Motivations Emotion and Sleep Monday September 16 2013 Motivation Factors that cause one to behave in a particular way at a particular time Consists of drives and incentives Drive reversible internal condition that orients you toward a goal Hunger sex fear etc Incentive external thing towards which a drive is directed For behavior to occur either one must be strong Scientists don t directly observe motivations they infer them from behavior Drives as tissue needs Homeostasis consistency of internal conditions that must be maintained There may be set points for temperature hunger thirst etc The brain regulates they body to maintain conditions at these points Upper set point for body temperature parasympathetic sweating Lower set point for body temperature sympathetic shivering Regulatory vs Non regulatory Drives Regulatory drives neurons monitor states of tissues and initiate a drive warmth hunger etc Non regulatory drives not based on homeostasis perceptions may play a larger part sex fear social drives Drives as states of the brain Drives reside in the nervous not the tissues In the head not the stomach Drives are not directly determined by tissues but by activity in different parts of the nervous system Factors not involving tissues can influence motivations Ex eating disorders no known physical cause Central state theory different drives correspond to neural activity in different parts of the brain This activity can be influenced by tissues or hormones perceptions etc Drives are states of the brain part of specialization of function The hypothalamus controls the hunger drive Ex hunger and the rat hypothalamus brain lesions and stimulation are used to locate central drive systems The lateral areas are in charge of lower set points Lesions cause the rats to ignore food Stimulation causes the rats to eat food Ventromedial areas are upper set points Lesions cause them to not stop eating Stimulation causes a hungry rat to stop eating The hypothalamus and the four f s of motivation Feeding Fighting Fleeing Fucking mating Different parts of the hypothalamus regulate different aspects of the drive Emotions The hypothalamus also acts as a pleasure center Also states of the brain Stimulation of one part of the amygdala results in an aggressive response Stimulation of another part of the amygdala results in fear You work best if there is an external stimulus to which the emotion can be associated The amygdala evaluates the emotional significance of sensory information Many disorders pertaining to drives and emotions have a neural component and can be treated with drugs Many recreational drugs alter drives and emotions Fight or flight arousal response Skeletal muscles are prepared Metabolism is altered Chemicals are released into the bloodstream Thought mechanisms became altered and focused Activation of the sympathetic nervous system With fight or flight there is a correlation between physiological and psychological changes Which comes first Common sense theory Stimulation Perception Emotion Bodily Arousal James s Theory 1890 Peripheral feedback theory Stimulation Perception Bodily Arousal Emotion Used introspection to come to his conclusions When something scares you you may notice the bodily response before you consciously realize what happened 1960s Schacter modified James s theory using experiments Schacter s Theory Sensory feedback from the body intensity of emotion Perception of stimulus type of emotion Schacter s cognition plus feedback theory note it is the 1960s Experiment subject s received one of three internal conditions 1 Injected with adrenaline to create a bodily response and told what to expect 2 Injected with adrenaline but not informed 3 Not injected 4 Two external conditions 1 Confederate an experimenter who acts as a subject acts very angry 2 Confederate acts euphoric 5 Two cognitive effects type 1 Type of external condition determined whether the emotion was anger or euphoria 2 Unexpected physiological response resulted in an emotional response intensity Adrenaline didn t work if subjects knew about it They wouldn t attribute arousal to the external solution Implications situations or substances that raise emotional intensity crowds caffeine alcohol can cause you to interpret stimuli more intensely raises pleasurable experience or raises threatening experience Yerkes Dodson Law The relationship between arousal and performance Increase arousal increase performance Too much arousal ex being too anxious can decrease performance The optimal level of arousal shifts with task difficulty Easier tasks have a late peak More difficult tasks have sooner peaks Level of Difficulty can involve Less practiced or less automatic movements More intellectually difficult tasks Tasks requiring more creativity The relationship between arousal and performance Arousal can be helpful or harmful depending on the task Ex public speaking vs Boxing Lie Detector Polygraph A polygraph measures physiological responses that accompany emotion Begin with baseline questions name background etc Then ask relevant questions did you murder him The results must be interpreted a polygraph does no have a head sensor or blinking red lights It is not always reliable Ex Aldrich Ames Russian Spy passed numerous polygraphs in the late 1990s Reliability is improved when crime scene details known only by the police and the guilty person are used in questioning Sleep Sleepiness can be thought of as a drive it is a need that the body has Can be considered an altered state of consciousness EEG records the difference in voltage between electrodes placed on the scalp