with stimuli that are rewarding or punishing. These stimuli often have inherent survival value. ✦ Emotions are transient in nature (unlike a mood, which is where an emotional state becomes extended over time), although the emotional status of stimuli is stored in long-term memory. ✦ An emotional stimulus directs attention to itself, to enable more detailed evaluation or to prompt a response. ✦ Emotions have a hedonic value, that is, they are subjectively liked or disliked. ✦ Emotions have a particular “feeling state” in terms of an internal bodily response (e.g. sweating, heart rate, hormone secretion). ✦ Emotions elicit particular external motor outcomes in the face and body, which include emotional expressions.
product of changes in body state 1. Emotion-provoking stimuli activate somatic and visceral sensory receptors. 2. Peripheral autonomic and skeleto-muscular activities are engaged. 3. Peripheral responses are detected. 4. Emotion elicited by peripheral feedback. ✦ “We are afraid because we tremble”.
the association of sensory stimuli (interoceptive and exteroceptive secondary reinforcers) with primary reinforcers (rewards and punishers). ✦ Attach a new meaning to neutral stimulus using LTP.
devoted to emotional experience and expression, guided by two hypotheses: - Hypothalamus influences the expression of emotion. - Emotions reach consciousness and that higher cognitive functions affect emotional behavior. Hypothalamus Posterior Hypothalamus Mammillary Bodies Anterior Nucleus of Thalamus Cingulate Gyrus Hippocampus Subiculum Fornix
cortex that forms a rim around the corpus callosum and diencephalon on the medial face of the hemispheres (limbic lobe). ✦ Cingulate gyrus above the corpus callosum. ✦ Parahippocampal gyrus in the medial temporal lobe. ✦ Olfactory bulbs as principal input to the limbic lobe.
on an intact cerebral cortex, but the expression of coordinated emotional behaviors does not necessarily entail cortical processes. ✦ Hess: electrical stimulation of discrete sites in hypothalamus of cats could also lead to rage response. ✦ The basic circuits of organized behaviors accompanied by emotion are in the diencephalon and the brainstem structures connected to it. ✦ Hypothalamus ⟶ Reticular Formation ⟶ Brainstem and Spinal Cord ⟶ Widespread Visceral and Somatic Motors Responses. Hypothalamus & Emotion Early Works on Cats
comprehension of the affective aspects of speech. Aprosody (or Aprosodia) refers to the loss of emotional expression and speech patterns. ✦ LH is more importantly involved with what can be thought of as positive emotions (versus RH which involved with negative emotions). ✦ RH is superior in detecting emotional nuances in speech. ✦ Facial emotions are more readily and accurately identified (or expressed) from the information in the LH. Cortical Lateralization