affect regulation & decision making

key structures in emotional processing

• hippocampus

• amygdala

emotion

• a rapid and transient response to a stimulus with value to a person

• consist of physiological changes, a behavioural response, and a subjective experience, intrinsically pleasant or unpleasant

mood

a more persistent state which shares some of the same subjective features of emotion 

affect

a broader term encompassing emotion + mood 

classifying emotions

• positive vs negative

• basic vs complex

• arousal level vs valence

ekman theory of classifying emotion

core emotions biologically pre programmed

= happiness, sadness, disgust anger, fear, surprise 

complex emotions draw on the same feelings, but combine them with social and cultural factors 

feldman-barrett theory of classifying emotion

you can put emotion on a continuum based on arousal and positivity / valence 

high arousal = anger, excitement, nercousness

low arousal = sadness, contentment

physiological component of emotion 

autonomic nervous system → sympathetic and parasympathetic systems 

sympathetic nervous system

• ‘fight or flight’

• up regulates respiration 

• dilates lungs, pupils, blood vessels 

• increases heart rate & perspiration 

• suppresses digestion 

parasympathetic nervous system

• ‘rest and digest’

• sleep rest & digestion

• conservation of energy 

measuring emotional responses

• skin conductance response (SCR): measures change in perspiration 

• heart rate / heart rate variability 

• self report tools e.g PANAS

→ best to use the tools together so you can get a fuller picture of everything 

PANAS

• positive and negative affect schedule

• looking at a person across a small period of time, usually a week 

the amygdala: fMRI evidence

spohrs 2018

if we show people expressive faces, they respond with activity in the amygdala 

→ not a great comparison between faces and shapes; lots of sites activated because faces are so different to shapes 

fear conditioning paradigm 

• circle matched with mild electric shock on fingers 

• classical conditioning 

• when viewing shapes alon

  e under the scanner after learning, the circle had significantly more activation in the amygdala compared to other shapes 

amygdala and memory

• kensinger 2011

• events eliciting higher amygdala activation in phase 1 were rated as more vivid in phase 2 

• BUT accuracy/details the same irrespective of amygdala activation 

•  indicates that emotional valence enhances ability to remember, but only a more robust subjective experience 

effects of damage on the amygdala

• may fail to show normal fear conditioning 

• may fail to show a memory benefit for emotionally significant events 

• often poor at identifying facial expressions 

SM

• bilateral damage from urbach-wiethe disease

• affected valence- missing negative emotions that perform a function e.g fear of snakes 

• overly positive & overly familiar 

amygdala & story recall

phineas gage

• left ventromedial prefrontal cortex damaged 

• impulsive, fearful, loss of control  

• behaviour changes around affect, inability to use good judgement for hot cognition 

clinical featires of vmPFC damage

• Emotional dysregulation, changes in emotional experience

philosophical calmness in high emotion situations 

• Diminished empathy, poor social awareness

Also true of damage to amygdala, but the problem here is somewhat higher up; can see it but cant interpret it 

• Poor decision-making, irresponsible behaviour, risk-taking

Specifically in hot context cases

vmPFC changes in emotional experience

• increased impulsivity 

• increased aggression (some people get this with impulsivity, not all)

→ general disinhibition

• diminished empathy / poor social awareness 

NPI

• neuropsychiatric inventory 

• designed to assess wether a person demonstrated increased impulsivity or reduced social awareness 

• head injury sample: significantly lower scores with right vmPFC damage 

diminished empathy

• tranel & damasio 1994

• healthy participants; emotional picture evokes scr

• damage; can describe picture in detail, but no scr

→ issue is making the perspective leap, understanding what the other person might be feeling

poor social awareness

• patients score poorer than controls on the faux pas task 

• addresses higher level empathy than amygdala damage = perspective AND empathise 

• theory of mind, but for social rules and consequences 

amygdala vs vmPFC

• amygdala: ‘signals’ emotional valence, particularly negative valence 

• vmPFC: emotional regulation, cognition that relies strongly on emotion 

poor decision making, irresponsibility, risk-taking

• gambling game 

• vmPFC patients can explain the rule, but don’t act on it 

• difference between ability to rule detect, and ability to respond positively within the hot context 

• SCR: controls develop an anticipatory scr before selecting from a bad deck. patients get scr after the bad card, but don’t develop an anticipatory scr 

• cannot use emotional response in a proactive way to shape future decisions 

• left pfc crucial for this task 

hot cognition

• thinking and decising how to act when the emotional stakes are high

• using emotional responses to guide decision making in complex high level decision making 

• gut instinct before verbal explanation 

= winning poker 

= trading on the stock market 

= deciding wether or not to have cake 

cold cognition 

• stroop task 

• thinking out a difficult mental problem 

• dividing a large goal into sub goals 

gambling fMRI

• people who did well on the iowa gambling task showed increasing activity in the left vmPFC as the trial progressed 

• right insula also activated= operate as a network 

somatic marker hypothesis

• vmPFC: binds memories and their emotional and physiological associations 

• creates an index of the way you’ve felt in similar situations in the past, which you can revoke in future to guide your actions 

• facilitates fast decision-making 

limitations: 

• does it consider empathy or social awareness 

• does it consider causal vs association with bodily sensations 

descartes error

• damasio: we are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think 

• it is not enough for us to be rational, that would be weird. we do a lot of things based on feeling and gut instinct