Download Biological Psych Emotions Limbic System Thalamus Hypothalamus

Biological Psych
Emotions
Limbic System
Thalamus
Hypothalamus
Pituitary
Pineal Gland
Amygdala
Amygdala
Also called nucleus amygdalæ
Almond-shaped groups of nuclei
Medial temporal lobes
Part of basal ganglia?
Processes emotional memories
Linked to both fear & pleasure
Several structures
basolateral complex
cortical nucleus
medial nucleus
central nucleus
Output =
Hypothalamus
Activates sympathetic nerves
Thalamic reticular nucleus
Increases reflexes
Trigeminal & facial nerves
Expressions
Activates dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine
Memory formation & storage
Memories of emotional events
Mediate long-term signal potentiation of neurons?
Memories of emotional exper. trigger fear behavior
Freeze (immobility)
Stress hormone (heart rate…)
Damage
Impairs classical conditioning
Both acquiring and expressing
Pavlovian fear conditioning
Positive reinforcement
Classical conditioning
Separate neurons for pos. & neg., not anatomically different
No clear wiring plan
Memory Consolidation
Convert to long-term storage
Learning can occur without it
Help regulate hippocampus?
Strength of emotion impacts strength of memory
Add stress hormone after learn, recall better (at least in rats)
What amygdala does
Evaluate significance of stimuli
Generate emotional responses
Generate hormonal secretions
Generate autonomic reactions come with strong emotions
Involved with?
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Depression
Phobias
Anxiety
Autism
Anything Emotional
Emotions
What Is Emotion?
Category of stimuli
high significance to an individual
high arousal (strong feelings)
subjective response
quick & automatic
Sympathetic nervous system
Prepares for brief-vigorous action
Parasympathetic
alters activities to save energy and prepare for long-term
Strong emotions increase readiness to act
Identifying Emotions
Facial Expressions
10,000 expressions
40 muscles
Voluntary
Making movement doesn’t always cause emotion
Involuntary
Some are same across cultures
Display rules vary
Quickly cover up
Some are same across species
Micro Expressions
Less than a second
Examples
Surprise is shortest expression
Who is worried?
BBC program: The Human Face
Gestures
Emblems
Differ by culture
Yes = nod head up and down
No = shake head left-right
Egyptian culture
Tomorrow = hand loop
After tomorrow = two loops
Distress = hands on head (one pat other)
Not Quite Words
Puh
Basic Emotions
Hard-wired
Can feel more than one at once
Wundt
Classified along two dimensions
Pleasant or unpleasant
Level of activation (arousal)
No agreed upon list:
Fear
Anger
Disgust
Sad
Surprise
Happiness
Fear
Decrease in skin temp (cold-feet)
blood flow to feet?
Includes:
Thoughts (worries, etc)
Physical sensation (heart, breath)
Behaviors (run, escape, avoid)
“fight or flight”
Heart
Increased force & rate
“pounding heart”
Muscles
Increased tension
Sweaty-cold palms
Nausea & diarrhea
Tremors
Fear Conditioning
Even minor $ can cause fear
Un-erasable fear response?
PTSD
Rat is shocked (electrical)
Fears stimulus
Fears old cage & new cages
Fears new situations
Humans
Attacked or trauma
More fearful in many situations
Generalized emotional arousal
Stimulus generalization
Amygdala
Makes associations of events with emotional sensations
Mediate long-term signal potentiation of neurons?
Anger
Characteristics
Eyebrows together
Eyes glare
Narrow lips
Causes increase in skin temp (hot under the collar)
blood flow to arms
Display Rules
Animals
Make loud sounds
Try to look larger
Bare teeth
Stare
Humans
Display as social manipulation
Cultural rules
Impacts
Less self-monitoring
Less objective observations
Increased activity in left hem.
Particularly frontal & temporal
Lateral orbitofrontal cortex
Inhibits anger
Approach motivation
Positive affective processes
Underestimate risk
Believe ventures will succeed
Feel less likely for heart disease
Feel more likely get raise
More prejudiced against outsiders
Less trusting
On alert
Look for other attacks
Anticipate more angry events
Not sad events
Disust
Revulsion
Withdraw
Contamination
Seen is all cultures
different cultures find different things disgusting
Cross-Cultural
Widely recognized
Shown by
slightly narrowed brows
curled upper lip, wrinkling nose
stick out tongue
Children
5-month olds avoid toy parents make negative faces at
Until 10, interpret it as anger
Related to sense of taste-smell
disgusted by inharmonious
Impact
Facial expression
Moldy milk
Eeuu!
Triggered if people look ill?
Feces, urine, body fluids
Blood & gore
Gender differences
Women more than men
Especially sexual disgust
Also thinking about dentists
Anterior insula
Activated by unpleasant tastes, smells and images
Active when disgusted
Active when nauseated
Damage to anterior insula
Can’t experience disgust
Trouble recognizing facial expressions of disgust
Mirror-neuron matching system
Triggers in us what we see in others
Intensifies moral judgments
Those people are more guilty
SAD
Emotional pain
Temporary (depression chronic)
Loss, despair, helplessness
Crying
Crying is bad criterion
Separation from parent
Sad
Afraid
Pupil size
Faces with small pupils rated more sad
Your pupil size smaller when sad
Depression
Sad, anxious, empty, hopeless
Aversion to activity
Lose of interest
SURPRISE
Shortest expression
Brief emotional state
unexpected event
Is long-lasting surprise shock?
Characteristics
Raised eyebrows
curved and high
most important cue
Horizontal wrinkles on forehead
Dropped jaw
Intensity = how much jaw drops
Open eyelids
See whites of their eyes
Lasts fraction of a second
Followed by fear, joy, etc.
1. Hard to fake expression
2. Hard to fake feeling
Raising eyebrows won’t give feeling
Startle response
Reaches pons 3-8 ms
Followed by reappraisal
shift emotion to joy, etc.
HAPPINESS
Martin Selligman’s PERMA
Pleasure (tasty food, warm bath)
Engagement (flow) (challenging activity)
Relationships
Significant others
Spending money on others
Meaning (quest for something bigger)
Accomplishments (completed tangible goals)
Damage to brain reduces it
Huntington's disease
Parkinson's disease
Multiple sclerosis
Epilepsy
Stroke
No validated way to increase
Don’t know how to substantially improve long-term happiness
Theories of Emotion
Components
Body sensations (heart rate, etc)
Perception of danger
Emotion (fear)
Behavior (run)
Stimulus
1. Common Sense
See a bear
Feel fear
Run
2. James-Lange
See the bear, run, feel fear
Emotion is interpretation of physiological $
I run, therefore I am afraid
Action first, think about it later
Find ourselves trembling, experience fear
But internal organs are relatively insensitive
Can’t respond quickly
Feedback from them could account for our feelings of emotions?
Theory difficult to verify experimentally
Emotion is a label
ANS and skeletal actions occur before emotion
I see bear, run, then feel fear
3. Two Factor Theory
Schachter and Singer
Ss told given vitamin shot
Received either
adrenaline or placebo (saline)
Put in room with another person (experimenter)
Took cues from person with
playful
angry
Need both bio reaction and cognitive cues
I see bear
I feel sensations
I see what other people are doing
If they are afraid, I am afraid
I see bear
I feel sensations
Use cues to determine what I think trembling caused by
Fear
4. Cognitive Mediation
Component process model
Brain senses lots of things
Make low-level appraisal of rel.
Triggers bodily reactions, behaviors & feelings
I see the bear
I think I’m in trouble
I breathe fast, run, and feel fear
Cognitive awareness is fast
Brain can categorize events as pleasant or unpleasant as quickly as 120 ms