EmotionPsych 36: Biopsychology

What is Emotion?

• Three components:

• Physiological reaction

• Behavioral response

• Conscious, subjective “feeling” –with a valence (positive or negative)

Why Emotion?

• Survival advantages

• Arousal

• Recognition of and better learning of rewards & punishments,

• Emotion is not just a luxury - we could not survive without it!

Are There Basic Emotions?

• Darwin – strong biological basis for emotions

• Emotions as innate

• Therefore, they should be universal across human cultures

• Most agree: 6-8 basic emotions:

• anger, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, contempt, embarrassment

Emotions Recognized Around the World

Surprise

DisgustAnger

Sadness

Happiness

Fear

Contempt Embarrassment

Dimensions of Emotion

• All emotions can be characterized by two factors:

• Valence (pleasant-unpleasant or good-bad)

• Arousal - intensity of the response (high-low)

• Includes all 6 basic emotions

• Useful way to assess neural correlates of emotion

sadness

HappinessAnger

Emotional Experience

• How are emotions experienced?

• What occurs first, the physiological, behavioral or subjective feeling of an emotion?

• Three theories

• Each emotion has a specific physiological reaction

• Automatic nonconscious interpretation of the physiological response leads to the subjective feeling or emotion

• W. James: “We feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble.”

James-Lange Theory

Cannon-Bard Theory• Subjective feelings and the Physiological

responses occur simultaneously and independently

• Emotional stimulus goes to the thalamus, then

• Hypothalamus (Autonomic N.S. response)

• Neocortex subjective feeling

• Emotions do not have different patterns of physiology

• 2 Factor theory

• Emotions is a result of physiological arousal + cognitive appraisal of the situation.

• physiological arousal contributes only to the emotion’s intensity - it doesn’t indicate the emotion at all

Schachter-Singer Theory

Theories of Emotion Awareness

Current Views of Emotion

• Physiological arousal for emotions has been shown to vary – physiological reaction for happiness is quite different than anger

• But anger & fear?

• Several studies have shown that bodily feedback changes a person’s perception of emotion

• Emotional facial configurations – produce different patterns of autonomic arousal & subjective feelings consistent with the associated emotion

Facial Feedback in Emotion

• Subjects reported subjective feelings consistent with the associated emotion

• Cartoons are rated as more amusing during induced smiling

• Makes a stimulus more painful when making a sad face

Posed Facial Expressions

Posed Facial Expressions• Women who have had facial muscles

paralyzed with Botox and are unable to frown report less negative mood(!)

• Limiting the ability to express an emotion also limits its perception

• Attempts at angry expressions also produce less amygdala activity

The Facial Feedback Hypothesis

• The idea that one’s facial expressions can have an effect on emotional experience

• Physiological feedback provides information about the quality and intensity of our emotions

• Mood repair

Other Physical Feedback and Emotion

• Briefly holding a warm cup led to evaluating a person more positively

• Postural feedback

• Quadriplegics report diminished emotions

• It is clear the brain uses feedback to construct our emotional experiences

Brain Structures in Emotion

• Many neural structures are active in the construction, experience and responses to emotion

• Limbic system (the “emotional” brain)

• Network of structures (nuclei)

• Located on the medial surface of the hemispheres and in parts of the cortex

• Organized into many feedback systems

The Limbic System

The Amygdala

• The amygdala plays a role in fear & anxiety

• The most connected structure in the limbic system

The Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA)

• A small group of neurons located in the midbrain

• It targets the nucleus accumbens – critically involved in addictive behavior

The Prefrontal Cortex

• Understanding behavior and its consequences

• Executive functions – planning, prioritizing, organizing behavior

• Social rules

• the final destination for much of the brain’s information about emotion before action is taken.

The Prefrontal Cortex• Hemisphere activity differs for pleasant and

unpleasant emotion

• Left – more active for pleasant emotion

• Right – more active for sad emotions

Happy Emotions

SadEmotions

Not Just in Humans..

• Something similar has been found for members of other species…

• When dogs appear to be “happy,” their tails tend to wag more to the right

• The left hemisphere for dogs appears to be more active during “happiness”

The Right Hemisphere & Emotion

• Research: posterior right hemisphere may be more involved in processing emotion stimuli

• Left side of the face usually shows greater emotional expression

• Right-hemisphere damage

• Difficulty recognizing emotional facial expressions and tone of voice

• ANS problems

Right Hemisphere & Emotion

• Which of these faces is happier?

• Which is more sad?

The Limbic System

• Processes emotional significance of everything in the world

• Allows us to experience, learn about, and create memories of emotion - pleasure, pain, joy, depression, euphoria, etc.

• Is undoubtedly important in shaping and maintaining personality