James-Lange theory
Lecture # 3: September 29, 2004
James-Lange Theory of Emotion
• Contrary to common-sense view, emotion is
the perception of physiological arousal
• Lange: Emphasized vasomotor changes in
the experience of emotion
• James: focused on expressive behaviours
and instrumental behaviours in addition to
autonomic arousal.
What would have to be true?
• Differentiation of ANS activity with respect to
basic emotions.
• Preventing feedback from the periphery should
change the nature/intensity of the emotional
experience
• Modifying the amount of feedback from the
periphery should change emotional experience
• Individual differences in ability to detect changes
in physiological arousal should be associated with
differences in emotional experience
• Inducing behaviour associated with emotion
should result in the experience of an emotion
Class Demonstration
• Which of the points just discussed does this
demonstration address?
• What are the methodological problems
associated with this approach?
Cannon’s (1927) Criticisms
1) Total separation of the viscera from the CNS does
not alter emotional behaviour
2) The same visceral changes occur in very different
emotional states and in non-emotional states
3) The viscera are relatively insensitive structures
4) Visceral changes are too slow to be the source of
emotional feeling.
5) Artificial induction of the visceral changes typical
of strong emotions does not produce them.
Feedback should be differentiated
• ANS activity should be differentiated with
respect to basic emotions if emotion is the
perception of bodily changes, because
emotions are experienced differently
• For example, the physiological changes
associated with fear should be different
from those associated with happiness.
Nervous System
• Central Nervous System (CNS) = Brain & Spinal Cord
• Peripheral Nervous System
– Somatic NS: carry impulses from the brain to the musculature
– Autonomic NS: carry impulses from the brain to the various organs that
make up the viscera (heart, stomach, lungs, adrenal glands, pancreas,
intestines, bladder, etc.). Controls the automatic functions of the organs
that are necessary for our survival and matches the inner activity and
metabolism to be in accordance with environmental demands
(homeostasis).
• Sympathetic NS: typically excite the target organs: “All or none”
simultaneous activation. Ganglia are located in a chain along the spinal
cord. Neurotransmitter is excitatory (norepinephrine).
• Parasympathetic NS: modulating or inhibitory effect over organs that
are excited by the Sympathetic NS. Also, greater specificity: exerts
influence on target organs individually. Ganglia are located on or near
the target organs themselves. Neurotransmitter released is
acetylcholine (inhibitory or excitatory depending on the target organ).
Nervous System
• Efferent Nerves:
– Somatic: terminating in skeletal muscle and mediate overt
emotional behaviours
– Visceral: innervate the viscera and mediate the internal
expression of emotion. Autonomic NS is ‘Visceral Efferent’
• Afferent Nerves–receptors directed towards:
– external environment are called exteroceptive (e.g. eyes)
– inner environment are called interoceptors:
• Skeletal muscles– proprioception (somatic)
• Internal organs and glands– information re: visceral functioning
Autonomic Neurotransmission
• Preganglionic neurotransmission involves ACh
(nicotinic) for both the SNS and PNS
• Sympathetic postganglionic transmission involves the
release of Norepinephrine, ACh (muscarinic), or
Adrenaline and Noradrenaline into the blood stream
from the adrenal cortex and into systemic circulation
where they have effects on distal target organs. Double
excitation of many target organs. Also, longer half-life of
circulating substances, explaining the prolonged nature
of sympathetic activation).
• Parasympathetic postganglionic neurotransmission
involves the release of ACh (muscarinic receptors)
Autonomic Neurotransmission
Pharmacological Effects
• Muscarinic transmission can be blocked by
drugs such as atropine.
• Adrenergic transmission at sympathetic post
ganglionic sympathetic nerves can also be
blocked: e.g. propanolol is a Beta-adrenergic
blocker (heart), phentolamine is an Alphaadrenergic blocker (blood vessels).
Is Emotional Arousal Undifferentiated?
• One view: Undifferentiated (e.g. Shacter; Mandler). Derives
from Cannon’s emergency theory, and has the most validity for
states of intense aversive emotion (but is incomplete).
• Emergency reaction: elicitation of emotion induces a state of
arousal that prepares the organism for struggle: “fight or
flight”.
– Diffuse sympathetic activation and the release of Epinephrine and NE
from adrenal medulla. Consequences:
• increase respiration
• redistributes blood flow away from the viscera and skin to the active
skeletal muscles.
• Circulating Epinepherine releases glycogen from the liver which is
available for use by the active muscles.
• Mobilization of the organism’s energy stores, and redistribute blood flow
away from the body surface and viscera (vasoconstriction) and towards
skeletal muscle (vasodilation).
Cognitive Labeling theories and related research
• Schacter’s two factor theory:
Emotion = arousal (undifferentiated)
+ cognition (situation appropriate)
• Experiment: Behaviour of the ‘Stooge’ influenced the
emotion experienced by the subject, but only if the
subject does not have a plausible explanation for their
arousal (in the Epinephrine-Ignorant, and EpinephrineMisinformed conditions).
Cognitive Labeling theories and related research
• Misattribution (MA) paradigm: Grew out of
observations from Schacter’s ‘informed’ condition
who told what the effects of the injection of
adrenaline would be.
– These subjects reported the least intense emotion of any
group, including those injected with saline solution only.
Schacter’s explanation was that arousal did not affect
these subjects because they could correctly attribute their
sensations of arousal to the injection.
• Researchers have successfully induced subjects to
misattribute arousal produced by pain, fear, anxiety,
and anger.
Cognitive Labeling theories and related research
• Excitation transfer (ET): Zillman and colleagues
(1978; 1983) showed that naturally occurring
arousal can be attributed to Subjects who have
been aroused feel or behave more emotionally
• Question: How are these two experimental
paradigms different (MA and ET)?
• The Capilano suspension bridge experiment… is
an example of which paradigm ?
Evidence for differentiated arousal
• Ax (1953): One of the first successful attempts to
differentiate emotions on the basis of their autonomic
correlates. Subjects placed in fear or anger conditions
• Anger and fear could be differentiated on 7 of 14
physiological dimensions. Anger: Increases in Diastolic
BP, muscle tension, # Galvanic skin responses, Heart
rate ‘falls’. Fear: Skin conductance increases, # muscle
tension peaks, respiration increases.
– Anger pattern resembled the effects of intravenous injection of
Epinephrine, and the Fear pattern that of intravenous NE.
– A similar finding by Funkenstein (1955), who differentiated
anger and fear on multiple physiological measurements.
Ekman et al. (1983)
• Designed a study to overcome methodological flaws in
previous investigations:
– A broad sample of 6 different emotions were studied
– Verification procedures were instituted to maximize the
likelihood that each sample contained only the target emotion
– A broad sampling of ANS activity was obtained in order to
enable differentiation (HR, hand temperature, GSR, muscle
tension).
– Multiple eliciting tasks were used (directed facial action and
relived emotion)
– Professional actors and scientists were used as the research
subjects to ensure that affect associated with frustration or
embarrassment did not contaminate the samples
Ekman et al. (1983) Results
Visceral afference
Is Emotion prevented when ANS afferent
return is disrupted?
• Functionally separating the viscera from the brain should
decrease emotionality if feedback is important for emotional
experience
• Hohmann (1966) interviewed 25 adult males with lesions at
various levels in the spinal column (which left them with
different degrees of sensation from visceral feedback).
• Almost all subjects reported decreases in feelings of anger, fear,
and sexual excitement. Many reported ‘as if’ experiences.
• In addition, site of injury corresponded to degree of decrease in
feelings of fear and anger: cervical and high thoracic.
• Several subsequent studies have failed to support the findings of
Hohmann: Lowe (1985), Bermond (1991), Chwalisz
Inducing behaviour associated with
emotion should elicit an emotion
• Remember class demonstration: posture
• Facial feedback hypothesis: Awareness of one’s facial
expressions IS the emotion.
• Evidence to support FFH: Should be possible to create
or modify emotional experience by manipulating facial
expression
• Laird et al. (1974): pose either happy or angry face.
Shown emotionally salient slides. Happy face = more
+ve to +ve slides, less –ve to –ve slides and vice-versa
Facial Feedback Hypothesis
• Demand characteristics may explain FFH results.
• Shrewd means to circumvent demand characteristics:
– Strack & Stepper (1993): Posture & persistence
– Strack & Stepper (1988): Facial feedback
• Two explanations for FFH effects:
– Biological/hardwired
– Cognitively mediated (i.e. I feel happy because I perceive
that I am smiling)…
• not necessarily conscious (may involve sub-symbolic processing)
Individual Differences in Susceptibility
• When induced to smile or frown or into a posture,
some individuals report strong emotional
experiences while others do not.
• Arises from the kinds of information that people
use to identify their own states.
– Self-produced cues
– Situational cues: normative expectations about what
most people would feel in a particular situation.
• These differences may arise from socialization
practices and the type of information that children
are taught to attend to in constructing their own
emotional experience.
Gender Differences in Sensitivity to
Visceral Feedback
• Katkin et al. have shown that gender differences are
apparent in the ability to perceive physiological /
visceral feedback favouring men (very robust finding).
• Differences are only found in the laboratory. In more
ecologically valid conditions replete with social cues,
the gender difference disappears.
• Pennebaker & Roberts (1992): Men are more
‘Jamesian’, while women are more ‘Cognitive’ in terms
of the information they use to construct their emotional
experience.
Pennebaker and Roberts
• Based on J.J. Gibson’s (1979) ecological approach to
perception
• Perceptions are based on multiple sources of info
– Visual, auditory, sensory stimuli are perceived in a manner that
is dependent on all sensory systems
– High level integrationist position
– Most cues in our environment are overlapping and redundant.
– E.g. whether the pencil is in reach is based on visual,
vestibular, and kinesthetic cues. Loss of any one source of
information would not disrupt the individual’s ability to judge
the distance of the pencil.
• Relevance to emotion: How do we come to know
our bodily feelings / emotional experiences?
• We have multiple sources of information at our
disposal, from which we construct our experience:
– Bodily and facial expressions, physiological arousal /
visceral changes, action tendencies, eliciting conditions
/ cues in the environment.
• Different theories focus on different types of info,
but none take into account all info available
• Gibson’s theory provides the prototype:
integration of different and redundant sources of
information into one coherent percept.
• Also implies that people may utilize the different
sources of information available to them to greater
or lesser degrees.
Caccioppo’s SAME Model
• Different patterns of somatovisceral
afference can lead to the same basic
emotion, and the same pattern can lead to
different emotions.
• Somatovisceral / Reversible Illusions
• Rudimentary Stimulus Evaluation
• Somatovisceral Response
• Cognitive Operations / Elaboration