What are the 2 different ways to define emotion?

types and dimensions

Whether people use types or dimensions to define 'emotion' often depends on what?

The experimental question they are asking

'Basic emotions' is a 'types' definition of emotions.  What is the definition and whose idea was it?

'There are core basic emotions that all humans can experience.'

Darwin's definition

Another 'types' definition of emotion is Paul Ekman's universal facial expressions. What 6 emotions does his model include?

Angry

Happy

Disgust

Surprise

Sadness

Fear

Who came up with the idea of universal facial expressions?

Paul Ekman

What are the 3 dimensions of emotion?

Valence

Intensity of arousal

Activated goals

What are the 2 extremes of the 'valence' dimension of emotion?

Pleasant vs. unpleasant

Find a penny vs. step on gum

What are the 2 extremes of the intensity of arousal dimension?

Give an example

What are the 2 extremes of the intensity of arousal dimension?

high vs. low

Find a penny vs. win the lottery

What are the 2 extremes of the activated goals dimension of emotion? Give an example.

approach vs. withdraw

see a smiling person vs. see an angry person

What are the 3 ways of eliciting emotion under Operational Definitions?

Mood induction

Rewards and punishment

Emotionally-evocative stimuli

Define 'mood induction' (a way of eliciting emotion)

You present a person with emotional stimuli such as film clips and encourage them to get into the mood.

Define the rewards and punishment method of eliciting emotion.

Give a reward like money or food, or a punishment like a shock or an aversive sound.

Briefly explain the method of using 'emotionally-evocative stimuli' to elicit emotion.

Use words like 'cancer', 'love', or taboo words.

Or use emotionally-laden pictures like a gun being pointed at you.

When attempting to measure emotion in an experiment, operational definitions of methods are grouped into which 2 main categories?

 Direct and indirect assessment

When measuring emotion via direct assessment you are obtaining a self report from the subject.  2 things you might ask them are:

How do you feel?

How would you rate this stimulus?

When measuring emotion using indirect assessment, what are 3 possible methods?

Response choice

Reaction time

Psychophysiological-Autonomic arousal

What is an example of the indirect assessment method of 'response choice' ?

 An infant picks a to to play with (a bear, a lion, or a block) and their choice reveals the relative value of the different options

Give an example of the reaction time method of indirect assessment of emotion.

The emotional stroop task: subjects may respond 'red' more slowly to ANGER than to RADIO

Give 4 examples of things that could be measured using Psychophysiological-Autonomic arousal to indirectly measure emotion.

-- GSR (Galvanic Skin Resp.) or SCR (skin conductance response), e.g. lying increases GSR

-- Heart rate

-- Startle eyeblink

-- Pupil diameter

According to Zajonc (1984), what is the relationship between emotion and cognition?

Emotion and cognition are independent.

Emotional processing occurs prior to cognitive processing.

According to Zajonc (1984), emotion and cognition are independent and emotional processing occurs prior to cognitive processing.  What main piece of evidence is this model based on?

Presenting emotional stimuli subliminally (e.g., so quickly they were not consciously perceived) affects how subjects evaluate neutral stimuli that follow.

According to Lazarus (1984), what is the relationship between emotion and cognition? Give an example.

Emotion is dependent on cognitive evaluation or appraisal.

When we are aroused (e.g., increased heart rate or sweating), our emotional response depends on how we cognitively evaluate a stimulus or situation.

Example:

- Are we looking at a sexually attractive person (excited)?

Are we looking down from the top of a tall building (scared)?

According to modern neuroscience, what is the relationship between emotion and cognition?

They are independent in that they use different neural structures to some extent, but they are dependent in that there are many interactions between the neural structures.

Who proposed the circuit of neural structures that eventually became known as part of the limbic system?  When did he propose it? What 4 structures were included?

James Papez / 1932

 1) hypothalamus

2) anterior thalamus

3) cingulate gyrus

4) hippocampus

What was the name given to James Papez's 1932 circuit for emotional processing?  Who came up with the name and when?

the "Papez circuit"

MacLean / 1949

What 3 structures did MacLean (1949) add to the Papez circuit? What is the name for the system after it was added to by MacLean?

1)  amygdala

2)  orbitofrontal cortex

 3)  parts of the basal ganglia

Papez circuit + these 3 =  " limbic system "

What are the 2 problems with the "Limbic system" concept?

 - It's unclear why some structures are 'limbic' and not others: what are the criteria?

- Some of the limbic regions are now known to be more important for non-emotional, cognitive behaviors (e.g. hippocampus)

Why does the term "limbic system" remain so popular?

Because the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex appear to play important roles in emotional processing.

What type of lesions cause Kluver-Bucy syndrome? What species does it affect?

bilateral amygdala lesions;

affects monkeys not humans

What are the 3 main symptoms of Kluver-Bucy syndrome?

 - psychic blindness (approach objects that normally elicit a fear respopnse)

- Inappropriate/hypersexuality

- explore the environment orally

What is 'psychic blindness' ?

Approach objects that normally elicit a fear response

What conclusion about the amygdala has been made based on psychic blindness seen in Kluver-Bucy syndrome?

the amygdala may help us to form conditioned fear responses

What evidence from rat studies supports the idea that the amygdala helps form conditioned fear responses?

What about human evidence?

What evidence from rat studies supports the idea that the amygdala helps form conditioned fear responses?

What about human evidence?

 Rats with damage to the lateral nucleus of the amygdala do not exhibit a conditioned fear response.

Humans show the same problem after amygdala damage as measured by Skin conductance response (SCR).

What are the steps of the subcortical pathway to the amygdala involved with conditioned fear response? Is it fast or slow?

What 'question' is it trying to answer?

What are the steps of the subcortical pathway to the amygdala involved with conditioned fear response? Is it fast or slow?

What if-then statement does it try to answer?

 Sensory --> Thalamus --> Amygdala

It is fast.

" If a stimulus resembles a CS, get ready to respond. "

What are the steps of the cortical pathway to the amygdala involved with conditioned fear response? Is it fast or slow?

What 'question' is it trying to answer?

What are the steps of the cortical pathway to the amygdala involved with conditioned fear response? Is it fast or slow?

What 'question' is it trying to answer?

Sensory --> Thalamus --> Cortex --> Amygdala

It is slow.

"If a stimulus IS a CS, then respond"

Explain why the cortical pathway is slower than the subcortical pathway to the amygdala.

The cortical pathway is slower because information must pass through the neocortex to be processed at the feature level, object level, concept level, and context level to determine whether or not the original stimulus is a CS.

(And it must know if it's a CS or not before it responds.)

If a stimulus turns out to be a CS after the cortical pathway to the amygdala has been completed so the system responds, where does the response system go to (from the lateral nucleus of the amygdala) ?

 The central nucles of the amygdala

Fill in the table regarding double dissociation for declarative memory and fear conditioning.

 [image]

Fill in the table regarding double dissociation for declarative memory and fear conditioning.

[image]

When patients do not show fear conditioning (SCR) due to amygdala damage, can they still recall that a CS is associated with a US? How does this contrast with amnesics with hippocampal damage?

Yes they still recall the association.

Amnesics with hippocampal damage cannot recall the association, but they still show an SCR fear response to the CS. (exact opposite of amygdala damage)

Explain the difference between fear conditioning and the instructed fear paradigm.

In fear conditioning, a subject gets shocked when he sees a blue box.  When he sees the blue box without being shocked he still exhibits a fear response.

In instructed fear, somebody simply tells the man that the blue box predicts being shocked. He still exhibits a fear response when he sees the blue box even though he has never been shocked.

What did the Phelps (2001) study demonstrate regarding the instructed fear paradigm?

Subjects sweat significantly more when shown the blue box than when shown nothing or when shown a yellow box even without ever administering a shock to the subject.

In the Phelps (2001) experiment with the blue boxes, what was activated in the fMRI of normal subjects who were expecting the shock because they were presented a blue box?

What does this indicate about the role of this area?

In the Phelps (2001) experiment with the blue boxes, what was activated in the fMRI of normal subjects who were expecting the shock because they were presented a blue box?

What does this indicate about the role of this area? 

the left amygdala was activated which indicates a role in explicit emotional learning

In the Phelps (2001) blue box study, what type of damage eliminated the startle eyeblink response?

left amygdala damage (bilateral damage counts as 'left' damage)

What effect does emotion have on memory?

it can enhance it

In the Morris Water Maze, what 2 manipulations improved memory of platform location?  How was this enhancement blocked?  When does this lead us to conclude that amygdala-mediated memory enhancement occurs?

Either physical stressor or stimulant drugs given during the retention interval AFTER the memory task has been trained.

Amygdala lesions block this enhancement.

Conclusion: amygdala-mediated memory enhancement occurs during consolidation.

Emotional words are remembered better than non-emotional words is evidence for what?

That amygdala-mediated memory enhancement occurs during consolidation.

What 2 measures were recorded in Labar & Phelps' (1998) Taboo Word Study? Briefly describe the results of the experiment.

Verbal arousal rating and SCR.  Ratings for both measures were approximately double for taboo words compared to neutral words.  This approximation still held true for the data recorded one hour later, not just the immediate recall data.

One role of the amygdala may be providing other systems with feedback.  What type of feedback is provided?  What are 2 examples supporting this idea.

fast feedback to other systems that 'something emotional' is in the environment

1) amygdala responds to fearful faces

2) amygdala may increase attention to emotional events

What 2 brain imaging studies have supported amygdala's response to fearful faces?

Breiter (1996)

and

Whalen (1998)

In Whalen's (1998) study of subliminally presented fear faces, what noteable result regarding brain activity was obtained?

What does this result suggest?

In Whalen's (1998) study of subliminally presented fear faces, what noteable result regarding brain activity was obtained?

What does this result suggest?

- Extrastriate cortex increases correlated to amygdala activation

- Suggests that amygdala modulates attention to fearful stimuli

What general deficit in face recognition do amygdala patients have?

None

Which facial expressions do amygdala patients have difficulty generating?

None, not even fearful ones

Do amygdala patients normally experience difficulty interpreting emotional prosody (tone of voice / inflection) ?

What about when a person is speaking in a fearful tone of voice?

Do amygdala patients normally experience difficulty interpreting emotional prosody (tone of voice / inflection) ?

What about when a person is speaking in a fearful tone of voice?

No

&

No

What deficit do amygdala patients have in detecting facial expressions?

Trouble detecting fearful facial expressions (deficit strictly limited to this specific situation)

The ability to recognize fearful expressions depends on what?

seeing the 'whites' of another person's eyes

If you explain to a person with amygdala damage that ability to recognize fearful expressions depends on seeing the whites of the eyes and instrct them to look at the eyes, what is their accuracy in recognizing fearful expressions relative to control subjects?

 Normal accuracy

What effect does limiting attentional resources have on awareness of events?

when attentional resources are limited it is more likely that emotional events will reach awareness than non-emotional events

What is the attentional blink effect?

How can emotion alter this effect?

Why does emotion NOT alter it in patients with amygdala damage?

What is the attentional blink effect?

How can emotion alter this effect?

Why does emotion NOT alter it in patients with amygdala damage?  

When visual stimuli are presented in sequence VERY rapidly, the time period of about 200-500 ms after a salient stimulus is a 'dead zone' for detecting a second salient stimulus.

 It is much more likely that emotional events will be detected during the 'dead zone' time period than non-emotional events.

- A damaged amygdala does not modulate perceptual encoding to enhance cognitive awareness of emotional events.

Can amygdala patients still have a normal emotional life?

Yes, they are not broadly impaired.

What 3 particular disorders from psychopathology is the amygdala thought to have a role in?

Anxiety disorders like OCD and panic disorder

and

post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

What brain region plays a role in emotional labeling of angry faces?

right orbitofrontal cortex

What brain region has been found to play a role in processing sad faces? (note: contradictory research exists)

the amygdala

What brain region is activated when subjects view facial expressions indicating disgust and when they smell unpleasant odors?

the anterior insula