emotion

Overview
- This week's focus is on emotion, aiming to understand the concept, various theories related to it, brain functioning concerning emotion, and the facial feedback hypothesis.

Emotion is described as an adaptive response that keeps organisms alive.
It involves three primary components:
- Physiological Arousal: Bodily responses to stimuli (e.g., reactions like sweating, increased heart rate, dilated pupils).
- Conscious Experience: Thoughts and feelings that accompany emotional responses.
- Expressive Behaviors: Observable actions that are responses to emotional states.

Physiological Responses:
- Examples of bodily reactions include;
- Sweating
- Increased heart rate
- Eyes dilating to take in more information.
Conscious Experiences:
- Feelings associated with emotional experiences, often misunderstood as emotions.
Expressive Behaviors:
- Includes microexpressions—short-lived facial expressions that convey true feelings beneath intended responses.

Emotions: Lower-level responses managed by older brain structures; often unconscious.
Feelings: A component of emotions processed by higher brain structures (the neocortex), involving cognitive understanding and interpretation.
Expert Opinions:
- Dr. Antonio Damasio: "Feelings are mental experiences of body states that arise as the brain interprets the emotion's physical states."
- Dr. Sarah McKay: "Emotions play out in the theater of the body; feelings play out in the theater of the mind."

Six primary emotions widely recognized:
- Anger
- Happiness
- Surprise
- Disgust
- Sadness
- Fear
Variations in expressive degrees among individuals despite similar experiences of these primary emotions.

Research from 1998 illustrates that while males and females report similar emotional experiences, females express emotions more actively.
Example: Facial expression count during movie viewings showed females expressed more emotions.

Theories differ based on the sequence of physiological arousal, cognitive experience, and expressive behavior.

Reversed sequence:
- Scary stimulus → Bodily arousal → Conscious experience of fear.
Quotation from James: "We feel afraid because we tremble."

Concurrent occurrence:
- Scary stimulus → Simultaneous autonomic arousal and conscious emotional experience.
Process: Information travels to the thalamus, which then activates both emotion and physical response.

Sequences physiological arousal, labeling, and then emotional experience:
- Scary stimulus → Physiological arousal → Labeling of arousal → Conscious experience of emotion.
Introduces the spillover effect: Emotional arousal from one situation can influence emotional responses in subsequent scenarios (e.g., a heated soccer game leading to aggression in a parking lot).

Two response types:
- Conscious, thinking response: Moves from thalamus to cerebral cortex for processing before reaching the amygdala.
- Unthinking, unconscious response: Immediate response sent directly to thalamus and amygdala for fast reactions (e.g. "amygdala hijacking").
Effects of extreme emotion on the body include:
- Dilation of pupils, decreased salivation, increased perspiration, rapid respiration, accelerated heart rate, slowed digestion, and reduced immune function.
After the threat passes, physiological responses return to baseline levels.

Theory proposing that facial expressions influence emotional experiences.
Example: Smiling while in a neutral state can lead to a genuine feeling of happiness through brain feedback.
Suggestion: Practicing smiling during low moods could lift one's spirits.