W10 Emotions & Decision-Making✅ Flashcards
What are the two core issues of understanding emotions?
- Are there universal “basic emotion”? (does everyone experience the same set of emotions and behaviours cross-culturally?)
- What is the role of physiological change? (How is physiological change linked to emotion and what does it do?)
What are the 2 opposing theories and assumptions of basic emotions?
Theory 1 - Categorical view (Darwin):
Anger - Fear - Surprise - Sadness - Disgust - Enjoyment
- Ekman - 5 criteria for emotions:
1. Rapid onset
2. Brief duration (short-lived)
3. Unbidden occurance (can’t stop it)
4. Distinctive universal signals (cues)
5. Specific physiological correlations (associated behaviours)
Theory 2 - Dimensional view (Russelll&Barrett): proposed that there is only 1 emotion (core effect), and emotions vary in two ways:
1. Low - High valence (x-axis)
2. Low - High arousal (y-axis)
-> Pro: can put more specific emotions to the graph
=> Emotions are on a dimension rather than specified categories.
What is the conclusion for ‘Universal Emotion’?
- Used to have strong supporting evidence, but much weaker after Gendron et al. (2018) study:
- Conclusion: people are active perceivers who categorise facial movements using culturally learned emotion concepts.
-> NOT Universal
What are the 3 theories on emotions?
- The James-Lange theory: Stimulus -> Percept -> Physiological changes => Emotion
- Cannon theory: Emotions not dependent on physiology (against James-Lange):
- People without peripheral inputs still experience emotion (but perhaps not as strongly?)
- Peripheral arousal doesn’t recreate emotion
- Peripheral states not sufficiently differentiated - Schachter and Singer: emotion is an interpretation of the physiology based on situational context.
-> Introducing cognitive element
What is the conclusion of meta analysis on predicting emotions from physiology?
People can experience the different emotions in different studies but can display the same physiological arousal. (variations in the Autonomic Nervous System)
What is meant by the somatic marker hypothesis?
- An account of the links between brain, body, emotion, and decision-making.
- Some aspects that link emotion and decision-making:
Current emotion -> Conscious/Non-conscious evalution -> Decision => Outcome (+ expected emotion)
Factors: characteristics of decision maker & options, background influence
The role of amygdala in emotion and decision-making?
- Study by looking at patients with amygdala lesion:
- Characteristics:
1. Reduced fear conditioning
2. Selective recognition of fear from face photos (impair in recognising fear expression)
3. Lack enhanced memory for emotional components - Recall of emotional information predicted by amygdala activation at encoding
The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in emotion processing? (1)
- Look at patients with damage to vmPFC region
- Skin conductance response (SCR) = sweating
- No elevated SCR for emotional stimuli with “social significance”
- More likely to “overcome an emotional response” during moral dilemma (e.g. trolley problem)
- Heightened emotional reactivity and hypoemotionality (muted expression)
What special features do patient EVR lack due to lesion in vmPFC region?
- Normal intellect, impulsiveness, memory and reasoning ability
-> overall normal - Lack emotional reactions
- Engage in poor real-world decision-making
What are the differences observed in patients with lesion either to amydala or vmPFC compared to controls, in the Iowa Gambling task (measured by IGT)?
- Patients with vmPFC damage choose bad decks more often (A & B)
-> IGT: patients did not show anticipation reaction (only show after decision)
=> Patient EVR does not learn the rule of the deck (random)
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When compared to amydala-lesion patients: - Amydala lesion show minimal emotional changes when receiving reward or punishment (compared to vmPFC and controls)
- Both amygdala-lesion and vmPFC-lesion groups did not show anticipation
-> Amygdala: can’t encode response before choosing
-> vmPFC: can’t recall what they encoded before choosing
What are the differences in terms of conscious cognitive processing observed in patients with lesion to vmPFC compared to controls, in the Iowa Gambling task (measured by IGT)?
- vmPFC patients choose bad decks more often
- Patients do not experience ‘hunch’ period.
- ## IGT measure for control show that bad deck show higher response compared to good deck (post-baseline_Conclusion:
- Unconscious knowledge of the game precedes conscious knowledge (captured by IGT)
- Decision making has both an conscious and an unconscious elements
-> Unconscious: link to other brain region and show IGT response
-> Not the case with vmPFC patients (explain poor choice)
What are the 3 problems with this view?
- We may not need somatic cues -> patient without somatic cue still make decent decision-making (even better than controls)
- Somatic cues may not signal outcomes -> modified Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)’s bad deck A&B can leads to big wins -> response is guided by win/loss (A&B) rather than whole decks value.
3 No need to posit unconscious knowledge: when asked with detailed question regarding the IGT study -> conscious knowledge is close to what Ps are choosing
4 An alternative explanation for patient data: vmPFC patients have trouble with learning pattern -> poor decision making might not be due to lacking emotion
What is the supportive evidence for the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (opposed to IGT)?
Answer: Intuitive Reasoning Task
Results: Similar result in the choices, skin conductance and heart rate change as the IGT test
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New finding:
1. No conscious element, Ps know how to play the game anyway
2. Introspection: if better at guessing heart rate, better at study itself
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Some ideas that is kept:
1. Sensitivity to somatic signals is important in decision-making
2. Key role of vmPFC and amygdala in decision-making.
Summary of the Link between Emotion processing & Decision-making?
- Complex links between somatic states, cognitive appraisals, and experienced emotions
- The somatic marker hypothesis is a bold attempt to link physiology, brain structures, and real-world decision making
