Module 1: L1-4 - intro

Question 1

Give a definition of emotions.

Answer 1

No generel agreement, but comprise of components of:
At least:
1) a physiological reaction to a stimulus, 2) a behavioral response, 3) a feeling (although this is a subjective experience of an emotion),
And maybe also:
4) influence cognitive processing, 5) can be triggered by emotionally salient stimuli, 6) unintentionality, 7) evolutionary purpose, and 8) a social and relational aspect: communication

Question 2

How are emotions and mood different?

Answer 2

Emotion: comprise many components, discrete
Mood: diffuse, longer-lasting subjective feelings

Question 3

What are the three categorize of emotions?

Answer 3

Basic, complex and dimensional theories of emotion

Question 4

Give a brief description of basic emotions.

Answer 4

A closed set of emotions, each with a unique set of characteristics, carved by evolution and reflected through facial expression

Question 5

Explain the concept of universal facial expressions.

Answer 5

Ekman: showed pics of american actors expressing different emotions to a tribe in New Guinea –> they recognized the emotions
Americans also recognized the emotional expressions of the tribe

Question 6

What are the 6 basic emotions according to Ekman?

Answer 6

happy, sad, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise

Question 7

What are some examples of emotion generation theories?

Answer 7

• James-Lange: emotions are feed-back responses of physiological responses (run first –> afraid later)
• Cannon and Bard: believed there are too many emotions for James-Lange theory to be true - parallel processing, one does not cause the other
• Lazarus: risk-benefit appraisal (cause of emotion is both the stimulus and its significance)
• Singer and Schachter: mix of all three above - emotional arousal and then reasoning are required to appraise a stimulus before an emotion can be identified

Question 8

What are some theories of basic emotions?

Answer 8

• Darwin: human expression of emotion resembled those of “lower” animals - based on the asumption that facial expressions are observable, automatic manifestations corresponding to a person’s inner feelings
• Ekman: disagreeing with Darwin - 1) emotions varries from an unpleasant-pleasant scale, 2) relationship between facial expression and what it signified was socially learned, and 3) the meaning of facial expressions varried among cultures –> he found out, however, that facial expressions did not vary from culture to culture => 6 basic emotions, that are innate, universal and short-lasting

Question 9

What are emotional biases?

Answer 9

The tendency for the information
processing system to consistently
favor stimulus material of a
particular emotional valence
- automatic and implicit

Question 10

How are memory and attention a bias?

Answer 10

Attention:
- Emotional triggers –> higher attention
- Negative info is prioritized
- Attention in involuntary oriented towards emotionally salient info

Memory:
- Negative emotions (danger) does not make the memory more accurate, but more vivid

Question 11

Describe the role of the amygdala in implicit emotional learning.

Answer 11

• a patient with amygdala impairment does not show a physiological response prior to “fear response”, but remembers the trigger - fails to develop conditioned response
• underlie fear conditioning

Question 12

Describe what role the amygdala seems to play in the processing of emotional facial expression

Answer 12

The amygdala contributes to direct visual attention to the eyes when encountering any facial expression (bottom-up)
- activation response to fearfull facial expressions is bigger (concious cognition is not involved)
- patients with amygadala lesions cannot detect fear in facial expressions, as fear is identifies by an increase in size of the white region of the eyes (top-down)

Question 13

Describe what role the insula seems to play in the processing of emotional facial expression.

Answer 13

Insula may play a broad role in associating cognitive and affective process
(valence and arousal are decreased in patients with impaired insula)

Question 14

Give some examples of physiological measures of emotional processing.

Answer 14

fMRI, HR, electrodermal activity (sweat), respiratory rate, subjective emotional response, EEG

Question 15

Give some examples of behavioral measures of emotional processing.

Answer 15

Fear conditioning and emotional attentional blink

Question 16

Describe widely used tests in decision making.

Answer 16

Loss aversion: will you take the bet if the win/lose is equal?
Iowa gambling task: (healthy) subjects learn to draw cards from decks that lead to monetary gains, and avoid losses (patients with vmPFC damage continue to chose from the disadvantage pile, as these patients have a compromised ability to learn from somatic marker links to risky actions)

Question 17

Give a brief description of complex emotions.

Answer 17

Combinations of basic emotions, some of which may be socially or culturally learned, that can be identified as evolved, long-lasting feelings

Question 18

Give a brief description of dimensional theories of emotions.

Answer 18

Describe emotions that are fundamentally the same but that differ along one or more dimensions, such as valence and arousal in reaction to events or stimuli

Question 19

Describe the overall aims and principles of experimental psychology.

Answer 19

Emotional processing uncovered with behavioural techniques for deriving quantitative measures of internal processes

Question 20

Which brain structures are in the limbic system?

Answer 20

• amygdala
• hypothalamus
• corpus callosum
• cingulate gyrus
• thalamus
• hippocampus
• orbitofrontal cortex