Emotion-Chp15Lec Flashcards
Emotion
A class of subjective feelings created by stimuli that have high significance to an individual
- rapid-automatic
- arousal high from stimulus -> stronger feelings
- natural selection created to benefit survival and reproduction
Functions of emotion
- trigger motivated behaviors
- helps set goals and are goals in themsleves
- important for rational decision-making and purposeful behavior
Components of emotional state
- emotions= bodily states
- feelings= conscious sensations
mediated by different neuronal circuits
Animal v. Social emotions
Animal emotions:
- innate, hardwired
- rapid
- fight-or-flight
- Darwin
- e.g. fear anger disgust surprise sadness happiness
Social emotions:
- complex
- nuanced
- processed in the brain, not automatic
- Damasio
- e.g. regret, longing, jealousy
Subjective difference in emotion
- Intensity (varies greatly by person)
- Experience (same bewteen sexes)
- Expression (women more than men)
Folk Psychology
Autonomic responses are caused by emotion
- stimulus -> perception -> emotion -> autonomic arousal
James-lange theory
Emotions we feel are caused by bodily changes, and they differ because they aregenerated by different physiological responses
- Stimulus -> perception -> autonomic arousal -> emotion
Complication: many situations have same autonomic response
Cannon-Bard theory
The cerebral cortex simultaneously decides on the appropriate emotional experience and activates the autonomic nervous system to prepare the body for what is needed.
- Stimulus -> Perception -> autonomic arousal + emotion
Schachter theory
Schachter’s cognitive attribution model states there are physiological states of arousal, but what emotion we experience depends on cognitive systems that assess the context of the situation, emphasizing context.
- Stimulus-> perception of stimulus -> autonomic arousal + perception of context -> emotion
Schachter & Singer
Emotions depend on expectations and context.
Four groups:
- Placebo: given placebo and told no side affects
- Epinephrine informed: given epinephrine and told increased heart rate and sweating
- Epinephrine uninformed: given epinephrine and told no side affects
- Epinephrine misinformed: given epinephrine and told rash and itching
- each group assigned to either happy or angry person
- Epinephrine informed had no reaction and attributed heart rate to the drug, epinephrine uninformed experienced strong emotions and attributed heart rate to emotions
Current theory of emotions
- cognitive appraisal
- autonomic arousal
- behavioral expression
- sunjective experience
Universal facial expressions
- contempt
- anger
- sadness
- happiness
- fear
- embarassment
- disgust
- surprise
Cultural difference
- Western shows higher expression of negative emotions
- Non-western shows less negative emotions
- nonliterate shows less surprise
- all show around equal happiness
Cultural conditioning
Subtle cultural differences suggest that cultures prescribe rules for facial expression and they control and enforce those rules by cultural conditioning.
- situation -> facial affect program (motor program for cashfeds) -> culture-specific display rules -> expression
Superficial v. Deep facial muscles
Superficial facial muscles
- attached to facial skin
- innervated by the facial nerve
Deep facial muscles
- attached to skeletal structures in head
- innervated by motor branch of trigeminal nerve
Facial feedback hypothesis
- suggests that sensory feedback from our facial expressions can affect our mood
- manipulating facial expressions can alter mood
- impaired facial expressions may affect social interaction
- supports James-Lange theory
True smile
- discovered by Duchenne
- faradization= transcutaneous electrical stimulation of facial muscles
- muscles around eyes and zygomaticus major could not be contracted voluntarily
Pyramidal v. Duchenne smile
Pyramidal smile
- voluntary smile
- pyramidal system
- motor cortex and brain stem driven
- blocked by facial motor paresis
Duchenne smile
- true, emotional smile
- extrapyramidal system
- medial forebrain, hypothalamus, brainstem, reticular formation
- blocked by emotional motor paresis
can be seen in unilateral facial paralysis
Crying
- only animals that use as emotional expression are humans, mutation with
- neutral affect
- positive affect= communication, shed hormone
- negative affect= blur vision and add emotional confusion
Physical amygdala
central, medial, and basal-lateral groups

Amygdala Functions
- first assessment of emotional significance
- unfamilar stimuli-sensitive
- neural pathway bypasses cortex
- emotional center (pleasure/pain)
Fear experiments
- in a series of happy -> fearfyl face pictures, more likely to rate face as fearful
- amygdala and fusiform gyrus respond to bodily expressions of fear
- electrical stimulus of amygdala -> fear/apprehension
- damage -> tameness
- cannot be aware of 2 stimuli at once -> house + scared face in either eye, when asked to see house still feel scared/activate amygdala even when reported as not seen
- Downer
Downer experiment
- unilateral damage to amygdala, lesion corpus collosum, lesion optic chiasm
- in monkey
- L amygdala lesion
- monkey develops fear when see researcher ipsilateral to the lesion
- see with R eye -> L brain hemisphere -> no amygdala -> TAME
- see with L eye -> R brain hemisphere -> amygdala -> SCARED/AGRESSIVE