chp 1 barrett

emotion fingerprint

A unique pattern of physiological responses and behaviors associated with individual emotions, which can be measured and linked to specific feelings.

classical view of emotion

The traditional perspective that emotions are distinct categories with specific physiological and behavioral responses, often seen as universal across cultures.

example of the classical view of emotion

Happiness involves a smile and sadness involves pouting.

origins of the classical view of emotion

This idea stems from Charles Darwin’s claim that emotions and their corresponding expressions are a part of universal human nature.

how many facial muscles do humans have?

42 muscles on each side of the face.

what are the 6 basic emotions?

anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, happy

Ekamn’s experiemental method of studying basic emotions #1

presenting a photo of a prototypical expression of an emotion and circling which of the six emotions matches the facial expression.

Ekman’s experimental method of studying basic emotions #2

Participants are told a story and must pick one of two photos that best match the emotion of the story.

emg method

A method using electromyography to measure facial muscle activity, helping to identify emotional responses by tracking subtle changes in facial expressions.

emg findings/criticism

Muscle movements do not reliably indicate a specific emotion, nor do they match the expression depicted in the initial photos.

facial action coding

observers classify a person’s facial movements as they occur.

basic emotion theory on infants

Infants do not make adult-like facial expressions and tend to be indistinguishable in various contexts, such as fear and anger.

findings of barrett’s study using photos of actors from books

Participants were unable to correctly identify the emotion displayed in the photo, especially without context, proving that facial expressions are not universal.

“variation is the norm“

describes the idea that a single emotion does not have one universal facial expression when it has a diverse population of facial movements that vary in a given situation/context.

why do participants classify wide eyes as fear?

Because it is a stereotype that is created by society to be taught and learned.

facial feedback hypothesis

the idea that holding a facial expression of a certain emotion can evoke the corresponding physiological changes.

famous Ekman, Levenson, and Friesen 1983 study

Findings showed that the bodily responses for most emotions, besides anger, have too much similarity to one another.

main finding of the meta-analysis on the ans and emotion

None found a consistent, specific emotion fingerprint in the body because the same emotion category elicits different physiological responses.

population thinking

a darwin idea that understanding that a category, like an animal species, has many members that vary from one another. There is no distinct fingerprint in this population.  

Why does Barrett disagree that the amygdala is the producer of fear?

When trying to teach S.M. to be fearful of a boat picture followed by a loud horn, her physiological response remained the same after many trials.

degeneracy

means “many to one,” describing that a combination of neurons produces the feeling of an emotion.

core system

means “one to many,“ describing that one part of the brain serves more than one purpose.

example of a core system

one core system can play a role in seeing, hearing, perceiving, and remembering emotions.

equipotentiality

describes the incorrect claim that all neurons can perform the same job and fill in for other neurons. 

fMRI studies on the amygdala

Findings show that the amygdala fires most when the stimulus is novel because it is detecting threat.

pattern classification method or “neural mind-reading“

Training a software program to recognize brain scans of people experiencing emotions and computes a statistical program that summarizes each emotion category.