emotion and cognition historically emotion and cognition were thought to be distinct and separable...

Emotion and CognitionEmotion and Cognition

• Historically emotion and cognition were thought to be distinct and separable mental activities

• E.g., Plato proposed that the mind had 3 separable aspects: intellect, will, and emotion


• What is emotion– Controversial question

• Emotions are (Ochsner & Gross Handbook of emotions)– 1. Valenced (i.e., good/bad) response to external

stimulus or internal representation that involves– 2. result in changes across multiple types of

responses (behavioral, physiological)


• Emotions– 3. often have identifiable triggers– 4. both learned (response to a bully) and

unlearned (withdrawing hand from hot stove)– 5. mediated by distinct neural systems


• Recent focus on emotion comes from cognitive neuroscience research, which demonstrated that there are specific neural structures (esp. Amygdala), that are specialized for processing emotional stimuli


• Emotions– Case of S.M. (damage to amygdala)– S.M. age 42– Last time S.M. appear to be scared was at the age

of 10 although she has been physically assaulted and held up at knife point

– S.M. has Urbach-Wiethe disease a genetic disorder that is progressive

– Leads to degeneration of amygdalae


• S.M.– Neuropsychological tests – S.M. intelligence in normal range– No perceptual or motor problems


• S.M. performance on tests of emotion– Impaired in fear identification in set of photos;

normal performance on sadness, anger, disgust, happiness, and surprise

– Could sketch facial diagrams showing each emotion above except for fear


• S.M. performance on tests of emotion– Studies showed that she understands situations

that are fearful– But, this does not appear to prevent her from

getting involved in fearful situations


– Amygdala - small almond-shaped structure, just anterior to the hippocampus; it is located in medial temporal lobe

– Amygdala is specialized in processing emotion– Amygdala also influences cognitive processes

and is influenced by cognitive processes

• Thus, both cognition and emotion need to considered in context of each other


• Amygdala and related brain structures


– Basic question: are emotions biologically hardwired or derived from other more basic causes

– William James argued they were derived or assembled from more basic causes

– Charles Darwin argued that certain emotions were hardwired


– Darwin (1873) The expression of emotion in man and animals

– Investigated emotion across cultures and argued that the expression of certain emotions through facial expression was the same across cultures

– Eckman (1960) investigated cultures around the world and discovered that facial expression for the following emotions was the same: anger, fear, disgust, sadness, happiness, surprise


– Conclusion: this suggests that these emotions are innate and that they may be elicited by the same brain mechanisms across people


– Analyzing emotions– 1. Basic emotions: relatively small set of

emotions developed through evolution, and reflected in facial emotion (e.g., fear, anger, happiness)

– 2. Complex emotions: combinations of basic emotions (e.g., satisfaction); often learned socially


– Analyzing emotions– 3. Dimensions of emotions: emotions can be

assessed in terms of Valence (pleasant - unpleasant; positive -

negative)Arousal – assesses the amount of valence

Phineus GagePhineus Gage

Phineus GagePhineus Gage

• Computer reconstruction of the path taken by tamping iron through skull of Phineus Gage

Emotion and cognitionEmotion and cognition• Gage walked away from accident, could describe the

accident the next day, and within a month was deemed able to resume work as a foreman

• It became clear that Gage was “no longer Gage”• Prior to injury Gage was a sober, responsible, intelligent, home body,

with no peculiar or bad habits; he was a responsible, valued employee

• After injury he was erratic, given to grossest profanity, impatient, unwilling to listen to advice, and unable to plan effectively

• Tamping iron damaged medial region of prefrontal cortex• Subsequent research has shown that damage to frontal

lobes can lead to dramatic changes in personality while keeping perception, consciousness, and most cognitive functions intact

Emotion and cognitionEmotion and cognition

• Neural circuits of emotion– Emotion is believed to be multifactorial and to involve

several circuits– several different types of emotional behaviors exist and

their expression depends upon the specific nature of the task

– several different brain regions are involved in emotion– These include the anterior cingulate, hypothalamus, and

basal ganglia– 2 regions primarily involved in emotion are the

amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex


• Orbitofrontal cortex– Forms the base of the prefrontal cortex and is adjacent to

the upper wall of the orbit above the eyes– Orbitofrontal cortex is broken down into two distinct

areas: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the lateral orbitofrontal prefrontal cortex

ventromedial prefrontal cortex – is one of the primary areas damaged in Phineus Gage

– Exact function of orbitofrontal cortex is unclear, but it appears to be involved in regulating our ability to inhibit, evaluate, and act in social and emotional decision making situations


• Human orbitofrontal cortex, divided into the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (green) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (red)


• Human orbitofrontal cortex


• Emotional learning– places, persons, locations, and objects have an emotional

valence or value associated with them – Valence is usually acquired through emotional learning– Some stimuli are inherently positive or negative; no

learning is involved – e.g., shock, very loud noise; these are referred to as primary reinforcers

– Other stimuli are neutral initially but take on a positive or negative valence because they have positive or negative consequences associated with them; i.e., the emotional valence is learned; called secondary reinforcers


• Fear conditioning– Fear conditioning used to investigate emotional learning

of negative valences– Paradigm with rats– An initially neutral stimulus (CS conditioned stimulus)

such as a light is paired with an aversive stimulus such as a mild shock (US unconditioned stimulus)

– Shock elicits a fear response to shock, called an unconditioned response

– With repeated trials the rat learns that the light predicts the shock and exhibits a fear response to light, called the conditioned response


• Fear conditioning– Results show that damage to the amygdala impairs

conditioned fear responses– However, damage to the amygdala does not impair the

fear response indicating that response does not depend upon the amygdala

– Thus amygdala is associated with learning or memory of fear

– The neural circuit associated with fear learning is complex


• Fear conditioning– Neural circuit associated with fear learning– Emotional stimulus (e.g., CS light) seen by eyes; projects

to thalamus; then sent (a) to amygdala “low road”; and (b) to sensory cortex (e.g., visual cortex) “high road” for further analysis

– The “low road” provides quick and dirty crude signal to amygdala that a stimulus resembling the CS was perceived; high road provides a more detailed analysis of sensory input, which then, if it is CS, is projected back to the amygdala


• Fear conditioning– Neural circuit associated with fear learning– Thus, there are 2 routes of projection to the amygdala; a

fast signal that is susceptible to error and a slower route that less error prone

– Advantageous when a danger is present to have dual routes

– Information from amygdala projects to regions that activate behavioral, autonomic, and endocrine (hormone) emotional responses

– It also projects to anterior cingulate and ventromedial frontal lobe

Emotion and cognition Emotion and cognition

• Emotional processing by human to rattlesnake

• Note: “high and low road” routes to amygdala; autonomic responses (e.g., heart rate); actions of hiker modulated by ventromedial frontal regions


• Emotional learning and memory• Neural circuit associated with fear conditioning is believed to

be an implicit memory system; its effects are expressed indirectly through a behavioral or physiological response though of course humans can directly express the response– However, many emotional memories are believed to be

implicit and explicit and are mediated by different brain regions


• Emotional learning and memory• Neural circuit associated with fear learning and memory

– Phelps (1998) Patient SP had bilateral amygdala damage

– Fear conditioning experiment– SP and controls were presented a blue square and during

acquisition phase of study, the blue square was paired with a mild electrical shock to the wrist

– SP and controls showed normal fear response to shock as measured by skin conductance response (SCR), an autonomic nervous system response indicating arousal

– However, SP did not show a conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus (blue square) presented by itself


• Aside• Emotion elicits bodily reactions

– when scared, heart beats faster and we sweat as a result of arousal of the autonomic nervous system

– Skin conductance response (SCR) also called galvanic skin response (GSR) measures change in skin conductance resulting from activity of sweat glands; hence a measure of arousal


• Skin conductance response by SP and controls to conditioned and unconditioned stimulus


• Emotional learning and memory• Neural circuit associated with fear learning and memory

SP however, had declarative memory for the experimental task and reported that she understood the association between the blue square and the electrical shock, and anticipated being shocked when shown the blue square

Using the same experimental paradigm, patients with hippocampal damage and intact amygdala showed the opposite pattern of results – i.e., normal autonomic conditioning, but were unable to report there was a blue square, or the association between the blue square and electrical shock

Conclusion- amygdala necessary for implicit expression of emotional learning, but not necessary for explicit memory emotional events


• Social decision making– Frontal lobes are positioned to combine information from

a variety of sources because of way information from the posterior regions projects to the frontal regions

– Thus, it can select what behavior is appropriate in a given situation

– The orbitofrontal lobes appear to help in the selection of appropriate actions when action is based on social cues

– Patients with orbitofrontal lobe damage appear to have difficulty taking into account social context in their actions relying too heavily on perceptual cues, and producing inappropriate responses in a social context


• Social decision making– In terms of Shallice’s SAS model, the perceptual input is

not combined with contextual information to select an appropriate response

PerceptualStructures

TriggerDataBase

EffectorSystem

ContentionScheduling

SupervisoryAttentional

System


• Social decision making– Utilization and imitative behavior– Lhermitte (1983; 1986) showed that px with frontal lobe

damage tended to rely excessively on perceptual input and show imitative and utilization behavior

– E.g., px pick up pencil on doctor’s table, and perform actions that were socially odd – e.g., came in doctor’s office where there was a hammer, nail, and picture and began to hang the picture

– Or socially inappropriate – left hypodermic needle in desk, doctor dropped his trousers, and turned his back on patient– patient pick up needle and jabbed it into doctor’s butt! (Don’t try to get this through ethics)

– Lhermitte dubbed this utilization behavior -- patient’s rely too much on perceptual input to guide behavior


• Imitative and utilization behaviors

• Imitation. Patient mimics physician making threatening gesture


• Utilization behavior patient – when objects are placed in front of patient, he or she uses them – Patient tries to put on 3 pairs of glasses


• Emotional decision making– Damasio (1994) argued that rational decision making

depends critically on an emotional evaluation of the consequences of an action

– When weighing the consequences of an action we need to have an common measuring stick to assess the benefits and costs of an action

– This metric was called by Damasio, a somatic marker– Somatic markers are bodily sensations (gut feelings) that

help us evaluate our feelings about a potential action– Quick process that allows us to assess which options we

feel most positively about, and they allow us to discard options that elicit negative feelings


• Emotional decision making– Test of somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1994)– Provides an account of behavior of px with orbitofrontal

(and perhaps amygdala) damage– Such patients understand events and objects that are

emotionally affective, but they are stripped of emotional content (valence) associated with them

– Skin conductance response (SCR) experiment– Purpose: to determine whether orbitofrontal px have

normal SCR to pictures with emotional content – Note: these pictures have content by virtue of our

memories; they are not intrinsically arousing like a loud noise or electrical shock


• Emotional decision making– Test of somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1994)

– Px with orbitofrontal damage and controls were shown a series of emotional and neutral photos; SCR was measured

– Results showed that px with orbitofrontal damage did not show autonomic emotional response to emotional stimuli, unlike controls

– However, both groups showed an autonomic response to an intrinsically negative stimulus like a loud noise

• 13.8 Top panel shows examples of neutral (N) and Emotional (E) stimuli used in experiment

• Bottom panel shows SCR responses of patients and controls


• Emotion and declarative memory– Consolidation refers to a process by which memories

become more stable over time, and in some cases performance on tasks requiring memory improves

– In the case of declarative memories for emotional events this process appears to take time and occurs through the modulation of hippocampal processing during storage not encoding


• Emotion and declarative memory– Experimental approach to investigate effects of amygdala

activation on declarative memoryInvestigators disrupted or enhanced amygdala processing

after memory encodingE.g., Study – maze learning task with rats (maze learning

requires hippocampus); after learning rats were given drug that induced excitation response in amygdala or saline (baseline) injection

Group with elevated amygdala response showed better memory for the maze than baseline group (Packard & Teather, 1998)


• Emotion and declarative memoryEffects of amygdala activation have also been reported for

nondeclarative (habit memory) memory mediated by the striatal regions (Packard & Cahill, 2001)



activation on declarative memoryAmygdala enhances hippocampal consolidation through

activation of the beta-adrenergic system in the amygdala (a system that is hormonal activated); it has been shown that beta blockers that block beta-adrenergic receptors also eliminate the effects of arousal on memory

Note: the hormonal changes that affect hippocampal consolidation are released during emotional arousal in situations of danger.

– it has been proposed that functional purpose of this process is to increase chances that stimuli that result in an emotional reaction are more likely to be not forgotten


• Emotion and declarative memory– Declarative memory is better for emotional arousing stimuli– Amygdala has a secondary role in declarative memory

(although a primary role in nondeclarative emotional memory)

– Px with amygdala damage did not show an arousal-enhanced memory (e.g., La Bar & Phelps, 1998)

– Also there was a correlation between strength of an amygdala response to an emotional stimulus at encoding and subsequent memory performance as measured in a neuroimaging study (e.g., Cahill et al., 1996)

– Thus amygdala influences declarative memory but medial temporal lobe is critically involved in acquisition of declarative memories



activation on declarative memory– Effects of delay on emotional memory– If arousal affects storage of declarative memories via the

amygdala, then there should be slower forgetting of emotional than neutral stimuli

– Kleinsmith & Kaplan (1963) presented word-digit pairs at study; half the words were emotional and arousing; half were neutral

– At test, words were presented and participants recalled the digits; participants were tested immediately or after 24 hours


• Emotion and declarative memory– Kleinsmith & Kaplan (1963)– Results– On immediate test there was no difference between

neutral and emotional words– At 24 hour delay digits paired with emotional words were

better recalled


• Kleinsmith & Kaplan (1963)

• Recall of digits paired with emotional or neutral words on immediate test or after 24 hour delay

Case Description of AMCase Description of AM

Successful businessman prior to TBI Average to very superior general intellectual

functioning Normal academic, attention, and executive

function abilities Generally intact memory abilities Poor social judgment; everything is positive

Park et al. (2001) Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychology of semantic memory

Neuropsychology of semantic memory

• How are other types of information represented in semantic memory?– Some evidence suggests that evaluative

information is processed and stored in a different location than denotative information

a b

c d

Amygdala

Temporal

Frontal

L. Amygdala

R. Temporal

Attitude Priming Study of AMAttitude Priming Study of AM

Purpose: to investigate AM’s evaluative rating of words

Hypothesis: impaired automatic evaluation of negative but not positive evaluative stimuli


Attitude Priming (continued)Attitude Priming (continued)

Method: attitude priming paradigm

– Participants: AM and 8 age - and education -matched controls

Procedure:– Phase 1: rate single words as “good” or “bad”– hypothesized positivity bias


Rating of Words in Phase 1Rating of Words in Phase 1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Controls AM

Nu

mb

er R

ated

"G

oo

d"

Controls

AM

Response Latency to Phase 1 Words

Response Latency to Phase 1 Words

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

AM Control

Mse

c Negative

Positive

Phase 2Phase 2

Task: rate target as good or bad as quickly as possible

prime(pos or neg)

250 ms

blankscreen50 ms

target(pos or neg)

Control Priming Results Phase 2Control Priming Results Phase 2

640

680

720

760

800

Positive Target Negative Target

Mse

c Pos. Prime

Neg. Prime

AM Priming Results Phase 2AM Priming Results Phase 2

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

Positive Target Negative Target

Mse

c Pos. Prime

Neg. Prime

Summary of Attitude PrimingSummary of Attitude Priming

Positivity bias in rating single words

Slowed responses only to words rated as bad

Priming in positive valence condition only Conclusion: AM can automatically access

positive but not negative evaluative information


Connotation Generation Study of AMConnotation Generation Study of AM

Purpose: to determine whether AM could access negative evaluative information when directed

Task: describe two positive and two negative features of single words (e.g., coffee)

Same 92 words used as primes in Experiment 1


Acceptable Good and Bad Connotations

Acceptable Good and Bad Connotations

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

AM Control

Acc

epta

ble

Co

nn

ota

tio

ns

Good

Bad

Semantic priming and AMSemantic priming and AM

• Purpose of experiment– to determine whether AM would show normal

semantic priming– prior research has shown that the latency to

respond to a target is facilitated when the prime preceding the target is semantically related compared to when it is unrelated

• Method– similar to Phase 2 of the first study


• Method– similar to Phase 2 of the first study– task: show prime-then target; make a lexical

decision about target item (word/nonword)


Mean response latency (ms) to semantically related and unrelated word pairs

300400500600700800900

1000

AM Control

Mea

n r

esp

on

se l

aten

cy

(ms) Related

Unrelated

ConclusionsConclusions

• Conclusions– AM impaired in his automatic processing of

negative evaluative informationpositivity biasno priming for negative evaluative words

– AM not impaired in his denotative or semantic processing of words

– suggests a dissociation between these two aspects of semantic memory

emotion and cognition historically emotion and cognition were thought to be distinct and separable...

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