NAME:_______________________________
HOUR:________
BIOLOGY OF EMOTION
Emotions:
Whole-organism responses, involving:
–Physiological
–Expressive
–Conscious
Basic Emotions:
 Name the 6 basic emotions:
 Basic emotions are
 Complex emotions are a
 Classified along two dimensions
1.
or
2. Level of activation or
and “hard-wired”
of many aspects of emotions
associated with the emotion
Concept of Emotion:
 A class of subjective
created by stimuli that have high
to an individual
 stimuli that produce high
generally produce
 are
and automatic
 emerged through natural selection to benefit survival and
feelings
Functions of Emotion:
 Emotions can move us to
, triggering motivated behavior
 Emotions help us to set
, but emotional
can also be goals in
themselves.
 Emotions are important in many different areas, including
decision making
and
behavior.
 Emotional intelligence is the capacity to understand and manage
emotional experiences and to perceive, comprehend, and respond appropriately to the
emotional responses of
Evolutionary Explanations of Emotion:
 Darwin argued that emotions reflect evolutionary
to the problems of
survival and reproduction
 Today’s evolutionary psychologists believe that emotions are the product of evolution and
that they help us solve adaptive problems posed by our
The Subjective Experience of Emotion:
 People vary in their subjective experience of emotion in the following ways:
 People vary greatly in the
of their emotions
 The sexes differ little in their
of emotions
 The sexes differ in the expression of emotion: women are
emotionally
expressive
 There are a
number of basic emotions that all humans, in every
culture, experience.
 They are thought to be
determined, the products of evolution
 People often experience a
of emotions or
emotions,
rather than a pure emotion.
Culture & Emotional Experience:
 Studies of Japanese subjects added a third dimension,
engagement—the degree to which an emotion involves
with others.
 Because Japan is a collectivistic culture, one’s identity is seen as
with
those of other people, rather than independent, as is characteristic of individualistic cultures
Autonomic Nervous System:
 The division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the
and
muscles of the internal
 Monitors the
functions
o Controls breathing, blood pressure, and digestive processes
 Divided into the
and
nervous systems
 Cross-cultural studies have demonstrated that the basic emotions are associated with
distinct
of autonomic nervous system activity
Sympathetic Nervous System:
o The part of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body to deal with perceived
o
or
response
Parasympathetic Nervous System:
o The part of the autonomic nervous system that
o Brings the body back down to a
the body
state
Physical Arousal and Emotions:
o Sympathetic nervous system is aroused with
(fight-or-flight response)
o Different emotions stimulate different
o Fear—
in skin temperature (
-feet)
o Anger—
in skin temperature (
under the collar)
o A recent study using PET scans found that each of four emotions (sadness, happiness,
anger, and fear) produced a distinct pattern of brain
and
o This indicates that each emotion involves distinct
circuits in the brain
High Arousal:
o Arousal response - pattern of physiological change that helps prepare the body for “fight or
flight”–muscles
, heart rate and breathing
, release of
endorphins,
attention
o Can be helpful or harmful
o In general, high arousal is beneficial for instinctive,
physical tasks
o Harmful for novel (
), creative, or careful
tasks
Yerkes-Dodson Law:
o Some
is necessary
o High arousal is helpful on
tasks
o As level of arousal increases, quality of performance
or
with task
o Too much arousal is
Brain-Based Theory of Emotions:
o Amygdala–
the significance of stimuli and generate
responses
o Generate
secretions and autonomic reactions that accompany
strong emotions
o Damage causes “psychic
” and the inability to
fear in facial expressions and voice
Brain-Based Theory of Emotions:
Frontal lobes–influence people’s
emotional feelings and ability to act in
ways based on feelings (e.g., effects of prefrontal lobotomy)
How You Experience Fear:
 When a person is faced with a potentially threatening stimulus, the
stimulus is first routed to the
.
Information is then relayed simultaneously along two neural pathways:
1. Crude, archetypal information travels rapidly to the
(in the
limbic system),
2. More detailed information travels to the
cortex, where the
stimulus is interpreted
 If the cortex determines that a threat exists, the information is relayed to the
along the longer, slower pathway.
Amygdala then sends information along two pathways:
1. One pathway leads to an area of the
, then on to the
;
together, they trigger arousal of the sympathetic nervous system
2. Another pathway leads to a different hypothalamus area that, in concert with the
___________ gland, triggers the release of
hormones.
 Joseph LeDoux believes that the direct thalamus–amygdala connection represents an
adaptive response that has been hard-wired by
in the human brain.
 The indirect route allows more
stimuli to be evaluated in the cortex.
Lie Detection:
 The polygraph
really detect lies.
Some of its many problems include:
– false negative results,
–false positive results,
–highly
interpretations of the physical changes that occur
 A variety of nonverbal cues, especially
, are
associated with deception, but no
nonverbal cue indicates that someone
is lying
Brain Fingerprinting:
 Uses an electroencephalograph to analyze brain waves to determine whether a stimulus is
or
.
 The brain emits a P300 wave in response to a
stimulus.
 If a suspect emits a P300 wave in response to details that only the criminal would know, the
examiner would conclude that the suspect possessed "
knowledge" of the
crime.
 Brain fingerprinting is still controversial and has only recently become admissible as
evidence in court.