Yesterday I read a scientific article on the brain and emotion. The information here may be used for the question how biological and cognitive factors interact in emotion and for many of the learning outcomes of the biological level of analysis.
Researchers do not yet agree whether emotions form part of one system or whether emotions are generated from many different systems distributed over the brain. The right hemisphere of the brain seems to have specialized to a certain degree on emotion, particularly in regards to expression and perception of emotion. Some specific areas seem to be more important for emotional processing. These are amygdala, prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, the insular cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex (the last two areas can be found between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. The amygdala is involved in the consolidation of long term memories (one example of an interaction between cognitive and biological factors in emotion). It is also related to fear, processing of facial expressions and social signals. The hypothalamus is related to the reward system in the brain, along with basic motivations, such as sex and hunger. It influences emotion because it secretes certain hormones which affect the brain and body. The insular cortex is believed to be involved in many basic emotions, such as anger, fear, disgust, happiness and sadness. The anterior cingulate cortex integrates information from the body and brain and is believed to be the centre of conscious emotion (whereas amygdala may be the centre of unconscious emotion). It works closely with the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is involved in control of emotions (here you can relate to the famous case of Phineas Gage, who lost control of his behavior after damage to his frontal lobe). The prefrontal cortex may also be involved in the interpretation of body signals and their modulation of the intensity of the emotional experience (it is in this area that the appraisal and body arousal are integrated to form an emotional experience as demonstrated in that famous experiment by Schachter & Singer) The prefrontal cortex can regulate emotional processes in other parts of the brain, such as amygdala, because it can choose where to which processes to direct attention and which goals that are more important than others (Even if there is a strong hunger signal from the hypothalamus, your prefrontal cortex can choose to ignore this because you think it is more important to finish reading that article on emotion and brain) Because researchers have not yet agreed on whether emotional processes form part of one system or several systems in the brain, it is difficult to schematize them. But basically you can imagine emotional stimuli and body signals reaching the thalamus (an area involved in basic consciousness) which then relays the information to the hypothalamus, amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex. The pathways to the amygdala and hypothalamus are short and will therefore lead to a quick, unconscious body response (this may be why Ekman's hypothesis of microexpressions works) However, the pathway to the anterior cingulate cortex is longer, which means that the conscious, experience of an emotion is slightly delayed. (the short and long pathways of emotion have also been demonstrated in Le Doux's research on rats) The anterior cingulate cortex then passes on information to the prefrontal cortex, that can choose to regulate the processes of other areas involved in emotion, or make choices between conflicting motivational goals.
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AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
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