UNIT 3 Flashcards
Pleasure & Pain
Psychological hedonism
perspective arguing that people are motivated to act in
ways that increase pleasure & decrease pain
Pleasure
subjective hedonic value of reward
Reward
something an animal will work to achieve
- primary: naturally rewarding & biologically essential
- secondary: learned rewards that gain importance through repeated associations with primary rewards
Pain
the subjective hedonic and motivational response to punishing stimuli
Punishment
something an animal will work to avoid
- Primary: naturally aversive, threaten survival
- Secondary: learned punishments that acquire aversiveness through repeated associations with primary punishments
Alliesthesia
subjective hedonic value of stimulus is tied to extent to which a stimulus
contributes to or disrupts homeostasis
Nociception
neural detection & transmission of information about tissue damage
Pain (neural)
subjective, conscious experience of discomfort or distress
2 components of pain
- Sensory-discriminative component
- Affective-motivational component
Sensory-discriminative component
- provides information about intensity, quality, and location
- Primary and secondary somatosensory cortices and posterior insula
Affective-motivational component
- relates to emotional experience of the pain (how distressing is it?) & drives motivation to escape or stop painful experience
- dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula (AI)
Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP)
people who don’t feel pain
Hypoalgesia
reduction of pain
Wanting
Anticipating and actively seeking something good
Liking
receiving and enjoying something good
Dopamine- based reward circuit
Begins in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) - dopamine is synthesized
Released into the nucleus accumbens (NA) : brain’s “pleasure centre”
Circuit extends to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) - involved in decision-making & self-regulation
Also extends to orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) - key for evaluating reward value of stimuli
prediction error:
difference between what we expect and what actually happen
Integration of Pain & Reward
Pain & pleasure work together to optimize internal homeostatic balance
Motivation-decision model of pain
Motivation-decision model of pain subjective interpretation of a sensory event can be understood as manifestation of unconscious decision process
Opponent-Process Model
Emotional reactions are regulated by the brain to maintain hedonic balance
- strong emotions are countered by opposite reaction
Peak-end Rule:
the most intense positive or negative moments + the final moments of the experience are most heavily weighted in our recollections of the experience
