PSYC 100 Winter W17

Motivation and Emotion

Drive States

Affective experiences that motivate organisms to fulfill goals that are generally beneficial to their survival and reproduction

Examples of Drive States

Hunger, thirst, sexual arousal

What does hunger depend on?

Internal, visceral signals, as well as sensory signals

How does hunger impact the functioning of the mind?

Affects psychological processes, such as perception, attention, emotion, motivation, and influences the behaviours that these processes generate

Key Properties of Drive States

Generate behaviours that result in specific benefits for the body

Possess valence and serve to motivate approach or avoidance behaviours

Have different triggers (combination of internal and external cues)

Result in different cognitive and emotional states

Homeostasis

The tendency of an organism to maintain a stable state across all the different physiological systems in the body

Factors for Maintaining Homeostasis

State of the system being regulated must be monitored and compared to an ideal level/set point

Need to be mechanisms for moving the system back to this set point

Set Point

An ideal level that the system being regulated must be monitored and compared to

Narrowing of Attention with Drive States

Produce a state of a collapsing of time-perspective toward the present, makes us impatient

Third form of attention narrowing involves thoughts and outcome related to the self versus others

Hunger

Generally triggered by glucose levels in the blood

Various other internal and external cues can also cause hunger

Has nuances that can provoke the eating of specific foods that correct for nutritional imbalances that we may not even be conscious of

Hypothalamus

Part of the diencephalon, regulates biological drives with pituitary gland

Satiation

The state of being full to satisfaction + no longer desiring to take on more; decline of hunger and eventual termination of eating behaviour

Reward Value

A neuropsychological measure of an outcome’s affective importance to an organism; affects the organisms’s motivation to consume the food

Sexual Arousal

Results in thoughts and behaviours related to sexual activity

Generated by large range of internal + external mechanisms that are triggered either by the extended absence of sexual activity or by the immediate presence + possibility of sexual activity

Mechanisms can differ substantially between males and females, indicating evolutionary differences in the biological functions that sexual arousal serves for different sexes

Region associated with Sexual Activity and Pleasure in Males

In the pre optic area

Region associated with Sexual Activity and Pleasure in Females

In the ventromedial hypothalamus

Septal Nucleus

Important for males + females, area receives reciprocal connections from many other brain regions

Region shows considerable activity, in terms of rhythmic spiking during orgasm

Emotions

An experimental, physiological and behavioural response to a personally meaningful stimulus

Positive and Negative “Terms” of Emotion

Used as descriptive terms to discuss two different types of experiences, rather than a true value judgment

Well-Being

The experience of mental + physical health and the absence of behaviour

Emotion Fluctuations

The degree to which emotions vary or change in tensity over time

Greater = worse well-being

Higher fluctuation of positive emotions

Linked with lower well-being and greater depression

Fluctuation in negative emotions linked with

Increased depressive symptoms

Contexts Critically Affecting Links Between Emotion and Well-Being

The external environment in which the emotion is being experienced

The other emotional responses (e.g., physiology, facial behaviour) that are currently activated

The other emotions that are currently being experienced

Aspects of Emotion

Subjective experiences

Behaviours

Facial Expressions

Physiological Activation

Emotion Coherence

The degree to which emotional responses converge with one another

Affective

An emotional process; includes moods, subjective feelings, and discrete emotionsA

Affective Neuroscience

Examines how the brain creates emotional responses

What do emotions involve?

Changes to the body

Changes in autonomic nervous system activity

Feeling states

Urges to act in specific ways

Desire System

Regions include the amygdala, nucleus accumbent, and frontal cortex

Dopamine activates these regions, creates a sense of excitement, meaningfulness, and anticipation

Liking

Can be measured in babies + nonhuman animals by measuring licking speed, tongue protrusions, and happy facial expressions

Small area in nucleus accumbens and on the posterior half of the ventral pallidum

Fear

An unpleasant emotion that motivates avoidance of potentially harmful situation

Circuit extends from the central amygdala to the periaqueductal gray in the midbrain

Anger

An arousing, unpleasant emotion that motivates organisms to approach and attack

Can be evoked through goal frustration, physical pain, or physical restraint

Approach-related

Inhibited by opioids, high doses of antipsychotics such as chlorpromazine

Love

Emotions that motivate nurturing behaviour are distinguishable from those that motivate staying close to an attachment figure in order to receive care and protection

Preoptic Area

Region in the anterior hypothalamus involved in generating and regulating male sexual behaviour

Stria Terminalis

A band of filers that runs along the top surface of the thalamus