Emotion and learning

What is observational learning?

Basic form of learning where animals learn about danger/group norms etc by observing the reactions of other group members

How is observational learning showed in wild monkeys and fear of snakes?

• Some evidence for hard wired fear of snakes with visual cells in pulvinar more active to snake images

• Monkeys reared in captivity can have little overt fear of snakes, reaching past them to get food, which suggests element of observational learning is required in developing fear of snakes

• When captive monkeys exposed to wild monkeys who have intense fear of snakes then captive monkeys rapidly start to evoke fear responses.

What cells have been suggested to be involved in observational learning?

Mirror cells

What is the chameleon effect?

• People unconsciously mimic the postures of people they interact with resulting in pro social behaviour.

• Overt copying of body posture and actions most likely when people are comfortable in social interactions

What was found in a study during a mock marketing task where an experimenter mimicked the posture of half the ppts?

• Ppts who had been mimicked were more helpful and generous toward other people than those who were not mimicked

What is emotion mimicry?

• When observing the emotional response of another individual, learning is facilitated by simulation. In same motor state of another person and hence we feel what they are feeling.

• When we observe emotion, we mimic that emotion.

• Our own facial muscles copy those of another person, brain interprets its own physiological body states to experiences of emotion.

What can be used to record weak muscle activity in facial emotions?

Electrodes in electromyography (EMG)

What are positive emotions referred to as?

Zygomaticus

What are negative emotions referred to as?

Corrugator

What was found in a study measuring zygomaticus and corrugator activity using presentation of happy and angry faces to ppts?

• Slight zygomaticus activity when ppts shown pictures of people smiling

• Opposite effect for frowning → corrugator activity

What effect did Cannon et al find in automatic subconscious emotion mimicry in people?

• Emotion mimicry response appears to be automatic

• E.g. when face completely irrelevant to person’s task and is ignored, emotion is still mimicked.

What did Dimberg et al find in relation to subliminal emotion mimicry?

• Even if emotional face is subliminal and people are unaware of its presence, mimicry of emotion still takes place

How do emotions act as primary reinforcers in classical conditioning?

• Emotions can be direct and powerful experiences, e.g. fear of a snarling dog.

• Direct emotional stimuli do not have to be learned

What other emotional primary reinforcers exist within classical conditioning?

Food and water are also powerful emotional primary reinforcers about how to act in the world and stay alive.

What is a secondary reinforcer in classical conditioning?

• Learnt to associate it with primary reinforcers: through exchange it can provide these things, it is positive via association

• E.g. money → doesn’t directly keep you warm or feed you

What did Pavlov show in a study of classical conditioning?

• Dogs started to salivate before food was presented, e.g. when door was opened prior to feeding

• Dog responding to event associated with and predicting food

What is autonomic conditioning?

• Bodily responses, arousal, such as rapid heart rate, sweating.

• Most widely studied is fear conditioning. Harmless/neutral stimulus can evoke fear responses such as in phobias.

What is evaluative conditioning?

• Conscious preference to like a stimulus more or less

• Most widely studied is advertisements

What example of classical conditioning using a blue square and shock can be outlined?

• Condition blue square to shock

• Physiological reaction such as skin conductance response to shock

• Explicit knowledge where people will report the blue square will predict shock

Which area of the brain mediates autonomic physiological conditioning?

Amygdala

Which area of the brain mediates evaluative conditioning?

Hippocampus

What is shown in patients with amygdala damage and no hippocampus damage in the square shock study?

Have no SCR (autonomic response) but is aware square predicts shock

What is shown in patients with hippocampus damage and no amygdala damage in the square shock study?

Lesions to hippocampus have normal SCR (autonomic response) to square but cannot report the square predicts shock

Using the square shock study and extinction what has been observed (Dehouwer)?

• Autonomic response is observed for a few trials but then declines

• In contrast reduced liking of stimulus can remain for a long time afterwards. Resistance to extinction makes advertising potent.

How has evaluative conditioning been observed in advertising?

• Conditioned stimulus might be an everyday consumer product like coffee. This is paired with a positive unconditioned stimulus such as attractive model.

• Neutral product becomes associated with the positive stimulus, becoming more positively evaluated by people.

How does extinction link to effectiveness of advertising (e.g. attractive actor and coffee)?

• If have autonomic arousal response to person in advert (e.g. Clooney), might have this for short time when subsequently viewing coffee during extinction but this will fade

• However, preference for the coffee is likely to continue long after the ads stop and advertisers know this.

How can activating emotions by-pass rational thought and inhibitory processes in terms of attraction and advertising?

Pairing attractive people with a car product can be more effective than providing facts like fuel economy, engine power and transmission type

How is evaluative conditioning in advertising often unconscious?

• People can report relationship between unconditioned and conditioned stimulus when preferences are changed but awareness not always necessary.

• Lack of awareness is what can make product placement effective on social media and in movies

• Preference acquired → do not know where it came from

What did DeHouwer et al find in a study looking at evaluative conditioning where ppts had to passively observe nonsense words and presented with a subliminal positive/negative word and then asked to rate how much they liked the nonsense words?

• Ppts report more liking of nonsense words associated with positive words than negative words

• Suggest unconscious conditioning can make us like different things, even nonsense words

What is the mere exposure effect?

• Possible to change an emotional response without any associations with positive or negative stimuli.

• Simply by passively presenting neutral stimuli, people tend to like them more

• Stimuli that have been presented in past often preferred over novel stimuli

When is the mere exposure effect seen to be stronger?

When people unaware of the stimuli

What is the perceptual fluency model (Bornstein and D’Agostino)?

• Explain why mere exposure effects tend to be stronger when ppts not aware they have already seen ppre exposed stimuli

• After exposure to stimulus, we process it more fluently. We detect this subtle improvement in processing fluency and find it rewarding.

What is operant conditioning?

• Link between response and subsequent outcome

• Reinforcement and punishment

• E.g. vending machines, parenting

How do rewards link to operant conditioning and emotion?

• Rewards are desired and positive outcomes of motivated behaviour

• Can increase and maintain frequency and strength of the behaviour they are contingent on.

How are social rewards/punishments linked to operant conditioning?

• How others respond to our behaviour shapes and influences what we do and say in world

• Being successful or prestigious is rewarding.

• Motivated to play status games and improve our position in society.

What did Spreckelmeyer find in a study of operant conditioning using anticipation of monetary and social rewards where ppts had to hit a button as fast as possible when a white target square appears preceded with a circle cue presenting different levels of potential reward if hit quick enough or triangle cue indicating no outcome regardless of reaction time?

• Faster reaction times for all levels of reward compared to no outcome trials

• Men reacted faster to cues signalling high money rewards than high social rewards while reacting equally slow to cues signalling low reward

• Women’s reaction times did not differ significantly with respect to incentive type or magnitude.

What was found in relation to brain activation in Sprekelmeyer’s study using fMRI during anticipation phase?

• Men’s activation in prospect of monetary rewards encompassed wide network of mesolimbic brain regions compared to only limited activation for social rewards

• Women’s activation was more equal for monetary and social rewards

What was found in study 1 (Izuma, Saito, Sadato, 2008) where ppts asked to choose one card within 2s and outcome of chosen card shown for 1s (0, 30 or 60 yen) and then after monetrary reward experiment asked to respond to personality questionnaires and told they would be evaluated (emotional reward task, reputation) while measuring brain activity?

• Increased striatum activity in high reward conditions compared to no reward condition

• Financial rewards activate reward centre of brain

What was found in study 2 (Izuma, Saito, Sadato, 2008) where it was investigated whether the acquisition of a good reputation activated reward related brain areas where ppts were shown a picture of each subject and a word indicating impressions of them made by others and asked to rate desirability of the item?

Positive feedback about our reputation activates the same reward centre of the brain as money

How does social media behaviour reflect operant conditioning reward processes?

• Can be more passive, scrolling through others’ posts → looking at others’ photos is rewarding because of social comparison and emotional responses

• Can be more active, you post photo → anticipation reinforcement in sense of excitement and hope others will like photo

• Social media gives trickle of notifications to keep you coming back

What is variable ratio reinforcement?

• Where a response is reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses.

• E.g. gambling and social media

• Long lasting and hard to extinguish, maintains attention