Week 14a Lecture 7 Emotion Beh1 Lecture Slides PPT

Page 1: Title and Lecturer

• Title: PSYC202 Lecture 7: Emotion & Behaviour 1: Theories and Fear

• Lecturer: Dr. Ruth Hurley

• Affiliation: Lancaster University

Page 2: Lecture Reading

• Primary Reading:

  • Ward (2019) The Student’s Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience 4th Edition, pp. 415-428 in Chapter 16: "The social and emotional brain"

• Access Link: ProQuest Link

Page 3: Triune Brain Hypothesis

• Developed by: Paul Maclean in the 1960s

• Components of the Brain:

  • Neocortex: Involved in advanced cognition such as reasoning and planning

  • Limbic System: Central to emotions, motivation, and learning; crucial for decision-making

  • Cerebellum, Brainstem, Thalamus: Govern instincts, reflexes, and essential biological functions; operate on an autopilot basis

    

Page 6: Definition of Emotion

• Defined as: A spontaneous mental state tied to stimuli perceived as rewarding or punishing, typically accompanied by physiological and psychological changes that can influence thought and behavior.

Page 7: Darwin's Contributions

• Charles Darwin: Early researcher of emotion.

• Key Observations:

  • Emotions linked to survival reactions to specific events.

  • Emotions are conserved by evolution

• Example: Anger is expressed through direct gaze, opened mouth, and visible teeth, signifying preparation for action following an anger-inducing event.

Page 8: Historical Theories of Emotion

• Key Questions: Relationship between emotional experiences and physiological responses investigated through:

  • James-Lange Theory (1884)

  • Cannon-Bard Theory (1927)

  • Schachter-Singer Theory (1962)

Page 9: James-Lange Theory

• Proponents: William James and Carl Lange

• Core Belief: Physiological responses cause emotional experience.

• Example: "I feel fear because my heart pumps."

Page 10: Cannon-Bard Theory

• Proponents: Walter Cannon and Philip Bard

• Core Argument:  

  • The brain experiences emotion which then generates   bodily responses

  • Physiological responses are not always linked to emotions

• Example:” I feel fear so my heart pumps”..

Page 12: Causation Testing between Body and Emotion

• James-Lange Theory: Body drives emotion

• Cannon-Bard Theory: Emotion drives the body

  

Page 13: Impact of Expression on Emotion

• Study: Strack et al. (1988)

• Method: Subjects held a pen in differing mouth positions while evaluating cartoons.

• Findings: Cartoons deemed funnier when subjects were in the induced smile condition versus pout condition.

  

• Meta-Analysis by: Wagenmakers et al. (2016)

• Findings: Strack et al. (1988) humour results could not be replicated, suggesting potential issues of replicability in facial feedback studies.

Page 15: Schachter-Singer Theory

• Proponents: Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer

• Core Belief: Both physiological response and cognitive labelling are needed for emotional experience.

• Formula: Physiological Response + Cognitive Labelling = Emotional Response.

• ““I feel fear because my heart pumps and I recognise fear”

Page 16: Experimental Contextual Influence on Emotion

• Study: Dutton & Aron (1974) investigating environmental context effects on emotion interpretation.

• P’s walked across different bridges

  • a wobbly bridge (arousal)

  • a stable low bridge (control)

• Male passer-by asked by a male / female interviewer to fill out survey

• On the fear unducing bridge, male P’s were more likely to ask to female interviewer for her phone number

• could be confusing fear for arousal

Page 17: Summary of Findings

• •Mixed evidence for how emotion is generated

• Physiological changes and cognitive labelling both seem important

  BUT:

• Assumes all emotions are the same

• Does not help define what emotion is

Page 19: Contemporary Emotion Approaches

• Two Major Approaches:

  • Basic Emotion Approach (Ekman, 1992)

  • Constructionist Approach (Feldman-Barrett, 2006; Rolls, 2005)

Page 20: Paul Ekman's Basic Emotions

• •Tribesman in Papua New Guinea:

  • Isolated from modern civilizations

  • Able to correctly recognise six basic emotions

  • Able to express distinct facial expressions of basic emotions

Page 21: Basic Emotions Explained

• Six Basic Emotions:

  • Evolved to fulfill survival needs:

  • Sadness, Disgust, Anger, Surprise, Fear, Joy

• Emotions have specific triggers and adaptive functions.

• Complex emotions come from basic emotions:

  • Guilt = joy +sadness

  

Page 22: Basic Emotions Characteristics

• Criteria:

  • Each basic emotion has distinctive facial expressions, voice intonations, and body movements

  • Expressions are relatively consistent across cultures and species

  • They are automatic reactions (no thinking required)

Page 23: Critique on Basic Emotions

• Observations:

  • Some emotions could be basic but do not share the same characteristics

    • LOVE has a clear evolutionary adaptation
      but does not have a distinct facial expression

  • Complex emotions are NOT necessarily constructed from basic emotions

    • e.g., basic emotion + cognitive appraisal

      Fear + self-appraisal   = shame

      Fear + other-appraisal   = guilt

    .

Page 24: Evidence against basic emotions Neural Correlates of Basic Emotions

• •The six basic emotions do NOT always have unique neural correlates.

  •Fear à Amygdala

  •Anger à??

  •Joy à ??

  

Page 25: Constructionist Approach by Feldman-Barrett

• Core Idea: All emotions are constructed from affective reactions in a 2-dimensional Core Affect system:

  • Valence (negative ßà positive)

  • Arousal (low ßà high)

    

• Takes issue with the Basic Emotion view.

  • Emphasis on context

  • Explicitly predict interactions between Affect systems and other cognitive systems (e.g., decision making, executive function, memory, language, etc.)

Page 27: Support for Constructionist Approach

• Meta-analysis of emotion studies shows emergence of functional networks, not ‘emotion regions’

• Emotions supported by core functions:

  • Core affect (limbic system)

  • Body-directed attention (salience network)

  • Conceptualisation (default network)

  • Executive control (fronto-parietal network)

• They must be ‘constructed’ from network interactions

Page 28: Critique on Constructionist Approach

• Some ‘basic emotions’ have distinct neural substrates

  • E.g., Fear à Amygdala

• This highlights that the emotion system is probably multifaceted, more complicated than what we think.

Page 31: Focus on Fear

• Introduction to the significance and implications of studying fear in emotional processing.

Page 32: The Nature of Fear

• Extremely fast and automatic response

  • Ohman (2001): faster detecting snakes or spiders

  • Ohman & Soares (1994): subliminal presentation à skin conductance response

• Evolutionarily important emotion for detecting threat.

• By Ekman’s criteria, FEAR could well be a basic emotion

    à Is it supported by distinct neural substrates?

Page 33: Amygdala's Role in Fear Learning

• Study Findings: Research by Phillips & LeDoux (1992) demonstrating how amygdala lesions affect learned fear responses in experimental models.

  

Page 34: Amygdala's Mechanisms

• Research Observations:

  • Differentiated responses between amygdala and auditory cortex lesions regarding conditioned fear responses.

    

Page 35: Understanding Amygdala

• A small mass of gray matter buried in the tip of the temporal lobes, in front of the hippocampus

  •Does it respond to fear stimuli?

  •Does amygdala damage impair fear recognition?

  •Is amygdala response domain-specific?

  •Is amygdala response specific to fear?

  

Page 36: Amygdala Activation in Emotion Recognition

• Study by: Morris et al. (1996) underscored the amygdala's preferential activity towards fearful faces in emotional recognition tasks.

• P’s belived task was to dtermine the gender of the face but instead it was looking at thier reaction to a fearful face vs happy

• fMRI data also support the role of amygdala in fear recognition

  

Page 37: Impaired Emotion Recognition

• Patient Study: Patient DR with bilateral amygdala damage struggled specifically with recognizing fear expressions while retaining recognition of other emotions.

  

Page 38: Auditory Emotion Recognition Impairments

• Further Studies: Findings showed similar impairments in identifying emotions in auditory stimuli due to amygdala damage.

  

Page 39: Emotional Intensity Effects

• fMRI Study: Demonstrated the amygdala's response to emotional intensity across various emotions, with a notable focus on fear responses.

  

Page 40: Amygdala in Emotional Processing Networks

• Broader Implications: Amygdala interacts with other brain regions to create emotional experiences, exploring its role beyond just fear processing.

  

Page 41: Summary of Amygdala's Roles

• •Amygdala is important in fear learning and recognition

  • Causal role in fear learning

  • Causal role in fear recognition (independent of perceptual modality)

• Is Amygdala the ‘fear centre’?

  • Fear may depend on a wider network

  • Amygdala may be involved in other forms of emotional processing:

Page 42: Overall Emotion Summary (1)

• •Emotion is a mental state associated with a set of stimuli and behaviorophysiological responses.

  •conserved through evolution (adaptive value)

  •has affective & cognitive, conscious & unconscious components

  •No simple one-to-one mapping between brain structures and emotion categories

  •Still debatable if emotion (e.g., fear) is innate or constructed

Page 43: Overall Emotion Summary (2)

• Neuropsychological Cases:

  •Amygdala lesion in mice

  •Patient DR

• Approaches:

  •Behavioural (self-reports of emotions, face manipulation)

  •Physiological (heart rate, skin conductance)

  •Neuropsychology (lesion à emotional impairment)

  •Neuroimaging (brain activation ~ emotional processes)

Page 44: References I

• Extensive bibliography referencing key studies and authors significant to the research of emotions and the brain.

Page 45: References II

• Continued documentation of critical literature and studies referenced throughout the lecture.

James-Lange Theory

• Proponents: William James and Carl Lange

• Core Belief: Physiological responses cause emotional experience.

• Example: "I feel fear because my heart pumps."

• Causation Testing:

  • Body drives emotion according to the theory.

Historical Theories of Emotion

• Key Questions: Relationship between emotional experiences and physiological responses investigated through:

  • James-Lange Theory (1884): Proponents: William James and Carl Lange. Core belief is that physiological responses cause emotional experience.

  • Cannon-Bard Theory (1927): Proponents: Walter Cannon and Philip Bard. Core argument states that the brain experiences emotion which then generates bodily responses; physiological responses are not always linked to emotions.

  • Schachter-Singer Theory (1962): Proponents: Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer. Core belief posits that both physiological response and cognitive labeling are needed for emotional experience. The formula is: Physiological Response + Cognitive Labelling = Emotional Response.