The neuroimaging study conducted by Karim S. Kassam et al involved 10 actors entering the state of nine emotions, anger, disgust, envy, fear, happiness, lust, pride, shame and sadness, in a randomised order whilst having their brain activity scanned using a fMRI. The experiment was comprised of a series of phases, the first being that the actors were told to enter each of the listed emotional states whilst attached to the fMRI. In the second phase of the experiment, the actors were presented with both neutral and disgusting images that they had not previously seen. Along with the use of a fMRI scanner, a computer model was also used in order to read the brain activity as shown from the fMRI scans. During the second phase of the study, the computer …show more content…
model was able to correctly identify the emotional content that was present in the images from the brain activity of each participant. From the first phase the researchers used each participant’s neural activation patterns in order to correctly identify the emotions that were present in that participant but in later scans. In the third phase of the research, the research team used the machine learning analysis from the self induced emotions to guess which emotions were experienced when shown the disgusting imagery.
The final phase saw the researchers applying the machine learning analysis of neural activation patterns from each actor but one, in order to make a prediction of which emotions were to be experienced by the actor that wasn’t included. When the computer model was tested for its accuracy of predictions and results it achieved a rank accuracy of 0.91. Rank accuracy is the percentile rank of correct emotion in an ordered list of the guesses made by the computer model; guessing achieves a rank accuracy of 0.50. The results from the study found that from the nine emotions to select from, the computer model listed disgust as the most likely emotion 60% of the time and it was a part of the top two guesses 80% of the time. On average the computer model ranked the correct emotion as highest among all of its guesses; the computer model was most accurate at identifying happiness and least accurate at identifying envy. The computer model rarely confused positive and negative emotions which suggests that there are distinct neural signatures that make it difficult to confuse the
two. The emotion lust was least likely to be misidentified by the computer model which suggests that it produces a neural activity pattern that is unlike any of the other listed emotions. Overall the results from this study presented the idea that there are three main organising factors that establish the emotion neural signatures, these being: the positive of negative valence of the emotion, its intensity as either mild or strong and finally the sociality of the emotion which refers to its involvement of non-involvement of another individual.
Sian Beilock is the author of this novel, the information written by her would be considered credible due to the fact that she is a leading expert on brain science in the psychology department at the University of Chicago. This book was also published in the year 2015 which assures readers that the information it contains is up to date and accurate. The novel is easy to understand and the author uses examples of scientific discoveries to help make the arguments more relatable. Beilock goes into depth about how love, is something more than just an emotion, it derives from the body’s anticipation. “Volunteers reported feeling
Consider the second criteria of emotionality. Emotionality is one’s ability to feel and be affected by emotion. While all average individua...
...., Verbeke, W., Dietvorst, R., van den Berg, W., Bagozzi, R., & De Zeeuw, C. (2012). fMRI activities in the emotional cerebellum: a preference for negative stimuli and goal-directed behavior. Cerebellum (London, England), 11(1), 233-245
The first section explores the “flat-brain theory of emotions, flat-brain syndrome, and flat-brain tango” (Petersen, 2007, pp. 2-45). All three are interrelated (Petersen, 2007). The flat-brain theory of emotions “demonstrates what’s occurring inside of us when things are going well, and how that changes when they are not” (Petersen, 2007, p. 11). Petersen’s (2007) theory “explains how our emotions, thinking, and relating abilities work and how what goes on inside us comes out in the ways we communicate and act” (p. 8). The “flat-brain syndrome” describes what happens when an individual wears their emotions on their sleeve. This “makes it
A methodological paradigm employed would be a combination of that outlined in (5) and (6). The use of video varying in, rated, emotional intensity would be used as the stimulus in a similar fashion as (6), the methodology would then follow that outlined in (5) [with video stimuli inserted in place of pictures]. EEG recordings would be taken while participants viewed the stimuli and, subsequently, analyzed appropriately.
The focus of this literature review is on the patterns of amygdala activation and its role in attentional threat assessment, as well the effects of the neuropeptide oxytocin on the amygdala. The amygdala plays an important role in human threat assessment. In both humans and primates, the identification of facial expressions and their direction of gaze is a necessary aspect of social behavior, and the amygdala plays a large role in this function (Boll, Gamer, Kalisch, & Buchel, 2011, p. 299). From a medical standpoint, the study of the amygdala would help in understanding the neurological basis of many behavior disorders such as borderline personality disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. These studies make use of novel techniques with a combination of functional MRI and eye tracking based face perception tasks. More recent studies have involved more precise imaging in order to observe specific regions of the amygdala, rather than the amygdala as a whole structure. The amygdala is strongly influenced by fearful and angry faces, which stimulate feelings of threat. The amygdala also exhibits differential activation in different sexes, thus having extensive implications on tailoring drugs for mood disorders in the different sexes (Lischke et al., 2012, p. 1432).
Plutchik, Robert (1980), Emotion: Theory, research, and experience: Vol. 1. Theories of emotion, 1, New York: Academic
The biological perspective examines how brain processes and other bodily functions regulate behaviour. It emphasizes that the brain and nervous system are central to understanding behaviour, thought, and emotion. It is believed that thoughts and emotions have a physical basis in the brain. Electrical impulses zoom throughout the brain’s cells, releasing chemical substances that enable us to think, feel, and behave. René Descartes (1596–1650) wrote an influential book (De Homine [On Man]) in which he tried to explain how the behaviour of animals, and to some extent the behaviour of humans, could be like t...
In both clinical care and research, the use of brain imaging, also known as “neuroimaging”, is becoming an increasingly important technique. New technologies such as Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or FMRI, allow researchers to study the brain at a level which was never thought possible. This noninvasive procedure allows researchers to visualize brain structure and function, at both the molecular and whole brain level (A.) Scientists are now able to better understand neural networks and a variety of other cognitive processes. For the first time in human history, extremely complex wonders of the brain are being uncovered. Psychiatric diseases, human emotion, personality traits, and many other phenomena that were once mysteries are now being deeply analyzed and understood. Each day new doors are being opened...
Emotion is the “feeling” aspect of consciousness that includes physical, behavioral, and subjective (cognitive) elements. Emotion also contains three elements which are physical arousal, a certain behavior that can reveal outer feelings and inner feelings. One key part in the brain, the amygdala which is located within the limbic system on each side of the brain, plays a key role in emotional processing which causes emotions such as fear and pleasure to be involved with the human facial expressions.The common-sense theory of emotion states that an emotion is experienced first, leading to a physical reaction and then to a behavioral reaction.The James-Lange theory states that a stimulus creates a physiological response that then leads to the labeling of the emotion. The Cannon-Bard theory states that the physiological reaction and the emotion both use the thalamus to send sensory information to both the cortex of the brain and the organs of the sympathetic nervous system. The facial feedback hypothesis states that facial expressions provide feedback to the brain about the emotion being expressed on the face, increasing all the emotions. In Schachter and Singer’s cognitive arousal theory, also known as the two-factor theory, states both the physiological arousal and the actual arousal must occur before the emotion itself is experienced, based on cues from the environment. Lastly, in the cognitive-mediational theory
Discuss the "cognition versus biology" debate in the study of emotion. Outline first the cognitive position and then the biological position. Discuss one possible, satisfying resolution to the cognition versus biology debate, using an original example to illustrate this
One scientist, Damasio, provided an explanation how emotions can be felt in humans biologically. Damasio suggested, “Various brain structures map both the organism and external objects to create what he calls a second order representation. This mapping of the organism and the object most likely occurs in the thalamus and cingulate cortices. A sense of self in the act of knowing is created, and the individual knows “to whom this is happening.” The “seer” and the “seen,” the “thought” and the “thinker” are one in the same.” By mapping the brain scientists can have a better understandi...
A recently published article seems to lend new information as to the way in which emotions influence our decision-making process. While emotions and reasoning are considered inherently separate by some, new experiments are challenging that perception. A series of studies done by experimental psychologists now show us that emotion plays a very natural role in decision-making situations. The experiments, ranging in type from neuroimaging to simple classical conditioning, suggest that emotions can affect everything from simple judgments of other people to severe behavioral disabilities seen for example in sociopathic individuals.
R. J. Dolan, Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior, Science 8 November 2002: 298 (5596), 1191-1194. [DOI:10.1126/science.1076358]
The experience of emotion, according to Barrett et al. (2007), is a mental representation of emotion, including memories of feelings, hypothetical feelings and current feelings that give information on how such feeling arise. Emotion experiences have a specific content, which explains what an emotion feels like, and their properties are instantiated through neurobiological processes. The nucleus of emotion experience (or mental representation of emotion) is core affect, i.e. neurophysiological states that are experienced as feelings of pleasure or displeasure in response to external stimuli (Barrett et al., 2007). Additional contents of emotion experience that explain the phenomenological differences between the distinct emotions, i.e. anger, fear, sadness, pride, awe, and joy, are the arousal-based content, the relational content or content related to dominance/submission and the situational content (Barrett et al., 2007). For Barrett et al. (2007), the role of the