lecture 3 Flashcards
Why Study Emotions/Feelings
and Mood?
- Emotions have a huge impact on cognition
- Memory, Attention, Decision making, ….
- Important for survival and social skills
- Actions and reactions (safe city)
- Emotions have a huge impact on our lives
- Well-being (healthy city/ sustainable city)
- Not a day without an emotion
- Entertainment: want to be happy/thrilled
- Some mental disorders are extremes of emotional states
- E.g., fear > anxiety disorder (healthy city)
Arousal:
intensity stimuli, pollution, noise
Pleasantness:
satisfaction, comfort
Dominance:
crowding
Characteristics of Emotions
- Consist of physiological, behavioral and subjective components
- Triggered by immediate circumstances
- Directed upon and about things
- Come and go very quickly
- Affect our behavior (and cognition)
what are emotions?
phenomenal experience, physiological experience, verban + nonverbal experience
what are feelings?
phenomenal experience
Characteristics of Feelings
- Subjective (conscious) experience of an emotion
- Happens as we begin to think about the emotion: cognitive appraisal
- Longer duration than emotion
- Something we sense, a sensation
- Affects our cognition
what is the james lange theory?
what is the Theory of Constructed Emotions?
- Emotions are not universal
- Emotions are social constructs
- We construct our emotions in a similar manner as the way we perceive
when Feeling Safe and Urban Design?
- small shop fronts with lots of variety
- clear line of sight
- clear mental map
- connectivity – infrastructure and activities
- Activity is the key!
- through the number of people
- hours of operation
- the sound generated by the activity
Characteristics of Moods
- Diffuse affective/emotional state
- Low intensity
- Long-lasting
- General appraisal of our well-being
- No specific or single cause, but may be trigged by
- Circumstances
- Environment
- Physiology
how does stress work?
alarm> stress hormones>body-wide changes
what is stress?
An imbalance between environmental demands and human response capabilities
Stress and the body/brain
interaction between the brain/mind and body through the nervous
system
Central Nervous System
brain and spinal cord
Peripheral Nervous System
Sensory (Afferent)
Sensory input (bottom-up) from the senses and the body
* muscles
* skin
* tendons
* organs
Motor (Efferent)
Motor output (top-down) to
* muscles
* organs
* glands
what two types do motor have?
somatic
* Skeletal muscles
* To initiate activity
automatic
* Visceral (smooth) muscles and glands
* To modulate activity
Autonomic nervous system (ANS)
Sympathetic (prepares the body to fight or flight)
Parasympathetic (promotes energy conservation, digestion and growth)
what is the stress hormone?
Cortisol
Effects of environmental stress
- Key mechanisms: Arousal and stimulus overload
- Stimulus overload: co-presence of multiple stressors
- Continuous cognitive efforts are needed to cope with stressors
- ‘tunnel vision’
what is tunnel vision?
one’s tendency to focus on a single goal or point of view
