Lecture 4 - Physiology of emotion Flashcards
(27 cards)
What is meant by neuro/psycho/physiology?
= Interaction between the brain/mind and body
through the nervous system
Recap: what are the distinct systems within NS?
Recap: compare SNS and PNS
Why should we measure physiology in affective research?
- E. originate from the body
- Helps understand the brain-body connection
- Subjective measures (e.g. questionnaires) can become unreliable (e.g. social desireability)
- We tend to use physiology to explain our e. (e.g. butterflies in stomach, having cold feet)
Name a research exploring emotion specific activation (hint: diff types of the same e.).
Research - looking into different types of disgust
-> were associated with different physiological processes
- “nauseating disgust”: increased muscular
contraction of the stomach and right insula
activity
- “bloody disgust”: decreased heart rate and
activity in the left insula
Are there distinct ANS responses to diff e. based on Ekman’s research?
- Watch video of man displaying emotional expressions
- Produce same emotion as the observed face
- Measure Heart rate & Temperature change
Findings:
- For anger, fear, sadness - drstic change in heart rate
- less present for happiness, surprise, disgust
- While temperature change has diff pattern
- high mostly for anger
How can we use faces for inferring emotional states
We can use facial electrodes and record muscle activation
Findings:
- Corrugator (above eyebrows) - indicative of negative e. (sad, angry)
- Zygomaticus - happy
Do we have to be conscious of stimuli to produce physiological emotional response?
Research
- Brief presentation of happy/angry expression -> quickly masked by neutral face
Findings
- Even implicitly the muscles activate just like we would expect consciously
How does Blindsight work when we present stimuli to different visual side?
Can you recall the research done on blindsight patients regarding emotional processing?
Research
- Briefly presenting happy/fearful face/body in either seen or scotoma area
=> pattern of muscle activation is similar in both conditions
=> Pupillary responses are also equal
- going up for negative than positive
How are pupils controlled (which NS, muscles)?
What are constricted and dilated pupils indicative of?
1) Constricted
- Bored, not interested, uncertainty, disgust, not recognizing something, mind being relatively inactive
2) Dilated
- Interested, thinking hard, confident in one’s beliefs/actions, attracted, recognizing something, thinking about something stimulating
How do we call constriction and dilation in latin/greek? Which NS, ganglion cells, neurotransmitter?
What are the issues with measuring the “seat” of norepinephrine?
Locus Coeruleus
- Extremely small
- When in fMRI - people alwats move (even just breathing) -> distorting the data
What was found in the experiment using International Affective Picture System (IAPS)?
- Subjects looked at IAPS pictures e.g. neutral, negative/low arousal, positive/high arousal, negative/high arousal, positive/low arousal
- Measurements: pupil diameter, skin conductance, heart rate
Findings:
- PD: doesn’t distinguish first -> later at time there is a difference
- SC: 2s nothing -> unpleseant elecits largest response, than pleasent, and lastly
- HR: great deaccelaration for unpleseant but cannot really distinguish pleseant or neutral
Pupil size and skin conductance covary
- from that we may infer that SNS may be active
How did pupil size change with different emorions?
Participants were measured for eyetracking (looking at pupil size) -> presented whole body images with various expressions
Finding:
- Larger pupil size for anger - compared to both happy and fearful
What areas of the brain are connected to reward processing? Which neurotransmitters? And which sub-processes?
What are we exactly measuring with Skin conductance response (SCR)
- 2 electrodes + 1 reference
= Skin resistance changes caused by sympathetic activation of endocrine sweat glands- Mechanism: ADD
- Region: Hypothalamus (connected to many other areas e.g. amygdala, ACC)
Recall the research on subliminal primining.
Subliminal priming experiments
- Measuring SCR when very briefly presenting neutral x fearful stimuli
- Would be more prominent for people that have phobias related to it e.g. arachnophobia
(will respond to spiders but not snakes or flowers)
Do SCR responses differ between hands?
Showing different facial stimuli with various emotions
- Explicit: Which emotions are they displaying
- Implicit: What is the age of this person?
-> Compared left and right hand
Findings:
- Left hand
- Overall, SCR higher for explicit than implicit
- Within category there isn’t much difference
- Right hand
- For explicit - clear within differences e.g. happy X neutral
- NOT present for implicit condition
NOTE: Tricky to replicate, may not be very robust
When talking about Heart rate measure - which states -> NS, ganglion cells, neurotransmitters, nerves?
Heart and basal forebrain connected via Vagus nerve (decreasing heart rate) and Cardiac nerves (increses heart rate)
How could heart rate look like for positive X negative emotions?
- Amplitude doesn’t change BUT for stressed it appear all over the place
Do you recall the research on heart rate deceleration?
Research on heart rate deceleration
- P. saw images of a person carrying a gun or a phone -> simultaneously p.
- received shock for person in grey shirt
- did NOT for figure with white T-shirt
Finding:
- Big difference of deceleration for armed as apposed to unarmed
- Deceleration even greater for armed with high-threat (shock) condition
