Ch 11 Emotion and Autonomic Arousal (2/4)

Emotional situations arouse:

both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

when we are aware of a possible danger at a distance:

become alert and cautious and decrease our heart rate

Does seeing something dangerous activate mostly the sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system?

Seeing something dangerous immediately activates the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). This system triggers the "fight-or-flight" response, providing a surge of energy to confront or escape danger by increasing heart rate, dilating pupils, and releasing adrenaline.

Pure autonomic failure:

the autonomic nervous system completely or almost completely ceases activity. The heart and other organs continue to function, but the nervous system no longer regulates them.

Pure autonomic failure effects:

People with this condition do not react to experiences with changes in heart rate, blood pressure, or sweating. They report “having” the same emotions as anyone else, and they have little difficulty identifying what emotion a character in a story would probably experience, but they feel their emotions less intensely than before

Damage to the right somatosensory cortex:

typical autonomic responses to emotional music but report little subjective experience.

Damage to part of the prefrontal cortex:

weak autonomic responses but normal subjective responses. These results suggest that autonomic responses and subjective experience are not always closely connected.

Physiological responses:

increase emotional intensity. Such as you watch a horror movie in a cold room, where the temperature caused you to shiver, you might rate the movie as scarier than you would have in a warmer room

facial-feedback hypothesis:

=These an modulate or initiate emotions, suggesting that smiling can make you happier, while frowning can induce sadness. Signals from muscles inform the brain about the emotion being experienced. Evidence shows the effect is real but small and variable, heavily influenced by context

Botulinum toxin (Botox):

blocks transmission at nerve–muscle junctions. This is used to paralyze the muscles for frowning and remove frown lines on people’s faces.

that intensity of emotional feeling:

depends on autonomic responses.

What is the relevance of Botox to the facial-feedback hypothesis?

Botox to the frowning muscles makes it harder to frown, and decreases depression, as the facial-feedback hypothesis predicts.

Today, emotion is the only area in which many researchers still hope to identify the elements

the “basic” emotions. The alternative is to regard emotional experience in terms of continuous dimensions.

BASIC EMOTIONS:

(Discrete Approach) Proposes that humans have a limited set of universally recognized, innate emotions, each linked to specific biological and neural systems.

Six basic emotions:

anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise

Biological Basis of basic emotion:

These emotions are primarily managed by the limbic system, particularly the amygdala, hypothalamus, and thalamus.

Evolutionary Role of basic emotions:

They evolved to help organisms quickly respond to environmental threats or opportunities, such as fear leading to flight or disgust preventing disease.

Continuous dimensions:

Suggests that emotions are not distinct, but rather points within a continuous space mapped by several independent factors like valance and arousal

From a biological standpoint, much evidence favors

dimensions as you could not identify anyone’s emotion by measuring autonomic activity

Limbic system:

the forebrain areas surrounding the thalamus; has been regarded as important for emotion

Limbic system parts:

the amygdala and cerebral cortex

The only emotion that seems to depend mostly on one brain area:

disgust

Disgust in the brain:

link to the insula, a cortical area that is also important for taste

Strong responses in the right-hemisphere junction between the temporal and parietal cortices

It occurs while people watched an emotionally charged movie.

Temporo-parietal junction in the right hemisphere cells:

represent polarity (pleasant vs. unpleasant), intensity, and complexity along three axes.