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Emotion

Why emotion in cognitive science?

recent work (LeDoux, Damasio)

emotion closely tied to• thought

• perception

• decision making

• learning

unconscious computations underlieconscious decision

Disciplines and Methods clinical and counseling psychologists

introspection and psychoanalytic- unconscious

physiologists response of body to stress

psychiatrists emotions out of control

neurologists often the first screening

experimental psychologists affects on behavior, social interaction, effectiveness

neuropsychologists

Neurophysiologists studying emotion in animals (Le Doux)

Methods

• fear conditioning

• anatomical tracing

• lesion and ablation

• behavior

Historical Perspective onEmotion versus Cognition

Why not part of cognitive science?

Roots of the ideas (LeDoux)

Greek preoccupation with rationality Man as a rational thinker

Philosophy - the modern mind preoccupation with consciousness

Decartes - “I think therefore I am”

humans are conscious

humans are above animals

Freud - the unconscious is…

home of primitive instinct

link between humans and animals

an enormously important component of thehuman psyche…

rationality is there to suppress….

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Cognitive science

resurrects the Greek idea of mind

rationality and its “side-kick” - language

human mind• “carefully engineered machine”

no place for “animal mind”

time to reevaluate “science of mind”

failure of logical computation

emphasis on neural computation

evolution of adaptive systems

progress of neuroscience

Le Doux’s Perspective on Emotion

not just 1 thing each emotion best studied in isolation

• fear - different brain areas, different functions

• disgust

• happiness

• depression/sadness

Emotional behavior highly conservedthrough evolution 4 F’s

• fight

• flight

• feeding and ….

Emotional responses

• freezing, heart rate, autonomic …etc.

When emotions occur in animals withconsciousness…..

emotions are experienced consciously

generated by unconscious processes

once aroused -> feelings “conscious”

post-hoc analysis• love, annoyance, anger

– basically cognitive

Labeled conscious feelings, like love, hate, etc.red herrings

not worthy of scientific study

part of the post-hoc analyses

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Emotion can be studied with animal models

animal and human brains more comparablehere than anywhere else!

Emotional feelings qualitatively same a anyother conscious state

That is an apple - ah ha!

I’m mad!

Emotions happen to us passively

though we can try to manipulate them

Emotions powerful behavioral motivators

love, hurt, anger, insult - war, etc.

Where in the brain is emotion? lesion/ablation approach

decorticate animals showed normal emotion• cats - provoked…crouched, etc.

• autonomic arousal– pupil dilation

– blood pressure increases

– piloerection

still somewhat abnormal• unregulated….

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Cannon and Bard (29)

stimulus

thalamus

hypothalamus

body reaction

Papez Circuit - Limbic Brain

Herrick’s idea’s (early 20th century)

brain evolution lateral surface -phylogentically newer

medial part - phylogenetically older

stimulus

thalamus

hypothalamus

body reaction

Stream of Feeling

stimulus

thalamus

cortex

Stream of Thought

stimulus

thalamus

cortexcingulatehippocampushypothalamusthalamus

Emotion from integration circuit

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Question

If we are to study emotions individually…. How many emotions are there?

What are they?

How do we decide they are separate?

How many emotions?Ekman’s list

fear

sadness

happiness

anger

disgust

surprise

W. James

“It is difficult to imagine emotions in the absence of their bodily expressions”

J. LeDoux

“We know our emotions by their intrusions”

When they really intrude!

How many emotions?

fear - phobias

sadness - depression

happiness - mania

anger - aggression

disgust - OCD

Study emotions individually

LeDoux’s working hypothesis

If correct that they are different systems good choice

If not… nothing lost by focusing on one

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Why Fear?pervasive and diverse in humans

predator, etc….

intellectually-based existential fear

prominent and diverse in psychopathology phobias

• snakes, cats, heights, open spaces, social situations...

Expressed similarly in humans and animals withdraw

immobility (freezing)

defensive aggression

submission

Repertoire

startle

orientation

freeze, flight, or attack

cat and rat…first rat startles, next orients,.. If far -> flee

If close ->freeze

If unsuccessful - vocalize and attack

Fear conditioning

standard classical conditioning learning to pair a previously objective

stimulus…e.g., tone, etc.

to a painful outcome…..

the tone elicits fear…without the painfuloutcome….

A tool for studying emotion in animals...

Fear Conditioning

fruit fly

marine snail

fish

lizard

pigeon

rabbit

rat

cat

dog

macaque

human...

Rat

fear condition rat to sound-shock pair

Which parts of the auditory system required? dissect out the neuro-pathways

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Auditory cortex damage did not extinguish conditioning

Where else? thalamus (MGN)???

• anatomical tracers…

• from MGN

reveals projections to 4 areas...

Systematically ablate each area in turn…

result clear amygdala destruction

• no fear conditioning

More evidenceStimulation of amygdala

(Kapp)

produces a fear response

activation of autonomic nervous system

So what does the amygdala do?

Find areas to which the amygdala projects anatomical forward tracing methods

Central gray

Lateral hypothalamus

Paraventricular hypothalamus

Reticulopontis caudalis

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Conclusions and Implications

fear can bypass the neocortex

what about the sensory pattern recognitionsystems in cortex…????

pattern detection in the thalamus???

High Road and Low Road

What if the fear trigger is similar to a non-fear trigger….

Schneiderman et al… similar tones…1 with shock 1 without

at first rabbits over-generalize

eventually learn to fear only the “bad” one

destruction of auditory cortex• Over-generlize again

Low road for speed!

The inputs of the fear system

sensory thalamus What we have been talking about

sensory cortex higher level discriminations….

cognitive appraisal…• e.g. seeing a gun

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rhinal cortex and hippocampus memory

medial prefrontal extinction

inhibition!

Summary -What is an emotion?

a brain process• physiological reaction to stimulus

psychological reaction to a perception• danger, life-altering event

system of drives, actions, fulfillment• drives - stimulus -> glucose drop, etc

• action - eat

• satisfaction - contentment

Taxonomy

primary emotions hard-wired through limbic system

• stimulus activates system– associatively conditioned

– innate - ? (facial expressions)

physiological response• hypothalamus - endochrine, neurotransmitters

• internal response (ANS)

Taxonomy

secondary emotions• conscious deliberate cognitive evaluation

– possible simultaneous activation of limbic

• primary route thereafter

Decision-making and EmotionA Case Study

Phineas Gage accident - damage to frontal cortex

Harlow’s study Pre-accident

• responsible, good guy, leadership qualities, polite

Post-accident• inability to plan, make good decisions, social sense

– otherwise cognitively and perceptually intact

Emotion and Human Decision-making

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3D reconstruction of damage Gage (H. Damasio)

prefrontal cortex bilaterally

ventral and inner surfaces affected

external surfaces preserved - working memory

“ventromedial”• known to be involved in decision-making

Modern Phineas Gage

Elliot brain tumor patient

ventromedial prefrontal damage

post-surgery language, mathematics, MMPI

couldn’t make a good decision - like Gage

IQ > normal

Wechsler adult intelligence scale > normal digit spans, etc.

language comprehension > normal

Benton face matching task - fine

all other perceptual tests - normal

Standard Tests for Elliot

Standard Frontal Lobe Tests

Wisconsin card sort task cards that can be sorted by color or form, etc

person must switch criteria

Elliot did fine

Tests with incomplete knowledge How many giraffes are there in New York City?

Elliot normal

Change of perspective

Began to notice the disaffected state of Elliot failed to see evidence of any emotion

later test (Tranel)• emotion-packed images

• Elliot recognized the emotion he had felt previously

• but was unaffected….

Does the impairment in decision makingrelate to the impairment in feeling?

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Dissecting the decision process

decision-making

read problem descriptions

specify alternatives

excellent

Tests for Elliot

maybe he doesn’t understand consequences

consequence prediction x -> y read decision descriptions

predict what follows

excellent

maybe he can’t initiate the process

means-end analysis given a goal - asked to design a way to reach

scenarios from personal and social domain

excellent

maybe he can’t consider right-wrong

moral reasoning test given a difficult moral problem - Kohlberg test

must choose lessor of two evils, etc.

excellent

All said and done…..

Elliot replies:

“but I still wouldn’t know what to do!”

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Emotion and Reasoning

Somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio)

• decisions involve a body-based marker that is theresult of a secondary emotion

Example decisions

glucose drops….get hungry unconscious

not overt knowledge

no inference

no display of options….until you “feel” hungry

object falls - “decide” to get out of the way unconscious

automatic

no inference

decide who to vote for

what to major in

to pursue a friendship or romance

whether or not to fly in bad weather

what % of money to put in stocks

These are seen with a conscious evaluativeand logical basis….

Possibilities

pure reason hypothesis generate a cost-benefit analysis

decide the option with the cost-benefit ration

situations complex, and quantification difficult

Possibilities

Somatic marker hypothesis associative connection to previous experience

BEFORE - cost-benefit

gives a “gut” feeling• positive

• negative

prescreens possibilities…..

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contrast between experience and perception

What is emotion for?

• emotion as communication– primitive language

» expressions, posture, gait - e.g., Blair Witch

» teaching young what to fear, etc.

This despite…...

Psychological data

Economics (R. Frank) “Many actions, purposely taken, with full

knowledge of their consequences, areirrational”

Not just minor decisions (J. L. Borges) description of the Falkland’s war

“two bald men fighting over a comb”