Post on 22-Dec-2015
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Class What are key tenets (propositions) of discrete emotion theory? What evidence suggests infant emotion is discrete what evidence suggests it is
not? What is the main finding of the Oster studied reviewed by Camras and
presented in the PPT? (Provide examples of two emotion). Do you think infants can have emotions without being reflectively aware of
what they are feeling? Provide links to the best video you can (e.g. youtube) showing an infant
expressing a discrete negative emotion that is not distress (e.g. anger, sadness, or disgust).
What do you think this infant was feeling? Find a theory you agree with or disagree with (discrete, functional, dynamic).
Does the video indicate that a particular emotion theory is incorrect or does it support the theory?
Extra questions: What evidence suggests that emotions are not discrete and may be more
dynamic and functional? Describe a study distinguishing between emotion and facial expression. When do people smile?
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Emotions
Organize action, physiology, cognition, and perception to meet ever-changing environmental and internal demands
In patterns constituting core aspects of temperament/personality functioning
Motivate action and thought, creating value in life—and impacting wellness and sickness
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History
Emotions don’t exist (or can’t be studied)– Behaviorism, ’50s - ‘60s
Emotional expressions are infinitely malleable– Some anthropological accounts
Emotions are things – structural accounts– Discrete/Differential theory, ’70s – ’80s – Cross-cultural recognition of expressions– Demonstrates hard-wiring of universal emotions?
Emotions are processes and have functions– Functionalist, dynamic systems, emotion regulation,
constuctivist ‘90s – ’10s
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The Universality hypothesis
Are facial expressions of emotion universal cross-culturally?
If universal,– are they innate and genetically determined?– or could there be “species-constant learning
experiences”?
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True?
“There are some facial expressions of emotion that are universal.”
“why do we not press our lips tightly together when happy and curve the corners up when angry, rather than the reverse?”
• (Ekman, 1973, p. 219)
‘facial affect program’ ?• p. 220
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Pre-literate culture study
Read an emotion-situation story. Shown three photos and asked to choose
one A high % correctly identified (p. 212) Why is expression identification in pre-
literate cultures important?
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Critique
Are identified expressions posed or spontaneous– Emblematic denotative expressions – caricatures?
Verbal identification of posed expressions Relevant to of expression recognition Not to universality of expression production
– Or their innateness
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Infant emotions
Core elements of infant behavior Quickly motivate behavior
– Hunger-Distress-Cry– Interest-Attentive face– Engaging playful other – joy - smile
Organize action, physiology, cognition, and perception
To meet environmental and internal demands Patterns constitute core aspects of
temperament/personality functioning
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Infant emotional development
Distress is present at birth Interest and joy emerge in the first 2 mos.
– joy developing through at least 6 mos. Anger, sadness, fear differentiate after 4 m. Pride and shame develop between 1 & 2
years
1 to 3 months Disgust
– Dropped lower lip, raised upper lip and nose screwed up– Spitting out the disliked food/object– Defensive reflex since no hand-mouth/grasping coordination
Joy– To familiar events, persons or objects– (Smile) and wide-open bright eyes
Sadness??– Brows are raised at the center but dropped at the sides and
mouth corners are drawn back and down– Crying usually intensifies the expression– As a result of withdrawal or loss of a desired object/person
Oberwelland (summary of Lewis)
4 to 9 months Anger
– 4 and 6 months– Mouth open with a squarish shape and angled
downward to the back of the mouth, wide open eyes, intense gaze and lowered brows
– Whenever a child gets frustrated– Demonstrated as young as 2 months (Lewis, 2007)
Fear– Might not be developed until 18 months but present
earlier at about 6-8 months (Lewis, 2007), not before 10 months (Fogel, 2001)
– Raised and furrowed brows, mouth corners are retracted straight back
– Reasons vary widelyOberwelland (summary of Lewis)
4 to 9 months
Surprise– During the first 6 months– Whenever there is violation of what is expected
or as a response to discovery (”aha” effect)– Mouth is open and the eyes are focused
Oberwelland (summary of Lewis)
12 to 24 months
Embarrassment– Blushing face and gaze down
Shame– Wish to disappear or hide is reflected in
expression– Children seem to shrink and hunch over so that
the arms and hands will hide the face Guilt
– Moves in space as if trying to repair the action Pride
Oberwelland (summary of Lewis)
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Developmental patterns
Socialization– Emotion displays become more restricted– Full-face to partial face - miniaturization
Cognitive input – shame, guilt, contempt emerge
involve rudimentary appraisal of self vis-à-vis other– dynamic systems
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Functions
Interest Fear Anger Joy Sadness Disgust Surprise
Orienting/exploration Avoidance/flight Goal removal Approach/continuation Withdrawal Expulsion Orienting
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The Natural-Kind View
“Many models assume that each emotion kind is characterized by a distinctive syndrome
of hormonal, muscular, and
autonomic responses that are coordinated in time and correlated in
intensity “ p. 30 Barrett, 2006
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Discrete Emotions Theory (DET) = Natural Kind View
Emotion composed of:– Neurochemical processes– Expressive behavior– Subjective feeling
“Many models assume that each emotion … is characterized by a distinctive syndrome of hormonal, muscular, and autonomic responses that are coordinated in time and correlated in intensity.” Barrett, 2006
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Emotional brain - Limbic system
Border between primitive brain stem and cortex
Lower portions - visceral (bodily) feelings– Developed at birth
Limbic cortex – awareness of feeling
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Amygdala
Transforms sensory stimuli to emotion elicitors
Not mediated by neocortex
– Input: rapid, automatic appraisal of relevance
– Output: Expression and Experience
– Reactivity of amygdala determines temperament
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Limbic cortex
Anterior cingulate gyrus– Motivation
Orbitofrontal cortex– Inhibition, social control– Feeds back to amygdala, other
subcortical structures – Neural development evident 6
– 24 months– Pruning continues into
adolescence
Where is joy located?
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One possibility is that anterior cingulate cortex, is associated with joyful responses, whereas basal ganglia are involved in related action tendencies.
Greater left than right cerebral activation (Duchenne smiles, tail wagging, etc)
Facial affect programs?
Current evidence:– Relevant linked brain systems– But not distinct affect programs– Fear may be exception– Panskepp and current animal work
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Damasio’s theory
Emotion is a neurochemical process Feeling is our sensation of that process
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Affective-cognitive schema
Emotion feeling linked to cognitions– produces thoughts and actions
i.e. self-appraisals
– Emotion-cognition does not transform feeling Feeling never changes
– but feeling linked to different images and thoughts
In development, modular systems - emotion, cognition, motor - become less insular and more integrated
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Is there emotional feeling without knowledge of feeling? Infantile memory
– Strong emotional associations– Without explicit knowledge of associations– Makes associations inaccessible to reflection
and difficult to change– Memories of smells, movements, even abuse
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For DET, Feeling is a
Quality of consciousness– Not defined by cognitions
Hence, babies have them!– But by action-tendencies and readiness
– Inherently adaptive• Maladaptive when linked to wrong cognitions
Role of cognition
For Barrett, emotion knowledge is necessary. – Hence no emotions for babies?
If emotion is a feeling, cognition is not necessary
But if emotion is about something, some degree of cognition is involved
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Discrete Emotions Theory (DET) Hypotheses “Emotion-specific” programs unite expressive,
physiological, and phenomenological processes As the CNS matures, “basic emotions emerge as
structured wholes” – don’t come together developmentally
There are no display rules operating in infancy– In infancy, as discrete emotions arise, they should be
accompanied by discrete facial expressions of those emotions (read-outs)
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Assumptions about Categorization
The form of infant expressions matches the adult form– MAX is based on adult & infant
configurations But few of these correspond with
adult (FACS) configurations Adults can identify and respond
to discrete emotional expression– In a forced choice paradigm they
pick the right MAX configuration more
But accuracy is low and results are mixed for negative
But not with free choice
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Situational appropriateness: Production studies
Premise: In response to an appropriate elicitor
(situation), hypothesized emotional expression should occur significantly more than other expressions
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Negative emotional expressions are not situationally specific Through 2 months, Justine
– shows distress to bathing, being moved, & pacifier removal (inoculation and hunger)
After 2 months, anger and, to a much lesser degree, sadness are most common reaction to all negative elicitors– infants cry, not a specific reaction
• Camras, 1992
Examples
Examples (Slides 3-10 are pictures) : http://www.slideserve.com/marilu/emotions
Sad distresssmile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akPVtObBUOk&feature=related
Distress: Saddisress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7oD9WX-1CU Fear/orientdistress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=QiBrPkGoqFM Feardistress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fASp42ZvjIM&feature=fvwrel, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=H-1me_wsuyk (alligator bite)
Sad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szLjXta0Szw, dad singing http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dAzLsnYvdYo&feature=related (lower lip in response to rasberries)
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Maze game—Scary—children
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGd5NqP6qd4 Slow-motion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC5qPvTQUdo
Compendium: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cypeLuCIrU0 Long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9kNCBGEyfk 0:55-1:07, 1:45-2:30
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Surprise examples
Expression on demand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=8DaKcKqVheE&NR=1
Coordinative structure? http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=cOvtNPljtv0&feature=related
Posed adult: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4AyfrM8Q2o Girl and Dad 1:05—1:40. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5HXl_zJ5po
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Dynamic blends
Discrete emotions—pattern of facial action. When patterns from different emotion
expressions occur together, a blend occurs. Matias & Cohn found that negative blends
were as frequent as negative discrete emotions. – Positive discrete > positive blends
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Summary
Some negative facial expressions – are not recognizably expressions of discrete
emotions– do not always occur in response to appropriate
elicitors– nor do they occur discretely in time
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Functional and dynamic views Emotion is not inside you. Emotions are process of changing (or
maintaining) relations with environment significant to the individual.
Emotions influence situation.
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Alternative views
Functional– Insight: Recognition of function of emotions and their
flexibility in functioning Regulating emotion to achieve goals
– Difficulty: Use goals to interpret behavior but use behavior to infer goals
Dynamic– Insight: Recognition of interfacing role of multiple
components in emotional process– Difficulty: Specifying process
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Functionalist theory
Emotion is the person’s attempt or readiness to establish, maintain, or change the relation between the person and the environment on on matters of significance to that person (Saarni et al., 1998).– Emotion is associated with goal-attainment, social
relationships, situational appraisals, action tendencies, self-understanding, self regulation, etc.
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Dynamic systems
Development, interaction, and (emotional) behavior are complex
involving multiple interfacing/interacting constituents
which produce patterns we see as pre-designed regularities
A bottom-up approach– Discrete emotions as preferred states formed from the
interface of multiple constituents
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Dynamic phenomena
The raised brow of interest occurs with raising the head
There are different interest expressions– Problems with top-down approaches
Duchenne smiling as a muscular dynamic Joy appears to develop in time Neonatal (Duchenne) smile may emerge before
happiness Importance?
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Dynamic systems alternative
‘Distress-pain, anger, sadness often seen together during crying’
Perhaps negative emotion in infancy differs in intensity - phases of crying - distress & anger, with sadness reflecting a weakening of intensity– Camras
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Surprise expressions as coordinative motor structures Results indicate that MO is selectively associated
with raised brows – Brow raises occurred after the onset of the MO
movement, further suggesting that MO recruits raised brows.
Facial criteria may be inappropriate for identifying "surprise" expressions in infants.
– Camras, L. A., Lambrecht, L., & Michel, G. F. (1996). Infant "surprise" expressions as coordinative motor structures. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 20(3), 183-195.
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Interest expressions as coordinative motor structures Opening the mouth is accompanied by brow
raising in infants, thus producing "surprise“ expressions in non-surprise situations.– Raised-brow movements significantly co-
occurred with head-up and/or eyes-up movements for both ages.
– Knit-brows co-occurred with eyes-down at 5 mo and head-down at 7 mo
Michel, G. F., Camras, L. A., & Sullivan, J. (1992). Infant interest expressions as coordinative motor structures. Infant Behavior and Development, 15(3), 347-358.
Feedback loops
Internal: Proprioceptive External: Social
– "I take smiling to be a social signal," Messinger says. "I really think that babies are learning what joy is by sharing it with someone else." In other words, smiling might not be so much an expression of a preexisting state as a path we take to get to that state.
Why do babies smile? - Slate Magazine, Jul 1, 2010 –
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Mirror Neuron System
Neural basis for apperception of others’ experience
What you see is what you feel Research limitations
– Inter-species generalization, imaging constraints, etc
But potential source of ASD affective deficits…
Relative reduced activity of pars opercularis of inferior frontal gyrusto facial expressions
Dapretto et al., 2006, Nature Neuroscience
Observation Imitation(Typical – ASD)
Holodynski & Friedlmeier (2010). The Development of
Emotions and Emotion Regulation.
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Internalization model
Three postulates describing the mechanisms involved in the development of the emotion components
1. The processes that differentiate the appraisal and expression components are interdependent
2. Expression signs can be used symbolically3. Body sensations accompanying emotions are
transformed into conscious feeling
Oberwelland
1a. Differentiation of the Expressive Reactions In adults: appraisal precedes expression and body
reactions (cause-effect relation) In infants: effects tend to be reciprocal when
emotions emerge!– caregivers talk and smile to their infants to provoke a
reaction– First smile of infant as a result of imitation– Caregivers will mark such events contingently by
increased smiling and talking– Infant builds up contingencies and initiate the cycle of
pleasure ( real smiling)– Evidence: differences in expressing anger at different
agesOberwelland
1b. Expression Signs as Mediators between Infant and Caregiver Coregulation
– Interdependence of infant and parent behavior– Infant’s emotional experiences are mediated by the
caregivers’ interpretation– Caregivers respond with actions that are
coordinated with their interpretation of their baby’s expression (feeding the crying infant)
– Temporal contingencies will emerge when the caregiver acts sensitively, promptly and consistently
Oberwelland
1c. Affect Mirroring and Motor Mimicry Caregivers mirror their infants’ emotion-
specific expression signs in their own expressions
Infants register the contingent mirroring and then anticipate this from their caregivers
Infants imitate their caregivers’ expression signs
Interplay between caregiver and infants leads to synchronization of expression signs, universal and individual signs
Oberwelland
2. Expression signs can be used symbolically Transformation of expressive reactions into
expression signs– Represent generalized emotion specific action
readiness and subjective feeling state Example mother - infant:
– Smile from the mother as assurance – Mother’s angry face as avoidance sign
Example infant - mother:– Infant starts crying when a wish is denied, and stops
immediately when the wish gets fulfilledCrying is used as a symbol not as an expression of real
distress Oberwelland
3. Body sensations accompanying emotions into conscious feeling
Without signs, no consciousness; without expression signs, no conscious feeling
Feeling emerges from interoceptive and proprioceptive feedback on body and expressive reactions
Example feeling state of pleasure: – Expression sign: smiling– Feedback associated with pleasure: warmth, relaxation– Feedback not associated with pleasure: e.g. itchy leg… Only those relevant will be single out
Oberwelland
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Emotion is not facial expression
“Happiness alone is not sufficient to produce smiles. Rather, happiness produces smiles only during social interaction.” (Ferenandez-Dols & Ruiz-Belda, 1995, p. 1114).
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Behavioral ecologists.
Biologically oriented ethologists attempting to explain signaling behavior across species within a framework of evolution through natural selection.
Facial expressions do not reflect emotions They occur during social interaction &
reflect social motives and negotiation
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Behavioral ecology view
Facial displays:– “signify our trajectory in a given social
interaction” – “’social tools’ aiding the negotiation of social
encounters”– “specific to intent and context”
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Dimensional
Emphasizes commonalities between emotions
De-emphasizes uniqueness of individual emotions