Chapter 11 Flashcards
By definition emotions include components of
cognitions (This is a dangerous situation)
feelings (I feel frightened)
and actions (Run away now)
sympathetic nervous system stimulates certain organs, such as ___, while inhibiting others, such as ____
the heart
the stomach and intestines
James-Lange theory
the autonomic arousal and skeletal actions come before the emotion - You feel afraid because you run away.
Arousal lead to emotions, they lead to the feeling aspect of an emotion
Event -> Appraisal -> Action -> Emotion
pure autonomic failure
output from the autonomic nervous system to the body fails, they do not react to stressful experiences with changes in heart rate etc
Common sense theory of emotions
First you experience an emotion, then you get aroused, your sympathetic system reacts
Do people with pure automatic failure feel emotions? E.g. frightened in dangerous situations?
Yeah, same emotion, however they say they feel their emotions much less intensely than before.
Experience an emotion, but feel weak
Möbius syndrome
People that cannot move their facial muscles to make a smile - experience happiness and amusement, but have trouble making friends
Which part of the brain hase been regarded critical for emotion?
Limbic system - forebrain areas surrounding the thalamus
Also cerebral cortex reacts
What is the relevance of pure autonomic failure to the
study of emotions?
People with pure autonomic failure do not react to
events with changes in heart rate or other autonomic
functions. They report still having emotional experienc-
es but they do not feel them as strongly.
How did researchers get people to smile or frown without
using those words?
They got
people to smile by telling them to hold a pen between
their teeth. They got people to frown by attaching golf
tees to their eyebrows and then telling them to keep
the two tees touching each other.
According to Lisa Barrett Feldman, why is it difficult to
develop a scientific consensus about any theory of emotion?
Emotion is a
socially constructed category that people find useful,
but it does not correspond to any category that exists
in nature.
behavioral activation system (BAS)
marked by low to moderate autonomic arousal and a tendency to approach, could characterize happiness or anger
-> activity in the left hemisphere, frontal and temporal lobes
behavioral inhibition system (BIS)
increase attention and arousal, inhibits action, and stimulates emotions such as fear and disgust
-> increased activity of the frontal and temporal lobe in the right hemisphere
Difference between hemispheres relates to personality.. what is meant by that?
people with greater activity in the frontal
cortex of the left hemisphere tend to be happier, more outgo-
ing, and more fun-loving. People with greater right-hemisphere
activity tend to be socially withdrawn, less satisfied with life,
and prone to unpleasant emotions
What evidence challenges the idea that we identify
people’s emotions by their facial expressions?
Given a photo of a spontaneous facial expression,
people usually see more than one emotion and often
don’t see the emotion described by the person whose
face was shown. Also, in everyday life we identify
someone’s emotion by a combination of cues, includ-
ing posture, context, gestures, and tone of voice.
Rank the following dilemmata according to how many people were willing to sacrifice one human: Lifeboat Dilemma, Trolley Dilemma, Hospital Dilemma, Footbridge Dilemma
- Most people would pull the swithc in the trolley dilemma
- Fewer in the footbridge and lifeboat dilemmas
- Almost no one endorses killing in the hospital dilemma
Which brain areas were active in the footbridge or lifeboat dilemma
prefrontal cortex, and cingulate gyrus, known to respond to emotions
Which people are more willing to sacrifice people: people with weak or strong autonomic arousal?
Those with strong
People with prefrontal damage, that often make impulsive decisions. Do they sacrifice people in the dilemmata more or less often
More often. Quickly and calm.
After damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, people show
inconsistent preferences, as if they arent sure what they want or like.
And are dicks in the Dictator and Trustee game (show less concern for others)
If brain damage impairs someone’s emotions, what
happens to the person’s decision making?
After brain damage that impairs emotion, people
make impulsive decisions, evidently because they do
not quickly imagine how bad a poor decision might
make them feel.
What neurotransmitters play a role in aggression?
Ratio between testosterone (increases) and cortisol (inhibits), serotonin (inhibits violent impulses)
Effects of testosterone on woman in an experiment?
Look longer at angry faces, cannot make as good judgements about pairs of humans, tend to collaborate less
What is one reason why testosterone levels correlate only
weakly with human aggression levels?
Aggression depends on the ratio of testosterone to
cortisol, not to testosterone alone.
Turnover (measurement technique for serotonine)
You check the serotonin metabolites in body fluids to gauge the turnover, the amount that neurons released and replaced
5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA)
Seratonin’s main metabolite in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
Donkeys with the lowest quartile for 5-HIAA
were the most aggressive and die young
If we want to know how much serotonin the brain has
been releasing, what should we measure?
We can measure the concentration of 5-HIAA, a se-
rotonin metabolite, in the cerebrospinal fluid or other
body fluids. The more 5-HIAA, the more serotonin has
been released and presumably resynthesized.
Given that monkeys with low serotonin turnover pick many
fights and in most cases die young, what keeps natural
selection from eliminating the genes for low serotonin
turnover?
Although most monkeys with low serotonin turnover
die young, many of the survivors achieve a dominant
status that enables them to get more of the food
and to reproduce more frequently. Monkeys with high
serotonin turnover survive, but at the cost of accepting
a low status.
