How Cognitive and Biological Factors Interact in Emotion By Mr Daniel Hansson

Activity 1 I will present you with two pictures, a sound and a name. Please look/listen carefully and write down what you experience

Osama Bin Ladin

Questions How did you feel looking and listening to these stimuli? Try to identify six different emotions and write them down Try to convey these emotions to the people in your group and let them guess your emotion

Examples of emotions (Lazarus 1991) Anger Anxiety Fright Guilt Shame Sadness Envy Jealousy Disgust Happiness Pride Relief Hope Love Compassion

What is an emotion? A subjective feeling provoked by real or imagined objects or events

Components of emotion Eliciting stimuli Cognitive appraisal Biological factors (e.g. body arousal, physiological activity) Behavior associated with the emotion (e.g. smiling, running away, violence)

Cognitive appraisal An evaluation of how a situation will affect one’s personal well being Is affected by personal experiences and beliefs Primary appraisal: An evaluation of how a situation might affect our well being Secondary appraisal: A decision of how to react to the situation Can be conscious or unconscious

Example: Strack et. al. (1988) Group 1: Put a pen between your teeth Group 2: Put a pen between your lips Rate how funny the following commercial is from 1 to 10

Biological factors Body arousal related to hormonal activity (e.g. adrenaline and oxytocin) Brain activity (e.g. amygdala, prefrontal cortex)

Amygdala A structure in the brain that is known to register emotional reactions Initial research was based on rats, modern research on neuroimaging studies of humans Psychopaths show less activation in the amygdala during emotional processing than others

Le Doux (1999) Suggests that there are two biological pathways of emotions in the brain due to evolution The short route goes from the sensory thalamus to the amygdala and leads to an instant emotion The long route passes via the cortex and hippocampus before it results in an emotion

Why a short and a long route for emotion? In cases of danger, the fast pathway saves time but makes mistakes The long pathway allows for more appropriate responses to situations

Arousal When the sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for emergency action

Characteristics of arousal Increased blood pressure Increased heart rate Rapid respiration Dilated pupils Increased perspiration Decreased secretion of mucus and saliva, Erect hairs on skin

How do biological and cognitive factors interact in emotion? Positive emotions produce fewer bodily changes than negative emotions Body arousal affects the intensity of emotion Facial characteristics and bodily changes are distinct for different emotions. Heart rate is faster for negative emotions, skin temperature for anger is higher than in fear or sadness. These differences are universal

Activity 2 Go back to the six emotions that you identified. Now rank them from highest to lowest based on the level of body arousal After you are done, rank them from the most positive to the most negative emotion Finally, rank them from the most intensive to the least intensive emotion Can you see any relationship between body arousal and intensity or type of emotion?

Activity 3 After hearing this presentation, please create your own model on how you think cognitive and biological factors interact in emotion. Make sure that you include the following emotional components: associated behavior, eliciting stimuli, cognitive appraisal, body changes, subjective experience of the emotion

Websites to try out www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/disgust/index.shtml www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/Faces/EyesTest.aspx www.cio.com/article/facial-expressions-test