emotion and the brain Flashcards
basic emotions, basic emotions and the brain, fear - conditioning and extinction (27 cards)
what are the components of an emotional response?
behavioural
autonomic
hormonal
what are the two types of affect?
emotion
mood
what is an emotion?
short in duration
intense
clear target
what is a mood?
longer in duration
on background
no real target
what do facial expressions do?
provide meaningful insight into cognitive-affective states
what were Paul Ekman’s basic emotions?
anger
disgust
fear
surprise
happiness
sadness
contempt (added later)
what did Ekman believe about basic emotion and is it true?
universal (present in all human societies) and don’t need to be learned
not true - difference in indigenous people
what are the criticisms of Ekman’s seven basic emotions?
are all basic emotions universal?
fail to describe richness of human emotion experience (Cowen and Keltner, 2017 - identified 27, fuzzy, categories)
replications? (yes within the same lab with the same method - Sorenson, 1975, failed to replicate when using free labelling)
language influences cognition (e.g. colour perception) so could it influence emotion?
some emotions are complex (is grief an emotion or a mood?)
what was Gendron et al’s (2014) study into basic emotions?
tested on Himba tribe in Namibia
task - sort face pictures into piles (no labels given - free sorting)
“happy” and “fearful” consistently recognised
not sadness, disgust and anger
what was Ekman’s sketchy past?
developed tool for lie detection/deception purposes (for DARPA and which is used as part of SPOT system at various borders)
what emotions do ~80-90% of researchers view as empirically established?
anger
fear
disgust
sadness
happiness
what are the two extreme positions about basic emotions and the brain?
complete specialisation and complete dispersions
compelling evidence that these extreme positions are wrong - spectrum of intermediate positions
what did Papez (1937) believe?
set of brain areas involved in processing all emotions
what was Papez’s (1937) circuit?
cingulate gyrus to parahippocampal region via cingulum. then to subiculum (hippocampus). then via fornix to mammilary bodies. then via MTT to anterior thalamic nuclei. back to cingulate gyrus
was Papez’s (1937) view correct?
wrong
not all areas in the circuit play major role in emotion processing
mammillary bodies and hippocampus more important for long-term memory in general
areas not part of circuit do play major role in emotion processing (amygdala, insula)
what is the emerging view of emotions?
dynamic, distributed representations in brain networks
what is evaluation of basic emotions and the brain?
can we classify emotional states in the brain?
then again, how could we not?
if emotional states are not random brain states, in theory, we should be able to identify them
are our methods sensitive enough to pick up the relevant information
what is the problem with human research?
no neuroimaging method has high spatial resolution, high temporal resolution and whole brain coverage
representations are distributed but a more fine-grained functional-anatomical understanding possible in theory
animal research might be able to fill in some gaps
what is cued fear conditioning?
only shock = unconditioned emotional response (increased heart rate, blood pressure)
tone and shock = conditioning
tone = CS
shock - tone = elicits freezing (species specific = CR)
what is a fear brain area?
amygdala
how can extinction be seen in mice?
once trained fear into rat, can we extinguish it?
when conditioned response presented repeatedly without aversive stimulus, CR eventually disappears - becomes extinguished
when context changes
what the evaluation of extinction?
not the same as forgetting
learns that CS is not followed by aversive stimuli so CR is inhibited
memory of CS and CR not completely erased
what three main areas are indicated in fear/extinction?
amygdala = fear response
hippocampus = association between CS and CR
frontal/pre-frontal cortex = attention/conscious control
what is emotion regulation/cognitive reappraisal?
anterior insula (AI), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and prefrontal cortex (lateral and medial) important for voluntary control over amygdala activation
coactivation between AI, ACC and PFC shown in regulating and processing (interoceptive = heartbeat, arousal, etc; exteroceptive = environmental changes)
