Emotion and the Brain

• 1 is assumed by the common sense theory - experiences cause the bodily responses
• The experience comes before the skeletomotor and autonomic reactions have begun
• The three components begin almost simultaneously
• 2 is the basis of the James-Lange theory
• J-L theory: The experience comes after the skeletomotor and autonomic reactions have begun
• James-Lange theory of emotion

  • Bodily responses evoke sensory signals and it is the sensations and perceptions they produce that cause the experience of an emotion - fear, sadness, anger, happiness, shame, surprise, etc.
  • You don't run because you are afraid, you are afraid because you are running (+ other bodily reactions)
  • James and Lange went even further - these sensory experiences are the emotion: "our feeling of the [bodily] changes as they occur IS the emotion" (James, 1884, p. 189)
  • Likewise, you don't cry because you are sad, you are sad because you are crying (+ other bodily reactions)

  
• James-Lange theory is NOT that emotions are evoked by bodily feedback indirectly
• If you feel pain in your guts, you might experience fear and anxiety because you have interpreted that pain as an indication of a serious illness
• This is quite different from what James & Lange were talking about - their theory proposes that sensory experience gives rise to emotion directly, without intervening processes
• James-Lange theory


  1. Emotional experience

  2. Somatosensory & visceral receptors

  3. Action programme

  4. Behavioral responses

  
• Nothing intervenes between the sensory feedback and the emotional experience
• You feel pain in your guts and interpret it as an indication of a serious illness

  This causes autonomic arousal, which (in turn) gives rise to sensory experiences and these to an emotion
• James-Lange theory


  • People without bodily sensation should not experience emotion
  • Loss of sensation is associated with spinal cord injury
  • Emotions should be reduced and more so the higher the level of injury
• Changes in the intensity of emotional experiences following spinal injury have been studied
• Sensory feedback from the head and neck is intact, so James-Lange theory does not predict complete loss of emotional experience with SCI
• It has been found that feedback from facial muscles contributes to emotional experience

  
• In one study participants were asked to hold a pencil between their teeth (required muscular contractions similar to smiling) or between their lips (required muscular contractions similar to frowning)


  • Cartoons were experienced as more amusing when the pencil was held between the teeth
• Canon-Bard theory


  • The experiential and bodily responses arise simultaneously in different neural structures and do not cause each other (they are distinct effects of the same cause)
  • Possible to have bodily responses but not experience the emotion
• There are results that support this (C-B)theory over the James-Lange theory: injection of epinephrine produces autonomic responses associated with emotions like fear or anger, but does not produce these emotional experiences
• Both Cannon-Bard and James-Lange theories are partially correct
• Cannon-Bard is correct in supposing that there are two systems that are activated in parallel
• James-Lange is correct in supposing that emotional experiences can be induced (or at least modified) by feedback from the body
• Emotional experiences/states can be evoked and modulated by external stimuli, bodily feedback and thought/imagination

  
• Conversely, emotional states can evoke and modulate bodily reactions, the contents of thought/imagination and (by motor action) external stimuli

  
• Cannon's neuroanatomical scheme for his theory of emotions (Cannon-Bard theory)


  • Cannon proposed that the thalamus was the structure primarily responsible for the production of emotional experiences
  • According to Cannon there is no emotional experience without the thalamus - the thalamus is the source of emotional experience
• As more experiments were conducted and neuropsychological cases reported, further details emerged regarding structures that seemed to be involved in emotional experience and expression

  
• The Papez circuit


  Allows the regions responsible for 'feelings' to influence physiological and skeletomotor responses via the hippocampus