Introduction to Emotion

• The lecture is an introduction to cognition and emotion, specifically focusing on emotion.
• The lecture does not cover L4.

Contact Information

• You can chat after class each week.
• You can email [email protected].
• The VLE discussion board is useful for asking simple questions that others would like to know the answers to.

First Lecture Topics

• Introduction to emotions
• Defining emotions
• Two main theories of emotion
• Brain structures associated with emotions

Learning Outcomes

• Describe basic emotions observed cross-culturally.
• Describe how various emotions influence behaviour.
• Discuss the autonomic effects of emotion.
• Describe alternative theories explaining emotion processing.
• Describe some of the brain structures involved in processing emotion.

Key points regarding cognition

• Cognitive psychology is great for understanding basic memory and attention.
• Cognition is great at showing how we think about society.
• Cognition occurs in a biological and emotional context.
• Cognitive theories often ignore emotion when explaining basic systems such as memory.

Cognition and Emotion

• Cognition occurs in a biological and emotional context.
• Living animals such as humans have evolutionary constraints such as survival and reproduction, the unconscious mind and cognitive biases.
• A critical aspect of biological systems is emotion and motivation.

Strong and Overwhelming Emotions

• Some emotions are central to who we are and what we do with our lives.

Moral Emotions

• Contempt, anger, disgust and shame help regulate social behaviour and social status.
• Moral emotions are related to politics and current events.

Why Have Emotions

• Emotions guide our lives and we learn from them.
• Emotions provide meaning to life.
• Emotions are related to mental health.
• Chronic negative emotions can lead to life feeling miserable and not worth living such as depression.
• Emotions help monitor current state and adjust behaviour.

Emotions and Their Effects

• Happy: Current goals are being achieved, so continue – things are going well
• Sad: Current plan has failed, so consider a new one – things are not going well
• Anxious: Monitor the environment for threat; sometimes useful, sometimes not.
• Angry: if resources are threatened, norms violated, or cheating, punish or attack
• Disgusted: Reject substance and withdraw; includes moral disgust towards people
• Sympathetic: When you feel sorry for someone and want to help them.

Part 1 Summary

• Introduction to emotions, and discussion of overwhelming & everyday emotions, moral emotions.
• Emotions orient life and provide meaning.
• Emotion and cognition work together.

Defining Emotions

• Emotions are difficult to define.
• Cognitive component / conscious experience (self talk, i.e. I feel happy, I'm really enjoying this, or I am useless)
• Overt expression of internal state (facial expression and body language)
• Physiological experience (e.g. heart rate, sweating, breathe, flushed face and neck, endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin etc)
• Emotions can be partly defined by what we recognize in others' facial expressions

Overt Expression of Internal State

• Facial expressions are pretty universal in the emotions they display, such as New Guinea to USA.
• Emotion is a basic biological process (non-learned behaviour).
• Overt expression is important for social interactions.
• Overt expression has an evolutionary basis.
• Overt expression allows us to infer how others are feeling, and what they may be thinking or feeling about us.
• Overt expression is relevant to approaching / avoiding others.
• Overt expression is significant for attracting friends and intimate partners

Physiological Component

• Emotions are usually accompanied by autonomic arousal of the autonomic nervous system.
• Imagine your car spins out of control on an icy road, your body come to life...
• Your heart rate, breathing and blood pressure increase, pupils dilate, sweat
• Release of adrenalin for Fight or Flight

Polygraph Test

• The polygraph measures indicators of autonomic reactions to inhibiting the truth such as sweating and heart rate.
• Most people find lying stressful.
• Galvanic skin response (GSR) = Sweat response
• Skin conductance response (SCR) = Electrical response

Part 2 Summary

• Cognitive component of emotions / conscious experience (self talk, i.e. I feel happy, I'm really enjoying this, or I am useless)
• Overt expression of internal state (facial expression and body language)
• Physiological experience (e.g. heart rate, sweating, breathe, flushed face and neck, endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin etc)

Emotion Theories

• There are two main theories of emotion: James-Lange theory and Cannon-Bard theory.

James-Lange Theory

• It is an embodied account of emotion.
• The physical response occurs prior to the conscious experience of emotion.
• Emotions occur because of the physiological response.
• Participants given a pen to hold in their mouth are funnier when smiling.
• Feedback from the body influences our experience of emotion.
• Using a gel mask that restricts movement can suppress emotions.
• When participants are in a facemask condition they demonstrate inferior perceptual discrimination of facial expressions, but not of nonface stimuli.
• Inhibiting the movement of muscles associated with worry/ anxiety can reduce feelings of depression
• Beta blockers function by suppressing signals from the body (e.g. adrenalin) and can support the James-Lange theory of emotions

Summary of James-Lange Theory

• Emotional properties of a stimulus can be computed rapidly prior to awareness, and the amygdala plays a key role in this.
• Autonomic responses can be ambiguous such as is it fear, excitement, or exercise.
• The James-Lange theory can't explain emotion entirely by itself.

Cannon-Bard Theory

• Argued that emotion can be experienced independently of body states such as autonomic responses.
• Autonomic responses can be ambiguous and slower than the experienced emotion.

Theories of Attraction

• Heightened attraction can occur under conditions of high anxiety.
• The top bridge triggers an autonomic response and the second bridge does not.
• Male participants completed a survey and then were given a female researchers number.
• Men surveyed on the scary bridge more likely to call back (Dutton & Aron, 1974)

Theories are Useful

• Both theories are useful and work together.
• Ambiguous autonomic response: James-Lange Theory
• Perception of stimuli/ context: BEAR, Cannon-Bard Theory
• This means there is fear, not excitement resulting in running.

Part 3 Summary

• Two main theories: James-Lange theory and Cannon-Bard theory; both contribute to explaining emotion, and cognition and emotion interact.

Important Brain Structures

• Amygdala
• Anterior cingulate cortex
• Insula
• Orbitofrontal cortex
• Striatum - dopamine pathway

Amygdala Function

• Functions as a part of Fight or flight
• Receives rapid visual info from the thalamus
• More primitive part of the brain
• Encoding of stimuli (e.g. threat) often subconscious and faster than conscious processing
• The amygdala can carry out Rapid and automatic route and Detects threat prior to conscious awareness for rapid life saving responses (Fits James-Lange theory)

Amygdala Damage

• In monkeys, bilateral lesions of the amygdala result in Kluver-Bucy syndrome.
• This results in an unusual tameness and blunting of emotional reactions + impaired learning from emotional stimuli
• In humans, lesions to the amygdala mostly impair the recognition of fear in other faces with some deficit of other emotions such as anger and distrust.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex

• Involved in processing emotional aspects of pain
• Involved in empathy: activates when others in pain
• Involved in detecting errors > anger and frustration so to avoid errors in the future.
• e.g Computer crashed and you didn't have your work saved elsewhere > frustration > learning

Insula

• Involved in processing emotional aspects of disgust which is essential for survival in avoiding poison and dangerous food etc.
• Empathy: activates when others are disgusted, children learn early on.
• The Insula is involved in our bodily sensations such as feeling itchy, feeling sad, feeling happy.
• Patients with Huntington's disease have deficits in recognizing expressions of disgust related to the amount of insula damage.

OFC

• Computes the current motivational value of rewards (can change e.g. chocolate, alcohol)
• It is associated with the emotion of regret when we make a choice, and the reward is less than we hoped.

Ventral Striatum

• Stimulating ventral striatum associated with pleasure + reward.
• Part of the dopamine network involved with sex, drugs, rock & roll.
• Studying and learning can be rewarding too.

Brain Structure Summary

• The Amygdala and striatum are key to emotional processing.
• Dopamine is key for motivation.
• Emotional networks interface with motor networks to produce action.
• Emotional networks interface with cognitive networks involved in perception, attention, learning and memory