Unit 13 - The Emotional Brain Flashcards
What is meant by emotions? What is their primary function? What type of inherent value do they have?
A state associated with stimuli that are rewarding (i.e., that one works to obtain) or punishing (i.e., that one works to avoid)
Guiding us on how to behave - what to avoid and what to seek out
Inherent survival value
What is mentalizing?
The process of inferring or attributing mental states to others
What is meant by mirroring?
The process of sharing the emotions or mental states of others
What are some aspects of emotions that can be focused on to study emotions?
Their subjective nature, bodily responses, or behavioural consequences
What is a mood and how does it differ from an emotion?
An emotional state that is extended over time (e.g., anxiety is a mood while fear is an emotion)
Emotions, on the other hand, are transient
What is meant by emotions having a hedonic value?
That they are subjectively liked or disliked
What is meant by emotions having a particular “feeling state”?
That they cause certain internal bodily responses, such as sweating, heart rate, or hormone secretion
What are emotional expressions? What could be some functions of these expressions?
Emotional expressions are external motor outcomes in the face and body caused by emotions
They may prepare the organism and/or send signals to other organisms
What did Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud agree on regarding human emotions?
That they possess continuity with their animal counterparts
What aspect of emotions did Darwin mostly focus on and what did he believe about this aspect?
Expressions
That they are innate (do not have to be learned), and conserved across species
Do expressions have any functional origins? Exemplify
Yes, they do.
For instance, fear increases visual field and nasal volume, while disgust decreases nasal volume, avoiding contaminants.
What did Freud divide human minds into? Explain each of the three divisions.
The id, ego and superego
Id concerned with representing our primitive urges, including our basic emotional needs for sex, food, warmth, and so on (belong to unconscious mind)
The ego is the conscious mind
The super-ego represents our cultural norms and aspirations
What is the James-Lange theory? What does it imply about the order of emotions? What is true and what is false about this theory?
The theory that our self-perception of bodily changes produces emotional experience (e.g., one being sad because one is crying)
That changes in bodily state occur before the emotional experience, rather than the other way around
Bodily experiences do not create emotions but they can enhance conscious emotional experiences
What is the Cannon-Bard theory? What does this theory imply? Which brain part is considered the centrepiece of emotions by this theory? What is this body part’s role in the theory?
Theory centred on the hypothalamus’ role in emotions in which bodily responses occur after the emotion itself
That bodily feedback can not account for the differences in emotion
The hypothalamus
Receiving and evaluated sensory inputs in terms of emotional content, and sending signals to autonomic system (to induce bodily feelings) and to cortex (to give rise to conscious experience of emotion)
What is the Papez circuit? What parts of the brain did this circuit contain? What originated in the circuit?
A limbic-based circuit that was once believed to constitute a largely undifferentiated “emotional” brain
Regions of the cingulate cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and thalamus
Feeling of emotions
Why is the theory of the Papez circuit no longer endorsed?
Some regions of it are no longer considered to carry out emotional-related functions (e.g., hippocampus and hypothalamus)
Different regions related to emotions perform different emotion-related functions (e.g., relating to fear versus disgust) rather than all regions being the same
What are basic emotions? What is an alternative approach to it?
Categories of emotions are thought to be universal, with distinct biological bases in evolution and neural substrates.
Different emotion categories are built from core processes like autonomic responses, approach/avoidance reactions, and beliefs, suggesting emotions are not natural kinds.
What are seen as the 6 basic emotions? What are some ways of discovering such basic emotions?
happiness, sadness, disgust, anger, fear, and surprise
universal facial expressions, specific neural bases, evolutionary reasons, automatic occurrence
What are some drawbacks of the basic emotion theory?
Not the case that each basic emotion has unique set of brain regions/networks
Some emotions satisfy some requirements for being basic, but not others
What is an alternative theory related to the term “core affect”? What does this theory state about facial expressions?
All emotions arise from a core affect system organized along two dimensions: pleasant-unpleasant and high-low arousal.
Different emotion categories are constructed by how they engage with the core affect system and the type of information linked outside this system. They are also shaped by experience rather than being innate.
What is another theory, this time related to the dimensions of reward and punishment, their presence/absence, and their intensity?
States that different types of emotion emerge by considering whether a reward or punishment is applied, and whether a reward is taken away or a punishment is taken away
Context also important (e.g., social or not)
What does an appraisal of an emotion involve? How is it related to the theory of basic emotions? Give an example
An evaluation of both the content and the context
Since some emotions could be seen as constructed from a basic emotion plus a non-emotional cognitive appraisal
Same basic emotion being appraised as shame or guilt depending on context
What are moral emotions? What does their existence imply? What areas of the brain do such emotions involve?
Emotions related to one’s behavior towards others or others’ behavior towards oneself or others.
Innate or culturally accepted benchmarks to evaluate actions.
Regions linked to both emotion (amygdala, insula) and cognitive appraisal (orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal cortices, STS).
What is the amygdala? What type of memories is it important for?
Part of the limbic system implicated in learning the emotional value of stimuli (e.g., in fear conditioning)
Emotional memories
What is the Kluver-Bucy syndrome in monkeys? Damage to which brain part causes this syndrome? What is it explained in terms of?
Unusual tameness and emotional blunting, tendency to examine objects with the mouth, dietary changes
Bilateral amygdala and temporal lesions
The monkeys losing their learned emotional value
What type of emotion conditioning is the amygdala highly connected to? Does damage to the amygdala prevent conditioning? Does it remove already existing conditioning? Is this the case for all types of stimuli?
Fear conditioning:
Damage prevents further fear conditioning and removes previously acquired fear conditioning.
The amygdala’s role in fear conditioning applies only to initially neutral stimuli, not to innately scary ones.
What is skin conductance response (SCR)? What is this correlated to?
Changes in electrical conductivity on a person’s skin, triggered by certain stimuli (e.g., emotional or familiar stimuli)
Amygdala activation
What other impact does damage to the amygdala have?
Impaired ability to recognise fear in others
In what way is the ability to detect threats argued to sometimes arise? IS the amygdala also activated in such cases?
Rapidly and without conscious awareness
Yes, it is
Is the amygdala the “fear centre “of the brain? Why?
No, since fear may depend on a wider network, the amygdala is involved in other forms of emotional processing
What other emotional function has the amygdala been shown to contribute to?
The learning of positive association based on food rewards
What is the insula? What are its functions?
A region of cortex buried beneath the temporal lobes
Involved in body perception including important roles in pain and taste perception
Which emotion is the insula most closely related to? Damage to the insula leads to what types of impairments related to this emotion?
Disgust
Recognising expressions of disgust, vocal expressions of disgust
Is there any correlation between traditional disgust and moral disgust?
Yes, moral disgust also results in activity in the insula and is linked to oral facial expressions characteristic of traditional disgust
What is interoception? Which part of the body is involved in this process?
A sensory system for monitoring the internal state of the body (e.g., the heart rate)
The insula
What is one general function of the orbitofrontal cortex?
Computing the current value of a stimulus, or how rewarding the stimulus is within the current context
What is meant by extinction learning? Which brain region enables this?
Learning that a previously rewarded stimulus is no longer rewarded
The orbitofrontal cortex
Are the values that the orbitofrontal cortex works with objective or subjective?
Both
What is the function of the anterior cingulate related to action choosing? How does it differ from that of the orbitofrontal cortex? What does damage to it lead to?
Motivation and determining the costs and benefits of actions
Related to actions whereas orbitofrontal cortex to stimuli
Impairment in judging which actions are best for certain situations
What is its function related to pain? Is this also related to social pain?
Responds to the perception of pain in others as well as to physical pain in oneself
Yes
What is the ventral striatum? What circuit is it involved in? What is this circuit related to?
Part of the basal ganglia that includes the nucleus accumbens
The limbic circuit connecting the orbitofrontal cortex, basal ganglia, and thalamus
Reward-based learning and thus increasing/decreasing the probability of behaviours
What neurotransmitter is projected to the nucleus accumbens of the ventral striatum? What does this neurotransmitter encode?
Dopamine
The difference between the predicted and actual reward in a given situation
What is conspecific?
Other members of the same species
Do most models assume a connection between extracting socially relevant information from faces and recognising facial identity?
NO
What are the two brain regions part of the “core” system of face processing? Which regions would have to be added to account for expressions?
Fusiform face area and superior temporal sulcus
The regions dealing with emotions, such as the amygdala, insula, etc.
Does the superior temporal sulcus respond more to dynamic or static faces? Is this same pattern found for the fusiform face area (FFA)?
Dynamic faces
No
Which area has been found to be linked to the process of mentalizing?
STS, specifically the posterior region
What is simulation theory? If we, for example, see a person smiling, what would take place in our brain? What is the consensus on this theory? What evidence is there for this theory?
The theory that we understand others’ emotions, actions, and mental states by vicariously producing their current state in ourselves.
Affective pathways for happiness and motor programs needed to smile are activated.
Widely accepted
E.g, using or disabling facial muscles impairs emotion recognition.
What is social referencing? Provide an example
Another person’s emotional response influences avoidance or interaction with a previously neutral stimulus.
A baby’s reaction to a new object depends on the caregiver’s response: disgust or fear leads to avoidance, while smiling leads to interaction.
What is Capgras syndrome? What is the cause of this? What bodily response is common when seeing closed people, and does not take place for sufferers?
People reporting that their acquaintances (spouse, family, friends, and so on) have been replaced by “body doubles”
Being able to recognise the person but lacking an emotional response to them
Skin conductance response
What is detecting eye contact considered? Which part of the brain is specialised for this? Is the fusiform face area involved?
An innate component of human cognition
Superior temporal sulcus
No, fusiform face area involved in face identity judgements
Considering race, what part of the brain is preferential for one’s ingroup? How about outgroup faces? What does this suggest?
Fusiform face area
Amygdala
Suggests emotion-related processing influenced by cultural stereotypes
What is the term mental state used to refer to?
Knowledge, beliefs, feelings, intentions and desires
What is theory of mind? What other concept is this essential equivalent to? What is an opposing theory?
The ability to represent the mental states of others (e.g., their beliefs, desires, intentions)
Mentalizing
Mirroring / simulation theory
What is empathy? How is it measured? What two concepts could it be related to?
The ability to appreciate others’ points of view and share their experiences
Presenting a stimulus relating to one person and measuring their response in various ways
Mirroring or mentalising
What is meant by the term mirror system? Provide an example of a brain region in this system?
Neural circuits or regions that disregard the distinction between self and other
Insula, which is activated both when we are disgusted and when we look at someone else being seemingly disgusted
Is simulation independent of one’s higher-order beliefs? Provide an example
No. E.g, More activation in simulation areas depends on what the individual believes about the person being simulated or the reason for their experience.
What is autism? Why is it defined according to behaviour? What can determine its severity/profile? What is it viewed as?
The presence of markedly abnormal or impaired development in social interaction and communication, and a markedly restricted repertoire of activities or interests
Since its specific biological markers are not known
External factors such as education, temperament, etc.
A spectrum of condition
What is Asperger syndrome?
A variant of autism linked to normal to high intelligence
What is false belief? What is the test of false belief? What deficit is shown in children with autism by this test?
A belief that differs from one’s own belief and that differs from the true state of the world
The ability to represent mental states, since they fail to understand that Anne has a belief that differs from physical reality
In between empathising and systemising, which is better done by people with autism? Why? Do autistic people process parts of wholes better?
Systemising
Because the lack of empathising accounts for difficulties in mentalizing, while systemising accounts for their preserved abilities and unusual interests
Parts
What is the broken-mirror theory of autism?
An account of autism in which the social difficulties are considered as a consequence of mirror-system disfunction
What are Mu oscillations? What is mu suppression? How does mu suppression data support the broken-mirror theory of autism?
EEG oscillations at 8-13 Hz over the sensorimotor cortex that are greatest when participants are at rest
A decrease in the number of mu waves when performing an action or observing an action
Autistic children show less mu suppression during observation but not in action execvution
Overall, is there convincing evidence for mirror-system dysfunction in autism? Does this deficit represent the core deficit and can account for the full range of social impairments?
Yes
Unclear
Where has most evidence for the neural basis of theory of mind come from?
fMRI studies of normal participants
behavioural studies of patients with brain lesions
What are the three main areas of the brain involved in mentalising?
Temporal poles, Medial prefrontal cortex, Temporoparietal junction (TPJ)
When are the temporal poles generally activated? What are they used to generate?
In tasks of language and semantic memory
Schemas that specify the current social or emotional context
Thinking about what most activates the medial prefrontal cortex? What is this part of the brain involved in? What has been argued to be its ultimate function?
Humans and human minds as opposed to other entities and other attributes of humans
Theory of mind
Binding together different kinds of information to create “social events” (considering the self in relation to others)
What two things activate the temporoparietal junction? Does the region respond more to the attribution of contentful mental states (thoughts, beliefs) or subjective states (hunger, tiredness)?
Tests of mentalizing and perception of biological motion, eye gaze, moving mouths, etc.
Contentful states
