arousal and release of stress hormones
James-Lange theory of emotion
The theory that conscious feelings of emotion occur when the mind senses the physiological responses associated with fear or some other kind of arousal
Somatic theories of emotion
(basically the same as James-Lange theory of emotion) all based on this central premise that physiological responses to stimuli come first, and these determine or induce emotions
- one prediction of somatic theories of emotion is that researchers should be able to evoke a given emotion in a person just by inducing the corresponding bodily responses
Cannon-Bard theory of emotion
The theory that conscious emotions stimulate appropriate behaviors and physiological responses
- Criticism against the somatic theories
Two-factor theory of emotion
which posits that a combination of cognitive appraisal and perception of biological changes together determine our experience of emotion
- Famous experiment supporting this is the “High Bridge” study
Piloerection
a fear response in mammals in which body hair stands on end, making the animal look bigger and more threatening than it is
Conditioned escape
an experimental design in which animals learn to make particular responses in order to escape from or terminate an aversive stimulus
- Escape learning is a form of operant conditioning
Conditioned avoidance
animals learn to make particular responses to avoid or prevent arrival of an aversive stimulus
Two-factor theory of avoidance learning
avoidance learning involves an interaction between classical and operant conditioning
Problem:
one major difficulty is that these theories assume that avoidance learning is based on conditioned fear of the warning signal – (avoidance learning is often extremely resistant to extinction)
Learned helplessness
exposure to an uncontrollable punisher teaches an expectation that responses are ineffectual, which in turn reduces the motivation to attempt new avoidance responses
- -> Understanding this phenomenon may provide clues for how to promote resilience or resistance to negative emotions and even to depression
- Depression - a psychiatric condition that involves sadness as well as a general loss of initiative and activity
Mood congruency of memory
it is easier to retrieve memories that match our current mood or emotional state
Flashbulb memories
a memory formed under conditions of extreme emotions that seems especially vivid and long lasting – because they form quickly, as if the brain were taking “flash photographs” to preserve the incident forever in vivid detail, while other, less arousing memories fade with time
- they are merely episodic memories that are experienced with great vividness and confidence
- flashbulb memories are long lasting, vivid, and largely accurate—but they are not perfect photographic records of the event: they can be incomplete and can contain inaccurate details
Possible causes for errors creeping into our memories:
- source monitoring
- Memories of particularly important events are continuously pondered, rehearsed, and discussed. Each time, we are liable, quite unconsciously, to fill any little gaps in our memory with details that seem to fit the context. Later, we remember those inserted details as part of the original event
Lateral nucleus
a primary entry point for sensory information into the amygdala; this sensory information arrives directly from the thalamus and also indirectly from the thalamus by way of the cortex
Central nucleus
receives inputs from other amygdala nuclei and projects out of the amygdala to the autonomic nervous system (AnS), driving expression of physiological responses such as arousal and release of stress hormones, and also to motor centers, driving expression of behavioral responses such as freezing and startle
Basolateral nucleus
receives input from the lateral nucleus and projects to the cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, and hippocampus, providing a pathway by which the amygdala can modulate memory storage and retrieval in those structures
Two-factor theory of emotion
our conscious emotional feelings depend not only on our biological responses but also on how we interpret the situation
lesions of the central nucleus of the amygdala
disrupt the ability to learn, as well as display, new emotional responses “(also classical conditioning but only emotional)”
Two Pathways for Emotional Learning in the Amygdala
- the direct path from the thalamus to the amygdala
2. the indirect path from the thalamus to the cortex to the amygdala
- the direct path from the thalamus to the amygdala
The direct pathway is faster (“fast and rough”) – allows us to react quickly in a life-and-death situation, activating our flight-or-fight response – over the thalamus to the amygdala
- the indirect path from the thalamus to the cortex to the amygdala
than the indirect pathway (“slow but accurate”) – then provides extra information, allowing us to terminate the fear response if the stimulus is not dangerous after all – projects from the thalamus → cortex → amygdala
Optogenetics
A technique for causing specific cells (particularly neurons) to become sensitive to light, after which researchers can use light stimulation to turn those specific neurons “on” and “off” at will
Role of the Amygdala
also plays a role in modulating memory storage elsewhere that represents other aspects of the experience
The Amygdala and Episodic Memory Storage
a patient with amygdala damage recalled the beginning and end of the story about as well as did healthy controls but showed no physiological arousal during the emotional middle section and no tendency, later, to recall that material better
–> this finding implies that the amygdala may provide a signal to strengthen the storage of information in declarative memory
Consolidation period
memories are not formed instantaneously but remain malleable throughout a consolidation period, during which time they are vulnerable to such interventions as electroconvulsive shock or head injury
Reconsolidation
in which—under some circumstances—reactivation of an old memory makes it vulnerable all over again
A little stress is a good thing
The hippocampus has a particularly high concentration of glucocorticoid receptors (McEwen & Sapolsky, 1995), and low levels of stress hormones facilitate LTP and encourage dendritic growth, improving memory formation and recall
Goal of the hippocampus
to store the context of a certain emotion – everything episodic that one remembers when experiencing a certain emotion
There is also a bidirectional hippocampus and amygdala
not only to encode the context but also wehn in a certain place the hippocampus triggers the amygdala to express that certain emotion again
Frontal lobes
are often considered the seat of executive function, where we do most of our planning and decision making
- they are also intensively involved in social behaviour, and appropriate social behaviour demands the ability to express emotion and to read it in others
Damage to the frontal lobes
Patients with damage to the frontal lobes often exhibit fewer and less intense facial expressions and are impaired in their ability to recognize negative facial expressions (such as fear and disgust) in others
- The frontal lobes help people maintain a balance between too little emotion and too much
Phobias
an excessive and irrational fear of an object, place, or situation – that leads to anxiety and panic attacks – when a fear has reached a point where it interferes with daily life, it is classified as a phobia
Phobias are classified into two categories
- Specific phobias
2. Agoraphobia
- Specific phobias
Fears of particular objects or social situations in which a fear reaction might be justified (sometimes, but not always)
- Agoraphobia
Involve a generalized fear of leaving home or familiar “safe” areas, usually because of fear of having a panic attack in public
What Causes Phobias
- one theory about the formation of phobias is that they arise through classical conditioning
- -> Little Albert (loud noise paired with rabbit) - one possible explanation is that some phobias may be conditioned through social transmission
- -> F.e. fear of airplanes only through seeing televised reports of them crashing
Systematic desensitization
in this therapy for phobias, successive approximations of the CS are presented while the patient learns to remain relaxed; eventually, even the CS itself does not elicit a fear response
- One can use virtual reality to treat some phobias, that f.e, could get very expensive
- Virtual-reality therapy, particularly in combination with other relaxation training and cognitive therapy, can be very effective in treating phobias
- Exposure therapy
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
A psychological syndrome that can develop after exposure to a horrific event (such as combat, rape, or natural disaster); symptoms include re-experiencing the event (through intrusive recollections, flashbacks, or nightmares), avoidance of reminders of the trauma, emotional numbing, and heightened anxiety
Extinction therapy
Consistent with the theory that PTSD involves a failure of extinction, some of the most widely used treatments for PTSD include exposing the patient to cues that trigger his anxiety but doing so in the absence of danger
- Can also be difficult since sometimes one is not really sure what the phobia is from
Causes and Treatments of PTSD
one prominent theory why PTSD might occur, assigns a role to classical conditioning
–> by definition, PTSD involves an experience that causes a strong fear response, including feelings of helplessness or terror. this event may function as a US, and it may be such a strong and effective US that any other co-occurring stimuli become strongly associated with that US. thus, sights, sounds, and smells may all become conditioned stimuli. When any such CS is experienced again, it may evoke the memory of the US—and a conditioned fear response
