4/14/15 – Lecture 22 – Emotions (Fear, Aggression, and Joy)- Goal – to understand what emotions are and how our brain and body are involved in them- Emotion – a mental state of subjective feeling that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes and behaviorso Key Aspects of Emotions Physiological Reactions – arousal- Arousal – a continuum of physiological and psychological activation of anorganismo Regulated by several brain systems Reticular Activating System – a series of connections between the midbrain, hypothalamus, and cortex that regulate sleep/wake transitions and attention (COGNITIVE AROUSAL) Sympathetic Nervous System – branch of the autonomicnervous system that responds to threats (SOMATIC AROUSAL)o  Many emotions share the same general physiological pattern of arousal So how do we know what emotion we are feeling?- SUBJECTIVE feeling, conscious experience and cognitive evaluation-  our evaluation is critical in determining which emotion we are feeling Subjective Feeling – conscious experience and cognitive evaluation that allows us to name the emotion we’re feeling Behaviors – facial expressions, verbal behavior, expressive behaviorso Theories of Emotion Common sense – feeling comes first, thenphysiological reactions James-Lang Model – physiological reactionscome first, then feeling Cannon-Bard Model – feeling and physiologicalreactions occur in parallel Modern Views of Emotion- Conscious feeling of fear andphysiological reactions occurindependently of one another- However, they also influence each other- Both also influence our perceptions ofthe fearful stimuluso Evaluation of Emotion Feeling Depends Upon… Physiological Responses Environmental Context – social and other cues Prior Experiences/ History/ Memory- Emotion and Behavior – facial expressions, expressive behavior, and verbal response to emotiono Facial Expressions People in different parts of the world make and interpret similar facial expressions- Happiness, disgust, fear, surprise, anger, sadness (6) Smiling can cause us to feel happier- However, fake smiles can be distinguished from real ones – Duchenne smile vs. Fake smileo Real smiling involves most of the face (muscles by the eyes especially) while fake smiles really only involve the mouth Finally, not all emotions are accompanied by facial expressions, so facial expressions are not an automatic or necessary part of the emotional response- Ex – poker face, negotiationso Expressive Behaviors Behavior of individual that express or reflect their internal psychological states Can include actions, gestures, body language- Examples of expressive behaviors – facing them in ways, opening or closing self off, touching someone, going away- Running away (fear), hugging someone (happiness), punching (anger), wrapping arms around self (depression)o Verbal Responses Tome, inflection, and volume provides information on emotion- Why do we Have Emotions?o Emotional behaviors provide others with input about our intentions and vise versao Provide us with a quick way to evaluate situations and eventso For strengthening memory, learning, and motivation Brain Structures involved in Emotion- Prefrontal Cortex – important in both the conscious perception and modulation of emotions- Limbic System – set of nuclei that integrate sensory and cortical inputs and determine proper emotional response- Hypothalamus – critical for activating hormonal inputs for physiological arousal responses- Sympathetic Nervous system – produces physiological arousal Emotional Circuit of the Brain- Sensory Association Cortex (SAC) – provides information about emotionally relevant stimuli- Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) – receives input from SAC and helps decide on a plan of action and inhibits inappropriate emotional responses- Cingulate Cortex (CC) – processes input from SAC, PFC and Amygdala, and reward centers and evaluates social/emotional salience, threat, conflict, etc.- Amygdala – sends and receives input from SAC, PFC, and CC and determines whether and/or how much to activate the hypothalamus- Hypothalamus – activates the body’s arousal mechanisms through the SNS and HPA axeso Receives input from the limbic system and prefrontal cortexo Connects to the sympathetic nervous system which is responsible for rapidly increasing physiological arousalo Also activates the HPA axis hormonal stress response and parts of the reticular activating system- The Sympathetic Nervous System / “fight or flight”o The SNS stimulation results in increased arousal by increasing heart rate, breathing, and sweatingo SNS neurons are activated by the hypothalamus- The Amygdala and Fearo The amygdala seems to be important in evaluating emotional salience of a situation (is the situation emotional, which emotion is appropriate, what level of emotion is appropriate?)o Social animals (and people with larger social networks) have larger amygdalae, probably because they have to process more emotional salience with such larger social networkso But a major emotional focus of the amygdala is activation of the fear response Surgical removal of the amygdala in animals or humans result in loss of fear response, while electrical stimulation of the amygdala in animals or humans produces a fear responseo The LEFT amygdala seems to be specialized for negative emotions and is larger in men than in women- Aggression and the Braino Damage to the orbitofrontal part of the prefrontal cortex can cause increased impulsive aggressiono Removal of the septum (a nucleus of the limbic system) also increases aggression They both seem to inhibit anger responses when working correctly- Testosterone and Aggressiono In most species, including humans, hales are more socially aggressive than females and increases at sexual maturity when testosterone levels increaseo In animals, neonatal or adult castration decreases social aggressive behavior … while injecting testosterone back into these animals bring aggressive behavior backo In monkeys, injection of testosterone increases existing levels of social aggression but does not change the pattern of social aggressiono In humans, aggression in males does not increase dramatically after puberty, testosterone levels are not well predictive of aggression in non-criminals, and aggression is increased only by