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What is Basic about Basic Emotions? Lasting Lessons from Affective Neuroscience
Abstract
A cross-species affective neuroscience strategy for understanding the primary-process (basic) emotions is defended. The need for analyzing the brain and mind in terms of evolutionary stratification of functions into at least primary (instinctual), secondary (learned), and tertiary (thought-related) processes is advanced. When viewed in this context, the contentious battles between basic-emotion theorists and dimensional-constructivist approaches can be seen to be largely nonsubstantial differences among investigators working at different levels of analysis.
... António Damasio (2004Damasio ( , 2018, among other authors such as Panksepp (2011), Zak (2012), within his scientific production in the field of neuroscience has addressed the precedence of emotion over feeling, referring to a complex chain that starts with life. According to him, every living organism, from the amoeba to the human being, is born with enough to solve the basic problems of life; that is, to find sources of nutrition, incorporate and transform this nutrition, maintain a chemical balance compatible with life, replace components that age and die, maintaining the body's structure and defending it from physical injury. ...
... Emotions, therefore, are relational. So, although still little researched by scholars of emotions, such as Damasio, (2004), LeDoux (2001), and Panksepp (2011), based on the biology of knowledge (Maturana and Varela, 2005), it is possible to encourage research in the field of neuroscience, among others, about the root emotion love, understanding it as present in the interaction between the elements that compose the unicellular beings. And, as a social or relational emotion, present at the origin of biocybernetic mechanisms of life regulation with the purpose of survival, well-being and evolution. ...
... What we call feeling originates in the basic homeostatic reactions of the regulating flow of life. In this regard, Damasio (2004Damasio ( , 2018, Siegel (2012), LeDoux (2001), Panksepp (2011), to name a few researchers, have similar reflections and approaches. ...
The need to care about each other, identifying ourselves with what we have in common, as living beings, human beings on this planet, is currently becoming a focus in studies and reflections among researchers in neuroscience, behaviour, emotions and social relationships, to name a few. In the area of health promotion and psychotherapy, it is no different. Particularly in the last two decades, the expansion of knowledge about the brain and nervous system in neuroscience research has provided information to relate these areas to understanding of the individual and their relationships, contributing to reflections, understanding and proposals for action and possible release from human suffering. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative article is to reflect, based on a Narrative Review of recent literature, on the possibility of understanding empathy as originating from primary or natural emotion. In conclusion, the importance of regulating emotions becomes evident, considering self-empathy so that its function of regulating our instincts with the purpose of survival, well-being and evolution, can happen, in the individual and social fields.
This paper appeared originally in Portuguese as. Autoempatia Como Elemento Necessário Para Regulação Das Emoções. Revista Brasileira de Análise Transacional, 2021 and is reproduced here by kind permission of UNAT-BRASIL - União Nacional de Analistas Transacionais – Brasil (https://unat.org.br/portal/rebat-2021.php)
... Over the years, theorists have moved beyond the assumption of a single, common positive emotion and suggested a number of discrete positive emotions such as joy and interest (Tomkins, 1962;Izard, 1977); amusement, contentment, excitement, pride in achievement, relief, satisfaction, sensory pleasure (Ekman, 1999); joy, interest, contentment, pride, and love (Fredrickson, 2001); seeking, lust, care, and play (Panksepp & Watt, 2011); amusement, ecstasy, excitement, fiero, happiness, interest, rejoicing, relief, naches, schadenfreude, sensory pleasures, and wonder (Ekman, & Cordaro, 2011); enjoyment (playing), interest (exploration), love (attachment), and relief/contentment (soothing) (Levenson, 2011); amusement, awe, gratitude, hope, inspiration, interest, joy, love, pride and serenity (contentment) (Fredrickson, 2013); anticipatory and consummatory love, amusement, compassion, flow, gratitude, interest, joy, pride, and surprise (Kreibig, 2014); amusement, attachment love, awe, contentment, enthusiasm, gratitude, liking/pleasure, nurturant love, pride, and sexual desire . ...
... Other names used to describe emotions related to presented offspring and other vulnerable kin are adoration (Cowen & Keltner, 2017) and care (Panksepp & Watt, 2011). Pride ...
... However, we also evaluated the specificity or generality of ANS reactivity to discrete emotions. The basic expectation in this meta-analysis was that discrete positive emotions produce specific adaptive changes in physiology (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011;Levenson, 2011;Panksepp & Watt, 2011;Kreibig, 2010). ...
Autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity is a fundamental component of emotional responding. It is not clear, however, whether positive emotional states are associated with differential ANS reactivity. To address this issue, we conducted a meta-analytic review of 120 articles (686 effect sizes, total N = 6,546), measuring ANS activity during 11 elicited positive emotions, namely amusement, attachment love, awe, contentment, craving, excitement, gratitude, joy, nurturant love, pride, and sexual desire. We identified a widely dispersed collection of studies. Univariate results indicated that positive emotions produce no or weak and highly variable increases in ANS reactivity. However, the limitations of work to date – which we discuss – mean that our conclusions should be treated as empirically grounded hypotheses that future research should validate.
... Enjoyment. Enjoyment is related to a behavioral tendency to play and is considered a narrower emotional state than happiness (Levenson, 2011;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). For enjoyment, two single-session experiments showed that both engaging in episodic future thinking and engaging in episodic memory increased enjoyment (Hallford, Farrell, et al., 2020). ...
... Interest and Guilt. Interest is associated with exploration and is specifically sensitive to signals associated with potential rewards (Levenson, 2011;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). Guilt is associated with a regretted transgression and a desire to address oneself for the behavior (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011;Lazarus, 2001;Roseman, 2001). ...
Engaging in episodic future thinking, where a person imagines a specific, personal future, influences decisions partly through evoking affective experiences. While there is a growing literature on how future thinking influences affect, few studies have assessed this effect on discrete emotions. In this systematic review, we examined studies assessing the effects of episodic future thinking on discrete emotions. The aim was to provide an overview of which emotions have been studied, the evidence for an effect of future thinking on emotions, and the characteristics of emotional, episodic future thoughts. We identified 12 experimental studies (N = 2825) and synthesized these narratively. Findings suggest that episodic future thinking has some influence on several different emotions, including happiness, anxiety, and sadness. While the effects for most emotions were inconsistent, consistent effects were found for enjoyment and compassion. Imagining positive, personal future events can evoke enjoyment. Similarly, imagining instances of helping others in the future can elicit compassion. We suggest possible explanations for why future thinking only consistently influences some discrete emotions, emphasizing the cognitive appraisals and behavioral functions associated with different discrete emotions. We provide suggestions for empirically assessing effects of episodic future thinking on discrete emotions in future research.
... oiseaux, réptiles) (Damasio and Carvalho 2013). D'autres approches de l'émotion sont plus favorablesà l'universalité desémotions dites primaires (Ekman and Cordaro 2011;Panksepp and Watt 2011;Izard 2011;Levenson 2011). Nous pensons qu'il est utile d'aborder cette dernière perspective d'universalité desémotions avant de présenter l'universalité selon la théorie de l'émotion incarnée. ...
... Izard (2011) propose presque le même ensemble qu'Ekman et Cordaro,à l'exception de la surprise, qu'il remplace par l'intérêt. Panksepp et Watt (2011), qui considèrent l'émotion comme un outil pour vivre, proposentégalement septémotions primaires : le jeu ; la panique/chagrin ; la peur ;la rage ;la recherche ; la convoitise ;et le soin. ...
This thesis deals with the relationship with facial representations in art (e.g. portraits, busts, masks, etc.), referred to, here, as "facial icons". This relationship is examined in the light of embodied emotion. The hypothesis is that facial icons might trigger facial mimicry and emotional contagion in the same way as human facial expressions. This thesis places the issue within Alfred Gell's theory of art agency, suggesting that facial mimicry and emotional contagion are cognitive means that might participate in the abduction of the agency of facial icons. The approach is interdisciplinary, it proposes a hypothesis in an anthropological framework, then approaches it according to a methodology of cognitive sciences. Experimental studies (questionnaire, EMG, SAM) are conducted to test parts of the hypothesis.
［Original: Cette thèse porte sur la relation avec les représentations de visage dans l'art (ex. portraits, bustes, masques,etc.), dénommées, ici, "les icones faciales". Cette relation est examinée à la lumière de l'émotion incarnée. L'hypothèse est que les icones faciales déclencheraient un mimétisme facial et une contagion émotionnelle de la même manière que les expressions faciales humaines. Cette thèse inscrit la problématique dans la théorie de l'agentivité de l'art d'Alfred Gell, suggérant que le mimétisme facial et la contagion émotionnelle sont des moyens cognitifs qui participeraient à l'abduction de l'agentivité des icones faciales. L'approche est interdisciplinaire, elle propose une hypothèse dans un cadre anthropologique, ensuite l'aborde suivant une méthodologie des sciences cognitives. Des études expérimentales (questionnaire, EMG, SAM) sont menées pour tester des parties de l'hypothèse.］
... Others such as Izard or Panksepp accept distinctions between basic and non-basic emotions, but identify basic emotions with processes generated by evolutionarily ancient brain systems. (See Ekman 1992;Ekman and Cordaro 2011;Izard 2007Izard , 2009Panksepp 1998Panksepp , 2008Panksepp , 2011Panksepp and Watt 2011) In this formulation, evidence for LC consists of cases in which one given emotion occurs but there is no set of correlated properties occurring. Barrett (2006), presenting some evidence for this claim, writes: ...
... In order to escape these problems, researchers must decide which domains offer the most relevant support for NOC. For example, basic emotion theorists would presumably hold the neural and physiological domains as more relevant than the phenomenological domain, given their commitment to the idea that emotions must correspond to patterns of physiological and neurological responses (see Ekman 1992;Ekman and Cordaro 2011;Izard 2007Izard , 2009Panksepp 1998Panksepp , 2008Panksepp , 2011Panksepp and Watt 2011). Unfortunately, emotion researchers have not reached a consensus regarding the relevance of evidence in these domains. ...
In the last decades there has been a great controversy about the scientific status of emotion categories. This controversy stems from the idea that emotions are heterogeneous phenomena, which precludes classifying them under a common kind. In this article, I analyze this claim—which I call the Variability Thesis—and argue that as it stands, it is problematically underdefined. To show this, I examine a recent formulation of the thesis as offered by Scarantino (2015). On one hand, I raise some issues regarding the logical structure of the claim. On the other hand, and most importantly, I show that the Variability Thesis requires a consensus about what counts as a relevant pattern of response in different domains, a consensus that is lacking in the current literature. This makes it difficult to assess what counts as evidence for or against this thesis. As a result, arguments based on the Variability Thesis are unwarranted. This raises serious concerns about some current empirical theories of emotions, but also sheds light on the issue of the scientific status of emotion categories.
... Finally, in a study by Karterud et al. (2016), the relationship between primary emotions and PDs was examined. In this context, primary emotions were defined according to Panksepp (2005) as cross-species emotional systems that work as prime motivators that include behavior and autonomic response patterns, as well as primal affective feeling states (Karterud et al., 2016;Panksepp, 2005;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). Results from the study indicated that compared to other PDs, APD was characterized by a low threshold for fear (i.e., the affective reaction is easy to evoke) and a heightened threshold for Play and Seeking (i.e., the affective reaction is difficult to evoke). ...
... Considering the implications of a low capacity to process interest and to access its adaptive and motivational properties, we note that high levels of AI for Interest will motivate and guide the individual towards exploration, learning, and developing new skills (Izard, 1991). Additionally, the feeling of interest likely taps into the same construct domain as "the seeking system," an affective organization much researched in animal models, which has also been associated with creativity (Panksepp & Watt, 2011;Reuter et al., 2005). According to Winnicott (1971), creativity is an essential ingredient in psychotherapeutic development. ...
According to the literature, avoidant personality disorder (APD) is often overlooked in research on personality disorders. In the present study, patients with APD were compared to patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) with respect to emotional dysfunction. Emotional dysfunction was operationalized through the Affect Integration Inventory. Sixty‐one patients receiving treatment at specialized outpatient hospital facilities for either BPD (n = 25) or APD (n = 36) (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition) were included in a cross‐sectional study. Supporting our expectations of no difference in the global capacity for affect integration between groups, the estimated difference was 0.00 (95% confidence interval [CI] [−0.53, 0.53]). On the other hand, the expected increased dysfunction in APD regarding Expression could not be confirmed. Furthermore, problems with specific affects distinguished the groups; integration of Interest was worse in APD (p = 0.01), whereas integration of Jealousy was worse in BPD (p = 0.04). In terms of prototypical modes of experiencing affects, APD was characterized by decreased access to the motivational properties of Interest (p < 0.01), while BPD was more driven by Interest (p < 0.01), Anger (p < 0.01), and Jealousy (p = 0.01). In conclusion, even though the two disorders are characterized by similar overall levels of emotional dysfunction, they differ systematically and predictably regarding specific affects and modes of experiencing. These findings carry implications for the understanding of emotional dysfunction in APD and BPD, suggesting specific areas of emotional dysfunction that could be targeted in tailored psychotherapeutic interventions.
... The former can be felt as curiosity, desire, determination, enthusiasm, and even anxiety, depending on its intensity and co-occurrence with feelings of distress. These are all affective responses to a probable future acquisition of reward but only goal attainment results in the experience of pleasure (Anselme & Robinson, 2016;Berridge, 2004;DeYoung, 2013;Panksepp, 2011a;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). That is, media enjoyment should be understood as comprising both the wanting and the liking components of reward processing. ...
... Dopamine motivates appetitive behavior (i.e., exploration) and produces the feelings of excitement and euphoria associated with the anticipation of pleasure (DeYoung, 2013;Nelson & Panksepp, 1998;Nummenmaa & Tuominen, 2018;Panksepp, 2011a). Endorphins produce the feelings of bliss and analgesia associated with consummatory pleasure following goal attainment (Burkett & Young, 2012;Loseth, Ellingsen, & Leknes, 2014;Mallik, Chanda, & Levitin, 2017;Panksepp, 2011b;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). Because of this, the effects of wanting and liking can be disassociated (Anselme & Robinson, 2016;Nummenmaa & Tuominen, 2018). ...
Audiences are often attracted to and enjoy consuming stories that evoke negative affect. Similarly, they sometimes identify with morally ambiguous and even morally repulsive characters. This chapter proposes that enjoyment of sad stories as well as our involvement with morally repulsive story characters can be explained by compassion (i.e., sympathy or empathic concern). By serving as a guide to our affective dispositions, compassion incentivizes narrative engagement as a way to acquire information regarding the welfare of a character in need or distress. Accordingly, the enjoyment associated with sad content consumption follows an overall positive valuation of the somatic changes felt while engaged with a story. A redefinition of enjoyment is thus proposed, one in which enjoyment comprises both the anticipatory and consummatory phases of reward processing.
Introduction
... More systematic examination of real-world emotion perception is needed to fully disentangle context-dependent versus context-independent activation to emotion cues. Another interpretation is that discrete or 'basic' emotions exist at a level in brain circuitry that is shared across species 54 . By this logic, expression of these emotions would have distinct presentations, resulting in distinct activation of sensory cortex. ...
Humans require a shared conceptualization of others’ emotions for adaptive social functioning. A concept is a mental blueprint that gives our brains parameters for predicting what will happen next. Emotion concepts undergo refinement with development, but it is not known whether their neural representations change in parallel. Here, in a sample of 5–15-year-old children (n = 823), we show that the brain represents different emotion concepts distinctly throughout the cortex, cerebellum and caudate. Patterns of activation to each emotion changed little across development. Using a model-free approach, we show that activation patterns were more similar between older children than between younger children. Moreover, scenes that required inferring negative emotional states elicited higher default mode network activation similarity in older children than younger children. These results suggest that representations of emotion concepts are relatively stable by mid to late childhood and synchronize between individuals during adolescence.
... For instance, fear is, on the one hand, an emotion fundamental for our survival (Öhman, 2009), and on the other, involved in mental disorders such as social anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and generalized anxiety disorder (Barlow, 2002). Similarly, anger is commonly considered an emotion essential for adaptive functioning (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011;Izard, 2011;Levenson, 2011;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). Still, unintegrated anger is involved in various mental disorders, such as bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, major depression, and generalized anxiety disorder (Cassiello-Robbins & Barlow, 2016). ...
Objective:
This systematic review and meta-analysis summarize current knowledge on emotional change processes and mechanisms and their relationship with outcomes in psychotherapy.
Method:
We reviewed the main change processes and mechanisms in the literature and conducted meta-analyses of process/mechanism-outcome associations whenever methodologically feasible.
Results:
A total of 121 studies, based on 92 unique samples, met criteria for inclusion. Of these, 85 studies could be subjected to meta-analysis. The emotional change processes and mechanisms most robustly related to improvement were fear habituation across sessions in exposure-based treatment of anxiety disorders (r = .38), experiencing in psychotherapy for depression (r = .44), and emotion regulation in psychotherapies for patients with various anxiety disorders (r = .37). Common methodological problems were that studies often did not ascertain representative estimates of the processes under investigation, determine if changes in processes and mechanisms temporally preceded outcomes, disentangle effects at the within- and between-client levels, or assess contributions of therapists and clients to a given process.
Conclusions:
The present study has identified a number of emotional processes and mechanisms associated with outcome in psychotherapy, most notably fear habituation, emotion regulation, and experiencing. A common denominator between these appears to be the habitual reorganization of maladaptive emotional perception. We view this as a central pan-theoretical change mechanism, the essence of which appears to be increased differentiation between external triggers and one's own affective responses, which facilitates tolerance for affective arousals and leads to improved capacity for adaptive meaning-making in emotion-eliciting situations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
... In this paper, the optimal response emotional value of the robot in continuous emotional space is calculated by combining the six basic emotional values with the probability of emotional state transfer obtained by the robot after being subjected to external emotional stimuli to achieve the emotional state transfer of the robot in continuous emotional space [32][33]. First, assuming that the optimal response emotional state vector obtained from the reinforcement learning model corresponds to a strategy , the probability of transferring the response emotional state to the six basic emotional states based on the user input can be obtained as: (14) Second, the rounds of robot response emotional state transfer probability are updated by combining the rounds of robot emotional state transfer probability and the rounds of interactive user input optimal response emotional state transfer probability with the following equation: ...
Emotional computing and artificial psychology is a new research direction that has received increasing attention in the field of harmonious human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence and is also a new intersection of mathematics, information science, intelligence science, neuroscience, physiology, psychological science and other multidisciplinary intersection. The current problems and drawbacks in the teaching of popular music in colleges and universities, and the search for methods and measures to reform and innovate popular music education in colleges and universities are the difficulties of current music teaching work. In this paper, we try to apply a robot cognitive-emotional interaction model to college pop music teaching, and establish an emotional interaction model based on reinforcement learning with the help of cognitive-emotional computing of human-computer interaction, to be able to integrate emotional interaction in pop music teaching and to make an accurate emotional analysis of students' singing effect. Different from traditional music teaching methods, the robot-based cognitive-emotional interaction model established in this paper can establish an innovative teaching model for college pop music teaching and optimize the teaching effect.
... Categorical models of emotions propose that evolution has carved a set of basic emotions that support specialised survival functions (Cordaro et al., 2018;Ekman, 1992;Panksepp, 1982). These emotions are characterised by discrete neural and physiological substrates, distinctive subjective feelings, expressions, and neural basis (Nummenmaa & Saarimäki, 2017;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). ...
Humans all around the world are drawn to creating and consuming art due to its capability to evoke emotions, but the mechanisms underlying art-evoked feelings remain poorly characterised. Here we show how embodiement contributes to emotions evoked by a large database of visual art pieces (n = 336). In four experiments, we mapped the subjective feeling space of art-evoked emotions (n = 244), quantified "bodily fingerprints" of these emotions (n = 615), and recorded the subjects' interest annotations (n = 306) and eye movements (n = 21) while viewing the art. We show that art evokes a wide spectrum of feelings, and that the bodily fingerprints triggered by art are central to these feelings, especially in artworks where human figures are salient. Altogether these results support the model that bodily sensations are central to the aesthetic experience.
... The neural circuits that produce both bodily pleasure and love share a common set of brain areas (Cacioppo et al., 2012). Thus, it would be impossible to experience happiness without genetically encoded neural structures (Panksepp and Watt, 2011). In addition, happiness requires evaluation of actions and goals in relation to their mental representations (Davis and Panksepp, 2011). ...
Happiness is of great importance to people. Although happiness constitutes a central theme in psychology, the absence of a unifying theory and inconsistent terminology undermine scientific progress. The present article goes beyond attempting to define “types of happiness” or its contributing factors and addresses the role of happiness (i.e., embodied positive emotional patterns) as a function of a dynamic multisystem (i.e., an individual) and its relationship to meaning (i.e., ongoing bidirectional cognitive processes). As a dynamic multisystem, a person strives for stability as they move in physical space, and during their development, across time (i.e., dynamic balance). A primary requirement for dynamic balance is maintaining consistency by connecting the cognitive system to behavior. In psychological terms, such a connection is facilitated by meaning. The model suggests that happiness serves as a marker of a person’s consistency and meaningful interpretations of their lived experience. The model points to a new research direction.
... As the present study focused on basic emotions, the specific feelings derived from the different roles in the games are in line with different theoretic emotion models (Ekman and Cordaro, 2011;Izard, 2011;Levenson, 2011;Panksepp and Watt, 2011). For example, in the SBG (Guillemard et al., 1984;Lavega et al., 2018), players felt more fear when they were alive without the ball than in any other role, while they felt more sadness when they were prisoners than in any other role. ...
Experimental designs to induct emotional states have frequently used still procedures. However, more naturalistic methods of emotional induction by letting participants move and interact freely with other participants should be considered. Traditional Sporting Games (TSG) have the above-mentioned characteristics. The general aim of this study was to determine whether the different roles which allowed executing ambivalent interactions induced different emotional states in college students. We developed three studies with three paradoxical TSG (Sitting Ball Game, Four Corners Game, and Pitcher's Game). Before beginning to play, all the participants answered the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) in a mood version. After playing, participants were asked to report retrospectively the emotional state they were feeling in each role of the game, responding to the Self-Assessment Manikin, PANAS, and Games and Emotion Scale-II. Statistical analyses were performed by ANOVA, calculating corresponding effect sizes. Consistently, but specifically, in each game, roles still induced less positive and more negative emotions. Regarding the active roles, more positive and less negative emotions were kindled when the role allowed catching other players. On the contrary, when developing an active role that implied an increased likelihood of being caught, more negative and less positive emotions were experienced. We found some significant interaction effects between the moods and the role played before playing. To conclude, TSG could be an adequate procedure to induct emotional states and to study emotional conditions in a naturalistic way, showing ecological validity.
... These terms are capitalized based on the nomenclature put forward in the ANT by Jaak Panksepp in order to ensure a specialized terminology for those experiential processes and their biological roots (see Discussion section). The capitalization also supports a clear distinction of PETs from other psychological constructs labeled alike but actually constituting different concepts according to Panksepp [11][12][13]. In the present work, the capitalization of the PETs is used in line with the convention do so (see nearly all publications on the PETs by various authors). ...
The present study aimed at investigating associations of both ideological attitudes and personal value types with the personality traits derived from the Affective Neuroscience Theory (ANT). For that, data of N = 626 (n = 403 men, n = 220 women, n = 3 identifying as neither a man nor a woman) participants of an online survey in the German language were analyzed. Relations of primary emotional traits derived from the ANT with Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), and personal value types, such as the higher-order value type dimensions "Conservation-Openness to Change" and "Self-Enhancement-Self-Transcendence", were examined by means of correlational analyses and structural equation modeling. Results revealed among others relations between low SEEKING, high ANGER and high RWA. Low CARE and high ANGER were associated with high SDO. Moreover, FEAR was related to the higher-order value type dimension ranging from Conservation to Openness to Change. ANGER was associated with the higher-order value type dimension ranging from Self-Enhancement to Self-Transcendence. The present results do not only expand knowledge on the personality traits associated with ideological attitudes and personal value types. Beyond this, considering the neuroanatomical, functional, and neurochemical correlates of the primary emotional traits SEEKING, ANGER, CARE, and FEAR, the present results may provide a roadmap for forthcoming studies aiming at examining biological correlates of ideological attitudes and personal value types, such as those works in the field of political neuroscience.
... A recent large-scale study of YouTube videos revealed that associations of 16 facial expression dynamics with specific contexts showed a 70% world-wide consistency 5 . Emotion categories are considered natural kinds, neurobiologically hard-wired, and inherited with a dedicated neural circuit for each basic emotion category [6][7][8] . BET claims that emotions arise from integrated neural circuitry including the brain stem, amygdala, insula, anterior cingulate, and orbitofrontal cortices 9 . ...
Affective experience colours everyday perception and cognition, yet its fundamental and neurobiological basis is poorly understood. The current debate essentially centers around the communalities and specificities across individuals, events, and emotional categories like anger, sadness, and happiness. Using fMRI during the experience of these emotions, we critically compare the two dominant conflicting theories on human affect. Basic emotion theory posits emotions as discrete universal entities generated by dedicated emotion category-specific neural circuits, while psychological construction theory claims emotional events as unique, idiosyncratic, and constructed by psychological primitives like core affect and conceptualization, which underlie each emotional event and operate in a predictive framework. Based on the findings of 8 a priori-defined model-specific prediction tests on the neural response amplitudes and patterns, we conclude that the neurobiological basis of affect is primarily characterized by idiosyncratic mechanisms and a common neural basis shared across emotion categories, consistent with psychological construction theory. The findings provide further insight into the organizational principles of the neural basis of affect and brain function in general. Future studies in clinical populations with affective symptoms may reveal the corresponding underlying neural changes from a psychological construction perspective. Analysis of fMRI recordings from an autobiographical memory recall tasks suggests that neural activation during emotional experiences can be better predicted by psychological construction theory, rather than classic basic emotions theory.
... The present study is not an attempt to contribute to the "hundred years' war" over the existence (Lindquist et al., 2013;Barrett, Russell, 2015), number and nature (Ortony and Turner, 1990;Panksepp, 2007;Scarantino and Griffiths, 2011;Gu et al., 2016Gu et al., , 2018Saarimaki et al., 2016;Hutto et al., 2018), models (Plutchik, 1962;Ekman and Friesen, 1969;Ekman, 2003;Izard, 2010Izard, , 2011Ekman, Cordaro, 2011;Levenson, 2011;Panksepp and Watt, 2011;Tracy, Randles, 2011) or exact list of basic emotions. Neither is an assessment of anger and the search for strategies to bring it under the control of an individual or within society (Nussbaum 2016, Flanagan 2022) the focus of this work. ...
In this study, we shall attempt to clarify the semantic levels used in ordinary Turkish when expressing the concept of anger. We assume that the concept of anger represents a multidimensional semantic complex that is saturated from numerous – often very diverse – dimensions of our perception and judgement. Mapping these fundamental semantic dimensions should thus enable us to map the semantic space in which the language user operates when they express anger. In this work we shall focus on the internal structure, the diversification of the most important semantic domains of the notion of anger and on an attempt to reveal some of the connections between the particular domains using a bottom – up approach.
... Given the correlation between functional network disintegration and unconsciousness, and between network configuration and cognitive state; in this resting state study we explicitly adopt a framework that assumes the temporal variation of functional network configuration is related to the variations of the vernacular "stream of consciousness". In other words, we assume changes in connectivity patterns correspond, at least in part, to phenomenological fluctuations in mental state and experience (see [30][31][32][33][34] for ontological underpinnings). ...
Typical consciousness can be defined as an individual-specific stream of experiences. Modern consciousness research on dynamic functional connectivity uses clustering techniques to create common bases on which to compare different individuals. We propose an alternative approach by combining modern theories of consciousness and insights arising from phenomenology and dynamical systems theory. This approach enables a representation of an individual’s connectivity dynamics in an intrinsically-defined, individual-specific landscape. Given the wealth of evidence relating functional connectivity to experiential states, we assume this landscape is a proxy measure of an individual’s stream of consciousness. By investigating the properties of this landscape in individuals in different states of consciousness, we show that consciousness is associated with short term transitions that are less predictable, quicker, but, on average, more constant. We also show that temporally-specific connectivity states are less easily describable by network patterns that are distant in time, suggesting a richer space of possible states. We show that the cortex, cerebellum and subcortex all display consciousness-relevant dynamics and discuss the implication of our results in forming a point of contact between dynamical systems interpretations and phenomenology.
... This finding cannot be interpreted only in terms of traditional affective-dimension or discrete-emotion accounts. Thus, it seems that the combination of different theoretical approaches is still needed in order to unravel the contribution of emotion to language processing, which is in line with the views that aim to integrate discrete and dimensional conceptions into a unified theoretical approach (Panksepp & Watt, 2011;Russell, 2003). ...
The present study introduces affective norms for a set of 3022 Croatian words on five discrete emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust. The words were rated by 1239 Croatian native speakers. Each participant rated 251 or 252 words for one discrete emotion on a five-point Likert scale. The analyses revealed a significant relationship between discrete emotions, emotional dimensions (valence and arousal), and other psycholinguistic properties of words. In addition, small sex differences in discrete emotion ratings were found. Finally, the analysis of the distribution of words among discrete emotions allowed a distinction between "pure" words (i.e., those mostly related to a single emotion) and "mixed" words (i.e., those related to more than one emotion). The new database extends the existing Croatian affective norms collected from a dimensional conception of emotions, providing the necessary resource for future experimental investigation in Croatian within the theoretical framework of discrete emotions.
... The first assumption is that there is a set of universal emotion categories that are recognized and communicated by people in every human group [1][2][3][4] ; these categories are assumed to be functionally, phenomenologically and behaviourally distinct. In this view, an emotion category entails a discrete and modular emotion mechanism that encompasses emotional experiences (feelings) and behavioural expressions (manifestations of the emotion in the face, voice and body) 29,30 . A perceiver's subjective experience of seeing an emotion category displayed in a person's face, voice or body posture is therefore considered a valid index of that person's internal emotional experience. ...
Scholarly debates about the nature of human emotion traditionally pit biological and cultural influences against one another. Although many existing theories acknowledge the role of culture, they mostly treat emotion categories such as ‘anger’ as biological products. In this Perspective, we summarize traditional assumptions about the roles of biology and culture in emotion alongside supporting and conflicting empirical evidence. Building on constructionist models of emotion, we introduce a cultural evolutionary perspective that moves beyond a strict biology-versus-culture dichotomy. This cultural evolutionary perspective uses dual inheritance models of cultural transmission to explain how variation in emotion can arise across groups, how affect-laden information can travel throughout populations, and why people in different cultures use both similar and different emotion concepts and non-verbal expressions. This cultural evolution framework allows for new hypotheses about the development of emotion categories and challenges longstanding claims about the universality of emotion. Debates about human emotion traditionally pit biological and cultural influences against one another. In this Perspective, Lindquist et al. suggest that emotions are underpinned by neural mechanisms linked to physiological and action regulation, but discrete emotion categories are cultural artefacts that evolved through social transmission.
... The last factor to consider is the role of fear sensitivity. Fear is a basic emotion that has evolved because it served survival and reproductive functions (Panksepp & Watt, 2011). Fear is a universal and strong core emotion with distinctive physiological manifestations (Ekman, 1999). ...
This study focuses on determinants underlying young persons” self-reported intentions to steal a small amount of money. From an evolutionary standpoint, theft is a frequency-dependent strategy that may have been favored because it gave individuals a reproductively-relevant advantage in the competition for scarce resources. Although human groups do not tolerate the act of stealing, theft is still very common. Our study is rooted in Robert Frank's theory of the moral commitment problem. Moral emotions such as anticipated guilt are devices designed by evolutionary forces to motivate cooperative behavior in situations entailing a commitment problem. However, the anticipation of guilt feelings can be circumvented by self-serving justifications, therefore increasing the likelihood to steal. A large region-wide sample of adolescents (N = 3694) is used to analyze whether anticipated moral guilt and self-serving justifications mediate the effects of empathy, fear sensitivity, and perceived peer disapproval in their relationship to intentions to steal. Several propositions are tested in a latent variable model within the framework of SEM. Visual scenarios depicting an opportunity to take a small amount of money from a stranger are used to elicit participants” self-reported intentions to steal. Results suggest that empathic concern and empathic perspective-taking, perceived peer disapproval, and fear sensitivity affect the likelihood of theft by influencing anticipated guilt and self-serving justifications that, in turn, respectively reduce and promote the likelihood of theft.
... Different emotions (such as fear and anger) manage responses to different survival challenges, hence it has been proposed that distinct emotions are subserved by distinguishable neuroanatomical circuits modulating the activity of different peripheral physiological responses [5]. Although distinct emotions are supported by discernible neural circuits and emotional expressions are discrete [6] it remains unresolved whether low-dimensional autonomic measurements are sufficient for distinguishing specific emotions from each other [7,8]. ...
Emotions are allostatic processes that transform the relationship between the environment and the desired bodily states into behaviour supporting homeostasis and well-being. Central emotion circuits are thus tightly coupled with the visceral signaling pathways and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Although ANS activity patterns are not always emotion-specific, self-reported bodily sensations and pattern recognition analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data suggest discrete bodily and neural basis of emotions. The advent of total-body positron emission tomography (PET) systems allows simultaneous measurement of the central and peripheral axis of the emotional response. This provides a unique opportunity for quantifying the systems-level biology of the human emotion circuits.
... It has been hypothesized that empathy is comprised broadly of two main neurological processes. The first, emotionally driven "bottom-up" subcortical regions, such as the thalamus, primarily drive processes that initiate and propagate feelings of shared emotions 57 . In contrast, "top-down" cortical circuitry is capable of receiving and regulating the primary emotional information in order to generate appropriate behavioral outputs 3,38 . ...
Empathy is an innate ability to understand the emotional states of others along with the motivation to improve it. It has evolved over time into highly complex behaviors, the basis of which can be described using the Perception Action Model (PAM), where shared affect promotes an action that eliminates the distress of both the passive Target and, by extension, the active Observer. There are myriad biological variables that may modulate empathic behavior, including sex, sensory modalities, and neural activity. In the following studies, using our model of social contact-independent targeted helping, we first tested whether sex differences exist in helping behavior. Next, we explored sex differences in sensory and affective signaling, including the impact of direct visualization of a distressed conspecific and the type of ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) made between animal pairs during the task. Finally, we examined the neural activity of multiple cortical and subcortical regions of interest across time during targeted helping between males and females. We show both sexes exhibit similar helping behavior, but sensory and affective signaling differs between sexes. Further, changes in neural activity exhibited distinct sex-specific patterns across time. Our results indicate sex differences are not a ubiquitous presence in targeted helping. Instead, it is likely sex differences may be a convergent phenomenon in which the behavior is similar, but the underlying biological mechanisms are distinct. These results lay the groundwork for future studies to explore the similarities and differences that drive empathic behavior in both males and females.
... Here, we highlight issues to consider when following Pathway 1 in Fig. 2 to derive concepts of animal emotion from human emotion research. Animal emotion theorists such as the late Jaak Panksepp (1982;Panksepp & Watt, 2011) who follow the discrete or basic emotion approach (Ekman, 1992) argue that certain human emotions (e.g., 'fear', 'anger') are products of evolutionarily conserved neuro-behavioral systems, and that similar basic emotions are likely to occur in related species (e.g., primates, other mammals). For example, a system that generates fear in people will also exist in other mammals and generate a similar state. ...
Our experiences of the conscious mental states that we call emotions drive our interest in whether such states also exist in other animals. Because linguistic report can be used as a gold standard (albeit indirect) indicator of subjective emotional feelings in humans but not other species, how can we investigate animal emotions and what exactly do we mean when we use this term? Linguistic reports of human emotion give rise to emotion concepts (discrete emotions; dimensional models), associated objectively measurable behavioral and bodily emotion indicators , and understanding of the emotion contexts that generate specific states. We argue that many animal studies implicitly translate human emotion concepts , indicators and contexts , but that explicit consideration of the underlying pathways of inference, their theoretical basis, assumptions, and pitfalls, and how they relate to conscious emotional feelings , is needed to provide greater clarity and less confusion in the conceptualization and scientific study of animal emotion.
... Such comparative and integrative efforts have emerged. The basic emotion framework and the discrete approach of the appraisal framework may be compatible with dimensional appraisal and constructionist research programs, if basic emotion types are considered common clusters of feeling with shared biological mechanisms (LeDoux, 2020;LeDoux et al., 2015;Panksepp and Watt, 2011;Scarantino, 2015;Scarantino and Griffiths, 2011). Dimensional appraisal and constructionist frameworks might merge by encompassing their separate claims in a single, parsimonious claim of goal-directedness (Moors, 2017). ...
We present here a unifying framework for affective phenomena: the Human Affectome. By synthesizing a large body of literature, we have converged on definitions that disambiguate the commonly used terms—affect, feeling, emotion, and mood. Based on this definitional foundation, and under the premise that affective states reflect allostatic concerns, we take a goal-directed, enactive perspective. The human affectome is comprised of allostatic features (valence, motivation, and arousal) and allostatic concerns, which differ in the amount of action required to alleviate allostatic load. Allostatic concerns often fall into three ranges: physiological (the most immediate), operational (intermediate to distal), and global. Global concerns involve summations of overall trajectory, general wellbeing, and self-identity. Within this organizational scheme, the human affectome allows vastly different scientific interests to reside within the same theoretical framework and relate to each other. We hope this framework serves as a common focal point for affective research.
... At a secondary process level, primary process level emotions are transformed into conditioned responses by classical and instrumental conditioning, which is served by limbic structures including the amygdala (15,16). At the tertiary process level, neocortical structures such as the prefrontal cortex are thought to interact with the lower process levels by cognitive processes and to be shaped by socio-cultural demands clustering primary emotion information further into constellations of positive and negative affect (17,18). Reading single words with emotional content has been reported to activate brain areas such as the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, amygdala, anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex (19)(20)(21)(22)(23). Briesemeister et al. (10,11) reported electrophysiological and neuroimaging evidence for the processing of discrete emotion words reflecting high and low happiness but also for the processing of words reflecting the affective dimension of positivity in line with Panksepps hierarchical emotion model. ...
Objective
According to Panksepp's hierarchical emotion model, emotion processing relies on three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct levels. These levels comprise subcortical networks (primary level), the limbic system (secondary level), and the neocortex (tertiary level) and are suggested to serve differential emotional processing. We aimed to validate and extend previous evidence of discrete and dimensional emotion processing in patient with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME).
Methods
We recorded brain activity of patients with JME and healthy controls in response to lexical decisions to words reflecting the discrete emotion fear and the affective dimension negativity previously suggested to rely on different brain regions and to reflect different levels of processing. In all study participants, we tested verbal cognitive functions, as well as the relationship of psychiatric conditions, seizure types and duration of epilepsy and emotional word processing.
Results
In support of the hierarchical emotion model, we found an interaction of discrete emotion and affective dimensional processing in the right amygdala likely to reflect secondary level processing. Brain activity related to affective dimensional processing was found in the right inferior frontal gyrus and is suggested to reflect tertiary level processing. Psychiatric conditions, type of seizure nor mono- vs. polytherapy and duration of epilepsy within patients did not have any effect on the processing of emotional words. In addition, no differences in brain activity or response times between patients and controls were observed, despite neuropsychological testing revealed slightly decreased verbal intelligence, verbal fluency and reading speed in patients with JME.
Significance
These results were interpreted to be in line with the hierarchical emotion model and to highlight the amygdala's role in processing biologically relevant stimuli, as well as to suggest a semantic foundation of affective dimensional processing in prefrontal cortex. A lack of differences in brain activity of patients with JME and healthy controls in response to the emotional content of words could point to unaffected implicit emotion processing in patients with JME.
... Each basic emotion is thought to be characterized by a specific organization of responses, including motor expressions, physiological manifestations, cognitive activities (e.g., access to relevant memories), instinctive or learned behaviors, and a specific feeling (the number of responses varies across basic emotion theories). Furthermore, each basic emotion is hypothesized to be hardwired, that is, to have dedicated or partially dedicated neural circuits responsible for triggering the abovementioned responses in a coordinated fashion (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011;Izard, 2011;Levenson, 2011;Mason & Capitanio, 2012;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). The latter hypothesis is only partially supported by the available evidence (Hamann, 2012). ...
This article presents the feeling priming theory (FPT) of dreaming. According to the FPT, dreaming favors the motivation to avoid aversive anticipated events and to approach gratifying anticipated events. It is suggested that one component of anticipated emotions—anticipated feelings—is reproduced in dreams. Upon awakening and during the day, these anticipated feelings would remain activated (primed) in memory. Consequently, anticipated emotions would exert a greater influence on avoidance and approach behaviors, mainly through an increase in the intensity of anticipatory feelings (i.e., feelings of fear or hope/desire). This article comprises five main sections. First, the need for a new theory of the function of dreaming is addressed. Second, key constructs of the theory are described, including the constructs of “emotion” and “feeling.” Third, a brief overview of the theory is presented. Fourth, seven hypotheses that constitute the core of the theory are discussed along with supporting evidence. Fifth, an explanation of nightmares based on the proposed theory is offered. The FPT represents an alternative to theories that attribute an emotion regulation function to dreaming. It offers a new perspective on the relationship between dreaming and waking emotions. In particular, the FPT does not label nightmares as dysfunctional. Instead, nightmares and other dysphoric dreams are hypothesized to result from the same processes as normal dreaming.
... According to it, there is a core set of distinct emotion categories, the basic emotions, each corresponding to distinct brain locations or networks, each manifesting with a specific feeling and neuro-physiological signature [28]. Proponents of the theory maintain that this multimodular emotion system is universal within the human species and perhaps also shared by other primates [29,30]. They also consider the basic emotions as prewired responses to different stimuli, an "affect program" written by the evolutionary process through natural selection, that can be however somewhat influenced epigenetically by learning. ...
In social robotics, endowing humanoid robots with the ability to generate bodily expressions of affect can improve human-robot interaction and collaboration, since humans attribute, and perhaps subconsciously anticipate, such traces to perceive an agent as engaging, trustworthy, and socially present. Robotic emotional body language needs to be believable, nuanced and relevant to the context. We implemented a deep learning data-driven framework that learns from a few hand-designed robotic bodily expressions and can generate numerous new ones of similar believability and lifelikeness. The framework uses the Conditional Variational Autoencoder model and a sampling approach based on the geometric properties of the model's latent space to condition the generative process on targeted levels of valence and arousal. The evaluation study found that the anthropomorphism and animacy of the generated expressions are not perceived differently from the hand-designed ones, and the emotional conditioning was adequately differentiable between most levels except the pairs of neutral-positive valence and low-medium arousal. Furthermore, an exploratory analysis of the results reveals a possible impact of the conditioning on the perceived dominance of the robot, as well as on the participants' attention.
... With its strong focus on cognition, the influential era of Cognitivism has resulted in a growth in knowledge in the mental faculties of animals. By contrast, there has been a notable paucity of attention towards the emotional or affective processes driving animal behaviour, something not helped by a more general and long-held view that animal emotions are inaccessible to scientific study and even taboo (see de Waal 2011;Panksepp & Watt 2011). This reflects a more general bias in human and evolutionary sciences favouring research on cognition over emotion. ...
• Intersubjectivity has often been lauded as one of the defining features that separates humans and other extant hominids.
• Intersubjectivity and empathy are different, yet related, phenomena.
• The study of emotions and empathy-related abilities can provide insights into the ontogeny and evolution of intersubjectivity.
Intersubjectivity, which refers to the capacity to create shared value or connection between individuals, is a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon involving both cognitive and affective components. Intersubjectivity has often been lauded as one of the defining features that separates the social minds and existence of humans and non-human animals. Despite the apparently profound importance of inter-subjectivity for the socio-cognitive functioning of our species, we know surprisingly little about its evolution, nor how its evolution relates to the evolution of other related phenomena, such as empathy. In this review, we embrace the “bottom-up” perspective to consider recent theoretical and empirical advances in the fields of non-human animal cognition and emotion and what they can tell us about how complex socio-emotional capacities evolve. In particular, we focus on great ape species. Given their close phylogenetic relationship to us, great apes (the non-human, extant hominids) offer a unique lens to identify which of our capacities may be evolutionarily derived or phylogenetically shared.
... Based on ethological research, he distinguished seven primary emotion networks, neuroanatomically located between the Periaqueductal Gray (PAG) and the limbic forebrain (Panksepp, 1998;Panksepp and Biven, 2012). These cross-species primary-process systems are assumed to act as prototype emotional states, which can be evoked via artificially induced stimulation (Panksepp and Watt, 2011). The A ective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS; Davis et al., 2003) aim to measure six dimensions of these primary emotion systems including SEEKING, ANGER, FEAR, PLAY, SADNESS, CARE, and asses an additional spirituality scale. ...
Background
In recent years, there have been many studies using the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) to investigate individual differences in primary emotion traits. However, in contrast to other primary emotion traits proposed by Jaak Panksepp and colleagues, there is a considerable lack of research on the LUST (L) dimension – defined as an individual’s capacity to attain sexual desire and satisfaction – a circumstance mainly caused by its exclusion from the ANPS. Therefore, this study aims to take a first step toward the development of a standardized self-rate measurement for the L-disposition. For this purpose, two versions of the L-scales (L-12 and L-5) were developed and evaluated regarding reliability and aspects of validity.
Materials and Methods
After a pilot study ( N = 204; female: 81%) with an initial 20-item pool item reductions were conducted. This led to the construction of a 12-item (L-12) version and a 5-item version (L-5), which were assessed in a second sample consisting of 371 German-speaking healthy adults (58.50% female) aged 18–69 years ( M = 28; SD = 9.75). Aspects of external validity were assessed by investigation of correlations with the ANPS, psychiatric symptoms (Brief Symptom Inventory-18), attachment security (Adult Attachment Scales) and personality functioning (Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostics Structure Questionnaire). To evaluate structural validity, both L-scales were investigated via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Results
Cronbach’s α indicated excellent internal consistency regarding L-12 (α = 0.90), while L-5 showed acceptable reliability (α = 0.82). CFA of a bifactor model of the L-12 indicated excellent model fit. Moreover, an excellent model fit was observed regarding a single factor model of L-5. For both scales small to moderate positive correlations were observed with SEEKING, PLAY, and secure attachment, while they exhibited small to moderate negative correlations with SADNESS, insecure attachment, lower personality functioning, and increased psychiatric symptom load.
Conclusion
Both newly developed scales exhibit satisfying psychometric properties, indicating high reliability, good structural validity and plausible correlations with external criteria. Hence, this study poses an important step toward the operationalization of the LUST concept. However, more research is needed in particular with respect to the scale’s external validity and its applicability in clinical populations.
... Facial expression is an exceptionally powerful nonverbal vehicle of emotional information (e.g., Calvo & Marrero, 2009). Thus, being able to recognize and respond to the facial emotional expressions of others is a critical skill for adaptive human social interaction (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011;Panksepp & Watt, 2011). ...
Facial emotional expressions are pivotal for social communication. Their fast and accurate recognition is crucial to promote adaptive responses to social demands, for the development of functional relationships, and for well-being. However, the literature has been inconsistent in showing differentiated recognition patterns for positive vs. negative facial expressions (e.g., happy and angry expressions, respectively), likely due to affective and perceptual factors. Accordingly, the present study explored differences in recognition performance between angry and happy faces, while specifically assessing the role of emotional intensity and global/regional low-level visual features. 98 participants categorized angry and happy faces morphed between neutral and emotional across 9 levels of expression intensity (10–90%). We observed a significantly higher recognition efficiency (higher accuracy and shorter response latencies) for angry compared to happy faces in lower levels of expression intensity, suggesting that our cognitive resources are biased to prioritize the recognition of potentially harmful stimuli, especially when briefly presented at an ambiguous stage of expression. Conversely, an advantage for happy faces was observed from the midpoint of expression intensity, regarding response speed. However, when compensating for the contribution of regional low-level properties of distinct facial key regions, the effect of emotion was maintained only for response accuracy. Altogether, these results shed new light on the processing of facial emotional stimuli, emphasizing the need to consider emotional intensity and regional low-level image properties in emotion recognition analysis.
... In the 2013 article, Shuman et al. state that macro-and micro-valences and emotions occur simultaneously in an individual. However, Panksepp and Watt's (2011) multi-level neurological conceptualization of emotional experience postulates a sequence. The first level of the sequence is primitive, in which basic affective feelings are generated in the sub-cortical regions of the brain. ...
Facial inferencing research began with an inadvertent confound. The initial work by Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen identified the six now-classic facial expressions by the emotion labels chosen by most participants: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. These labels have been used by most of the published facial inference research studies over the last 50 years. However, not all participants in these studies labeled the expressions with the same emotions. For example, that some participants labeled scowling faces as disgusted rather than angry was seen in very early research by Silvan Tomkins and Robert McCarty. Given that the same facial expressions can be paired with different emotions, our research focused on the following questions: Do participants make different personality, temperament, and social trait inferences when assigning different emotion labels to the same facial expression? And what is the stronger cause of trait inferences, the facial expressions themselves, or the emotion labels given to the expressions? Using an online survey format participants were presented with older and younger female and male smiling or scowling faces selected from a validated facial database. Participants responded to questions regarding the social traits of attractiveness, facial maturity, honesty, and threat potential, the temperament traits of positiveness, dominance, excitability, and the Saucier Mini-marker Big Five personality trait adjective scale, while viewing each face. Participants made positive inferences to smiling faces and negative inferences to scowling faces on all dependent variables. Data from participants labeling the scowling faces as angry were compared to those who labeled the faces as disgusted. Results indicate that those labeling the scowling faces as angry perceived the faces significantly more negatively on 11 of the 12 dependent variables than those who labeled the same faces as disgusted. The inferences made by the “disgust” labelers were not positive; just less negative. The results indicate that different emotion labels made to scowling faces can either intensify or reduce negativity in inferences, but the facial expressions themselves determine negativity or positivity.
... Plausible candidates are assumptions on which different basic emotion theorists agree, and hence what unites them as basic emotion theorists, despite their numerous differences. There seem to be at least three such assumptions (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011;Izard, 2011;Levenson, 2011;Panksepp & Watt, 2011;Scarantino, 2015). These are (a) basic emotions are "discrete kinds" (encompassing identifying cognitive, physiological, behavioral, and subjective features); (b) basic emotions are "universal" (they exist across different societies and even in some other species); and (c) basic emotions are the products of "evolved, pre-organized causal mechanisms", usually conceived of as affect programs. ...
Advocates for the psychological construction of emotion view themselves as articulating a non-essentialist alternative to basic emotion theory’s essentialist notion of affect programs. Psychological constructionists have also argued that holding essentialist assumptions about emotions engenders misconceptions about the psychological constructionist viewpoint. If so, it is important to understand what psychological constructionists mean by “essentialism” and “non-essentialism.” To advance the debate, I take a deeper dive into non-essentialism, comparing the non-essentialist views of the early empiricists with those of the psychological constructionists, focusing on the theories of James Russell and Lisa Barrett. Using Lakatos’ notion of scientific research programs, I also describe how Russell’s and Barrett’s views have evolved into different and potentially competing research programs under the psychological constructionist banner.
... The verbal emotional stimuli included basic or "primitive" emotions which are the origin of complex emotions in presence of cognitive evaluation in relation to the self or to others (Johnson-Laird and Oatley's, 1987; Tables 1B,C). It is worth noting that the verbal label used for the basic emotions described by Johnson-Laird and Oatley's (1987) correspond to the primary process artificially evoked by activating subcortical brain networks (Panksepp, 1998;Panksepp and Watts, 2011). Basic and complex emotions labels rely on ...
Climate change involves multiple emotional expressions associated with specific labels, notably: 'concern,' 'guilt,' or 'scepticism.' However, there are other types of emotions that have been less analysed, such as 'powerlessness,' 'anger' and 'confusion' that are of equal importance for predicting behavioural changes toward this climatic issue. Likewise, few studies in this research field rely on qualitative data to understand and identify the causative agents for the emotional arousal. This research explores a range of emotions, mixing those that have been widely studied and those that have been hardly analysed. It also looks at the demographic parameters associated with such emotions using a population sample from southern Ecuador. The study analyses quantitative and qualitative data gathered through structured-questionnaires whereby participants were given agency to select and define how they themselves sense emotionally climate change. The results indicate that two of the five participants' most selected emotions are shared with other nations ('concern,' 'guilt'), while the other three have been less reported and studied in the climate change field ('powerlessness,' 'anger,' and 'confusion'). These emotions were found to be aroused by different reasons associated with specific demographic variables. The findings reveal the role of the cultural and local environment in the emotional arousal and its relevance for designing more effective climate communication campaigns.
... According to the field of affective neuroscience, seven neurological pathways have been identified across all mammals, which mediate basic emotions [5]. Primary emotions are the first reaction to any situation, and are located in primitive parts of the brain [75]. Emotions activate critical neurological pathways that are necessary for survival. ...
According to the field of affective neuroscience, grief has been identified as one of the seven primary emotions necessary for human survival. However, maladaptive grief could cause significant impairment in an individual’s life, leading to psychopathologies such as major depressive disorder. Research on grief has shifted to a biopsychosocial approach, leaving behind outdated models—such as the Kübler-Ross theory—that have shown poor consistency. The field of psychoneuroimmunology has identified adverse life events such as social loss as being associated with major depressive disorder, and inflammatory processes in chronic health conditions. Likewise, scientists in the field of affective neuroscience have theorized that prolonged and sustained activation of the grief neurological pathway can cause a cascade of neurotransmitters that inhibits the reward-seeking system, causing symptoms of depression. The objective of this review is to highlight findings on the grief process using a biopsychosocial approach to explore grief’s impact on psychopathophysiology.
In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird das mimische Verhalten von hoch- und niedrigreflexiven Müttern während der Interaktion mit ihren Kindern untersucht und bezüglich ihrer Unterschiede im Mikroverhalten verglichen. Bezugnehmend auf Ergebnisse einer Pilotstudie wird davon ausgegangen, dass sich bedeutsame Zusammenhänge zwischen den Unterschieden im mimischen Ausdrucksverhalten der Mütter und dem Ausmaß psychopathologischer Symptomatik ihrer Kinder aufzeigen lassen. Auch wurde angenommen, dass die mimische Affektivität der Mütter, die diese in direkter Interaktion mit ihren Kindern zeigen, mit mütterlichen reflexiven und strukturellen Kompetenzen bzw. Problembereichen assoziiert ist. Ziel der Studie ist es, diese Ergebnisse der Vorstudie anhand einer größeren Stichprobe erneut zu prüfen und diese, unter Berücksichtigung des affektiven Kontexts, differenzierter zu betrachten.
The Cambridge Handbook of Computational Cognitive Sciences is a comprehensive reference for this rapidly developing and highly interdisciplinary field. Written with both newcomers and experts in mind, it provides an accessible introduction of paradigms, methodologies, approaches, and models, with ample detail and illustrated by examples. It should appeal to researchers and students working within the computational cognitive sciences, as well as those working in adjacent fields including philosophy, psychology, linguistics, anthropology, education, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, computer science, and more.
Stabled horses often experience negative emotions due to the inappropriate living conditions imposed by humans. However, identifying what emotions horses experience and what can trigger positive and negative emotions in stabled horses can be challenging. In this article we present a brief history of the study of emotions and models that explain emotions from a scientific point of view and the physiological bases and functions of emotions. We then review and discuss physiological and behavioral indicators and cognitive bias tests developed to assess emotions in horses. Hormone concentrations, body temperature, the position of the ears, facial expressions and behaviors, such as approach and avoidance behaviors, can provide valuable information about emotional states in horses. The cognitive bias paradigm is a recent and robust tool to assess emotions in horses. Knowing how to evaluate the intensity and frequency of an individual's emotions can guide horse owners and caretakers to identify practices and activities that should be stimulated, avoided or even banned from the individual's life, in favor of a life worth living. The development and validation of novel indicators of emotions considering positive and negative contexts can help in these actions.
The aim of this Research Topic, Human Connection as a Treatment for Addiction, is to bring together scholars from various fields to explore the question of whether intentionally increasing meaningful, caring interaction between people may reduce substance and/or non-substance related addictive behaviors. Previous research supports the role that social connection may play in the initiation and maintenance of addiction in both animals and humans (van der Eijk and Uusitalo,
2016; Christie, 2021).
Decoding emotions on others’ faces is one of the most important functions of the human brain, which has been widely studied in cognitive neuroscience. However, the precise time course of facial expression categorization in the human brain is still a matter of debate. Here we used an original paradigm to measure categorical perception of facial expression changes during event-related potentials (ERPs) recording, in which a face stimulus dynamically switched either to a different expression (between-category condition) or to the same expression (within-category condition), the physical distance between the two successive faces being equal across conditions. The switch between faces generated a negative differential potential peaking at around 160 ms over occipito-temporal regions, similar in term of latency and topography to the well-known face-selective N170 component. This response was larger in the condition where the switch occurred between faces that were perceived as having different facial expressions compared to the same expression. In addition, happy expressions were categorized around 20 ms faster than fearful expressions (respectively, 135 and 156 ms). These findings provide evidence that changes of facial expressions are categorically perceived as early as 160 ms following stimulus onset over the occipito-temporal cortex.
We examine neural correlates of discrete expressions of negative emotionality in infants to determine whether the microstructure of white matter tracts at 1 month of age foreshadows the expression of specific negative emotions later in infancy. Infants (n = 103) underwent neuroimaging at 1‐month, and mothers reported on infant fear, sadness, and anger at 6, 12, and 18 months using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire‐Revised. Levels and developmental change in fear, sadness, and anger were estimated from mother reports. Relations between MRI and infant emotion indicated that 1‐month white matter microstructure was differentially associated with level and change in infant fear, but not anger or sadness, in the left stria terminalis (p < .05, corrected), a tract that connects frontal and tempo‐parietal regions and has been implicated in emerging psychopathology in adults. More relaxed constraints on significance (p < .10, corrected) revealed that fear was associated with lower white matter microstructure bilaterally in the inferior portion of the stria terminalis and regions within the sagittal stratum. Results suggest the neurobehavioral uniqueness of fear as early as 1 month of age in regions that are associated with potential longer‐term outcomes. This work highlights the early neural precursors of fearfulness, adding to literature explaining the psychobiological accounts of affective development. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
More than 30 years after its initial publication, this new edition of The Cognitive Structure of Emotions refines and updates Ortony, Clore, and Collins's OCC model of emotions. Starting from a three-way classification of construals of the world––events, the attribution of responsibility for events, and objects––the authors propose a systematic account of emotion differentiation. Rejecting the oft-favored features of bodily feelings, emotion-related behaviors, and facial expressions as too intensity-dependent and insufficiently diagnostic, they provide a detailed analysis of emotion differentiation in terms of the cognitive underpinnings of emotion types. Using numerous examples, they explain how different variables influence emotion intensity, and show how emotions can be formalized for computational purposes. Now with a contributed chapter describing the OCC model's influence, this book will interest a wide audience in cognitive, clinical, and social psychology, as well as in artificial intelligence and affective computing, and other cognitive science disciplines.
Demystifying Emotions provides a comprehensive typology of emotion theories in psychology (evolutionary, network, appraisal, goal-directed, psychological constructionist, and social) and philosophy (feeling, judgmental, quasi-judgmental, perceptual, embodied, and motivational) in a systematic manner with the help of tools from philosophy of science, allowing scholars in both fields to understand the commonalities and differences between these theories. Agnes Moors also proposes her own novel, skeptical theory of emotions, called the goal-directed theory, based on the central idea that all kinds of behaviors and feelings are grounded in goal-striving. Whereas most scholars of emotion do not call the notion of emotion itself into question, this review engages in a critical examination of its scientific legitimacy. This book will appeal to readers in psychology, philosophy, and related disciplines who want to gain a deeper understanding of the controversies at play in the emotion domain.
El presente libro se enmarca dentro de la teoría crítica de la sociedad, con un telón de fondo que es la teoría crítica decolonial. La paradoja es grande. Como vamos a evidenciar en las siguientes páginas, el grueso de la investigación sobre emociones se da en los países del norte global, por lo que la literatura que he encontrado está concentrada en la lengua inglesa. Ello no significa que las contradicciones ideológicas y críticas no se hallen presentes en estos países. Por ejemplo, la pedagogía crítica también ha tenido fuertes pensadores dentro de los Estados Unidos, Canadá y Europa, quienes han generado fuertes ataques al modelo instrumental del capitalismo: el Sur también está en el Norte. Esta crítica, que muchas veces es general, ha influido fuertemente en América Latina, la cual tiene innumerables experiencias prácticas educativas; y si la colonialidad del sentir se encuentra en la educación, allí también se hace presente la decolonialidad. La “colonialidad del sentir”, no solo se expresa en el mundo estéticocultural, tal como por ejemplo lo han propuesto Zulma Palermo (2009) o Pedro Pablo Gómez y Walter Mignolo (2012), sino también en el traslado de los modelos educativos eurocéntricos, los cuales comienzan a incorporar la educación emocional en ellos mismos. Aquí tomamos la lección de hace un tiempo frente al asunto de la decolonialidad: no se trata de rechazar las ideas de los países del centro, sino de tomarlas críticamente para verlas desde nuestro contexto. Aunque aparentemente no existe una literatura extensa sobre emociones y decolonialidad, las experiencias dentro de nuestra América son innumerables y realmente poderosas. Es así que en el Capítulo 3 pondré cuatro ejemplos significativos: el Sentipensar de Orlando Fals Borda, la crítica al neocolonialismo proveniente del grupo de Sociología de los cuerpos y emociones de Argentina, la experiencia feminista decolonial, con particular énfasis en las mujeres mayas, y finalmente, la propuesta del corazonar de Patricio Guerrero. Tres grandes elementos de la colonialidad del sentir deseo resaltar: la tiranía que el racionalismo le impone al mundo de las vivencias, siempre privilegiendo el enfriamiento en lo humano; el asentamiento de las fábricas del miedo, la humillación y la vergüenza, frutos de una conquista violenta que generó una herida colonial; y u
Philosophers and scientists have been puzzling over the potential antecedents and consequences of self-awareness or its relative absence since time immemorial. One major reason is the difficulty of identifying individuals’ actual needs, emotions, or goals and thus making statements about their level of self-awareness. Drawing on a “duality of mind” approach, we review our research that quantified discrepancies between first-person perspective and third-person perspective assessments of motives (“needs”), emotions, and goals as indicators of relative self-awareness. Also, we expand on their proximal causes related to personality–situation interactions and their emotional and motivational consequences. We discuss similarities among the three branches of research on motives, emotions, and goals and, lastly, provide an outlook for future research.
Nörogirişimcilik, nörobilim ve girişimciliği birleştirerek, girişimciliğin bilişsel veya üst bilişsel yönleriyle ilgili hemen hemen her konunun nörofizyolojik ölçümler kullanılarak çalışılabilmesine ve incelenmesine olanak sağlamaktadır. Bu sayede girişimciliğe dair birçok teorik problemin çözülmesi ve girişimci zihniyet/düşünce/karar/davranışlarının bütüncül bir yaklaşımla anlaşılması mümkün olacaktır. Böylece klasik girişimcilik anlayışı
yerini giderek nörogirişimclik yaklaşımına bırakacaktır. Bireyin davranışlarının arkasında yatan nedenlerin (fiziksel, sosyal, biyolojik, psikolojik, nörolojik vb.) anlaşılması girişimciliğin ve girişimci zihniyetin tam olarak anlaşılmasına olanak sağlayacak bu sayede bireylere artık girişimci zihniyet öğretilecek ve bu zihniyetin gelişmesi bakımından yeni yöntem/teknikler ortaya çıkacaktır. Bireylerin girişimci olmalarında sosyal ve kültürel çevre, aile ortamı, alınan eğitim, genler ve vücut kimyaları gibi birçok nedenin etkili olduğu ileri sürülmektedir. Nörogirişimcilik ise girişimcilik ve girişimci davranışı üzerinde etkili olan tüm faktörlerin nörobilimsel yöntem ve tekniklerle incelenmesine olanak sağlayarak girişimci zihniyet/düşüncenin anlaşılmasına olanak sağlamaktadır. Girişimci zihniyetin nasıl öğretilebileceğinin ortaya konulması halinde girişimcilik algısı farklı bir noktaya gelecektir. Beyin odaklı girişimcilik araştırmaları yani nörogirişimcilik, deneysel bir tasarım
ve beyin görüntüleme teknolojilerini kullanarak girişimcilik konusunun incelenmesine olanak sağlamaktadır. Nörobilim yöntem/araç/tekniklerinin ekonomi ve pazarlama gibi disiplinlerde onaylanmış olması, girişimcilerin fırsatları nasıl algıladığı, bunlara göre nasıl hareket ettiği, beyinlerinin hangi alanlarını soruları netleştirmek için kullandıkları ve bunu yaparken girişimci olmayan bireylerden ne gibi farklı düşünce ve eylem içerisinde olduklarını anlamak bakımından önemli bir fırsat sunmaktadır. Bu sayede girişimci zihniyeti anlama, öğretme ve geliştirmek için uygun ve doğru yöntemleri keşfetme ve uygulama imkânı doğacaktır. Gelişmekte olan nörogirişimcilik alanının nihai amacı, girişimcilik sonuçlarını (örneğin, davranış, başarı) belirleyen psikolojik ve biyolojik faktörlerin anlaşılması olduğundan, girişimcilik ve iş bilim insanları, psikofizyolojik indeksler keşfederek girişimciliğe dair yeni iç görüler elde edebilecektir.
While researchers often focus on the brain as a victim of aging via neurodegenerative diseases, recent work has demonstrated that the aging process is regulated by neural mechanisms. Thus, we asked which mechanisms and inputs might be important for the brain to regulate aging. We found that in male Drosophila melanogaster, the costs of reproduction on survival are mediated entirely through perception of the opposite sex, and that mating itself is actually beneficial. These effects are mediated through distinct neural circuits, with neuropeptide F (npf, an NPY homolog) required for the negative effects of pheromones and corazonin (crz, a GnRH homolog) driving the beneficial effects of mating. dFoxo, a common mediator of aging, regulates these effects on aging through an insulin-independent mechanism. Investigation of the dynamics of the effects of pheromones on mortality revealed two hypotheses: either population mortality rates reverse as a result of heterogeneity in individual probabilities of death, or the effects of pheromones on mortality rates are reversible in individuals. By combining in vivo and in silico approaches, we revealed that both explanations are correct, with individual reversibility dominating dynamics early in life, and heterogeneity becoming important in middle-age. Using a more global approach, we examined the effects of manipulating 78 distinct subsets of neurons on lifespan, and identified specific brain structures that are of prime importance for modulating aging. One of these structures is home to neurons expressing diuretic hormone 44 (Dh44, a CRH homolog). Dh44 and one of its receptors, Dh44R1, modulate lifespan, likely through insulin-like signaling pathways. Furthermore, this effect of Dh44 on lifespan is independent of diet, a fact obtained in part using the Fly Liquid-food Interaction Counter (FLIC), a novel assay developed to continuously measure feeding behavior in individual flies. The evolutionarily conserved neural circuits identified herein link aging to neural states consistent with primitive emotions in Drosophila, and these mechanisms deserve further exploration for their potential to explain connections between stress, emotions, and health in humans.
The aim of this paper was to seek complementary themes between psychosocial and neuroscientific approaches to understanding interactions between emotions and cognitions, using the " affect-logic " approach of Ciompi and the " affective neuroscience " approach of Panksepp. Both view envision meaningful distinctions between emotional and cognitive processes, with the former being large-scale energetic states of brain and body that reflect evolutionarily adaptive action systems of the internal world, while the latter are more informationally encapsulated perception based processes that distinguish differences in the external world. In the intact organism, they are fully interactive; each can control the other. Emotions establish global, non-linear dynamic control over perceptual processes, memory and learning, and cognitions can trigger and regulate emotional processes. A variety of research strategies and predictions, ranging from the neurobiological to the psychosocial, are entertained. During the last two decades, it has become increasingly evident both in neuroscience (Damasio,
Studies addressing behavioral functions of dopamine (DA) in the nucleus accumbens septi (NAS) are reviewed. A role of NAS DA in reward has long been suggested. However, some investigators have questioned the role of NAS DA in rewarding effects because of its role in aversive contexts. As findings supporting the role of NAS DA in mediating aversively motivated behaviors accumulate, it is necessary to accommodate such data for understanding the role of NAS DA in behavior. The aim of the present paper is to provide a unifying interpretation that can account for the functions of NAS DA in a variety of behavioral contexts: (1) its role in appetitive behavioral arousal, (2) its role as a facilitator as well as an inducer of reward processes, and (3) its presently undefined role in aversive contexts. The present analysis suggests that NAS DA plays an important role in sensorimotor integrations that facilitate flexible approach responses. Flexible approach responses are contrasted with fixed instrumental approach responses (habits), which may involve the nigro-striatal DA system more than the meso-accumbens DA system. Functional properties of NAS DA transmission are considered in two stages: unconditioned behavioral invigoration effects and incentive learning effects. (1) When organisms are presented with salient stimuli (e.g., novel stimuli and incentive stimuli), NAS DA is released and invigorates flexible approach responses (invigoration effects). (2) When proximal exteroceptive receptors are stimulated by unconditioned stimuli, NAS DA is released and enables stimulus representations to acquire incentive properties within specific environmental context. It is important to make a distinction that NAS DA is a critical component for the conditional formation of incentive representations but not the retrieval of incentive stimuli or behavioral expressions based on over-learned incentive responses (i.e., habits). Nor is NAS DA essential for the cognitive perception of environmental stimuli. Therefore, even without normal NAS DA transmission, the habit response system still allows animals to perform instrumental responses given that the tasks take place in fixed environment. Such a role of NAS DA as an incentive-property constructor is not limited to appetitive contexts but also aversive contexts. This dual action of NAS DA in invigoration and incentive learning may explain the rewarding effects of NAS DA as well as other effects of NAS DA in a variety of contexts including avoidance and unconditioned/conditioned increases in open-field locomotor activity. Particularly, the present hypothesis offers the following interpretation for the finding that both conditioned and unconditioned aversive stimuli stimulate DA release in the NAS: NAS DA invigorates approach responses toward `safety'. Moreover, NAS DA modulates incentive properties of the environment so that organisms emit approach responses toward `safety' (i.e., avoidance responses) when animals later encounter similar environmental contexts. There may be no obligatory relationship between NAS DA release and positive subjective effects, even though these systems probably interact with other brain systems which can mediate such effects. The present conceptual framework may be valuable in understanding the dynamic interplay of NAS DA neurochemistry and behavior, both normal and pathophysiological.
A better understanding of animal emotion is an important goal in disciplines ranging from neuroscience to animal welfare science. The conscious experience of emotion cannot be assessed directly, but neural, behavioural and physiological indicators of emotion can be measured. Researchers have used these measures to characterize how animals respond to situations assumed to induce discrete emotional states (e.g. fear). While advancing our understanding of specific emotions, this discrete emotion approach lacks an overarching framework that can incorporate and integrate the wide range of possible emotional states. Dimensional approaches that conceptualize emotions in terms of universal core affective characteristics (e.g. valence (positivity versus negativity) and arousal) can provide such a framework. Here, we bring together discrete and dimensional approaches to: (i) offer a structure for integrating different discrete emotions that provides a functional perspective on the adaptive value of emotional states, (ii) suggest how long-term mood states arise from short-term discrete emotions, how they also influence these discrete emotions through a bi-directional relationship and how they may function to guide decision-making, and (iii) generate novel hypothesis-driven measures of animal emotion and mood.
Positive emotional states have been shown to confer resilience to depression and anxiety in humans, but the molecular mechanisms underlying these effects have not yet been elucidated. In laboratory rats, positive emotional states can be measured by 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (hedonic USVs), which are maximally elicited by juvenile rough-and-tumble play behavior. Using a focused microarray platform, insulin-like growth factor I (IGFI) extracellular signaling genes were found to be upregulated by hedonic rough-and-tumble play but not depressogenic social defeat. Administration of IGFI into the lateral ventricle increased rates of hedonic USVs in an IGFI receptor (IGFIR)-dependent manner. Lateral ventricle infusions of an siRNA specific to the IGFIR decreased rates of hedonic 50-kHz USVs. These results show that IGFI plays a functional role in the generation of positive affective states and that IGFI-dependent signaling is a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of depression and anxiety.
Reductionist attempts to dissect complex mechanisms into simpler elements are necessary, but not sufficient for understanding how biological properties like reward emerge out of neuronal activity. Recent studies on intracranial self-administration of neurochemicals (drugs) found that rats learn to self-administer various drugs into the mesolimbic dopamine structures-the posterior ventral tegmental area, medial shell nucleus accumbens and medial olfactory tubercle. In addition, studies found roles of non-dopaminergic mechanisms of the supramammillary, rostromedial tegmental and midbrain raphe nuclei in reward. To explain intracranial self-administration and related effects of various drug manipulations, I outlined a neurobiological theory claiming that there is an intrinsic central process that coordinates various selective functions (including perceptual, visceral, and reinforcement processes) into a global function of approach. Further, this coordinating process for approach arises from interactions between brain structures including those structures mentioned above and their closely linked regions: the medial prefrontal cortex, septal area, ventral pallidum, bed nucleus of stria terminalis, preoptic area, lateral hypothalamic areas, lateral habenula, periaqueductal gray, laterodorsal tegmental nucleus and parabrachical area.
What is the basic structure of emotional experience and how is it represented in the human brain? One highly influential theory, discrete basic emotions, proposes a limited set of basic emotions such as happiness and fear, which are characterized by unique physiological and neural profiles. Although many studies using diverse methods have linked particular brain structures with specific basic emotions, evidence from individual neuroimaging studies and from neuroimaging meta-analyses has been inconclusive regarding whether basic emotions are associated with both consistent and discriminable regional brain activations. We revisited this question, using activation likelihood estimation (ALE), which allows spatially sensitive, voxelwise statistical comparison of results from multiple studies. In addition, we examined substantially more studies than previous meta-analyses. The ALE meta-analysis yielded results consistent with basic emotion theory. Each of the emotions examined (fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and happiness) was characterized by consistent neural correlates across studies, as defined by reliable correlations with regional brain activations. In addition, the activation patterns associated with each emotion were discrete (discriminable from the other emotions in pairwise contrasts) and overlapped substantially with structure-function correspondences identified using other approaches, providing converging evidence that discrete basic emotions have consistent and discriminable neural correlates. Complementing prior studies that have demonstrated neural correlates for the affective dimensions of arousal and valence, the current meta-analysis results indicate that the key elements of basic emotion views are reflected in neural correlates identified by neuroimaging studies.
In recent years there has been an expansion of scientific work on consciousness. However, there is an increasing necessity to integrate evolutionary and interdisciplinary perspectives and to bring affective feelings more centrally into the overall discussion. Pursuant especially to the theorizing of Endel Tulving (1985, 2004, 2005), Panksepp (1998a, 2003, 2005) and Vandekerckhove (2009) we will look at the phenomena starting with primary-process consciousness, namely the rudimentary state of autonomic awareness or unknowing (anoetic) consciousness, with a fundamental form of first-person 'self-experience' which relies on affective experiential states and raw sensory and perceptual mental existences, to higher forms of knowing (noetic and autonoetic) and self-aware consciousness. Since current scientific approaches are most concerned with the understanding of higher declarative states of consciousness, we will focus on these vastly underestimated primary forms of consciousness which may be foundational for all forms of higher 'knowing consciousness'.
During the last 20 years of neuroscience research, we have witnessed a fundamental shift in the conceptualization of psychiatric disorders, with the dominant psychological and neurochemical theories of the past now complemented by a growing emphasis on developmental, genetic, molecular, and brain circuit models. Facilitating this evolving paradigm shift has been the growing contribution of functional neuroimaging, which provides a versatile platform to characterize brain circuit dysfunction underlying specific syndromes as well as changes associated with their successful treatment. Discussed here are converging imaging findings that established a rationale for testing a targeted neuromodulation strategy, deep brain stimulation, for treatment-resistant major depression.
To understand what is happening in the brain in the moment you decide, at will, to summon to consciousness a passage of Mozart's music, or decide to take a deep breath, is like trying to 'catch a phantom by the tail'. Consciousness remains that most elusive of all human phenomena - one so mysterious that even our highly developed knowledge of brain function can only partly explain it. This book traces the origins of consciousness. It takes the investigation back many years in an attempt to uncover just how consciousness might have first emerged. Consciousness did not develop suddenly in humans - it evolved gradually. The book investigates the evolution of consciousness. Central to the book is the idea that the primal emotions - elements of instinctive behaviour - were the first dawning of consciousness. Throughout the book examines instinctive behaviours, such as hunger for air, hunger for minerals, thirst, and pain, arguing that the emotions elicited from these behaviours and desire for gratification culminated in the first conscious states. To develop the theory the book looks at behaviour at different levels of the evolutionary tree, for example of octopuses, fish, snakes, birds, and elephants. Coupled with findings from neuroimaging studies, and the viewpoints on consciousness from figures in philosophy and neuroscience, the book presents a new look at the problem of consciousness.
But I do not mean to imply criticism by these comments. The editor of Textbook of Biological Psychiatry does not pretend to compete with the standard texts above or to present an overview of biological psychiatry as a whole. Rather, he has made a conscious decision to focus on certain aspects of biological psychiatry, especially "functional neuroscientific psychiatry," to use the term offered by Dr Mortimer Ostow in his foreword. Functional neuroscientific psychiatry addresses such issues as the neural substrates of consciousness—a topic that becomes the subject of an entire chapter in this book. Also emphasized is research on basic emotional systems, together with investigations of their physiologic correlates, including Panksepp's concepts of SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, etc (intentionally capitalized to indicate that they are postulated as distinct neural entities rather than simply psychological concepts). From the vantage point of neuroscientific psychiatry, as argued in many chapters, one can attain new insights into psychiatric diagnosis and devise rational approaches for developing new treatments. The stamp of the editor's thinking is felt throughout much of the volume; he is the author or coauthor of six of its 21 chapters, and his seminal 1998 work, Affective Neuroscience, is repeatedly cited.
Abundant neurobehavioral data, not discussed by Lisa Feldman Barrett (2006), support the existence of a variety of core emotional operating systems in ancient subneocortical regions of the brain (Panksepp, 1998a, 2005a). Such brain systems are the primary-process ancestral birthrights of all mammals. There may be as many genetically and neurochemically coded subcortical affect systems in emotionally rich medial regions of the brain as there are "natural" emotional action systems in the brain. When emotional primes are aroused directly, as with local electrical or chemical stimulation, the affective changes sustain conditioned place preferences and place aversions, which are the premier secondary-process indices of affective states in animals. Humans are not immune to such brain manipulations; they typically exhibit strong emotional feelings. Human emotion researchers should not ignore these systems and simply look at the complex and highly variable culturally molded manifestations of emotions in humans if they wish to determine what kinds of "natural" emotional processes exist within all mammalian brain. Basic emotion science has generated workable epistemological strategies for under-standing the primal sources of human emotional feelings by detailed study of emotional circuits in our fellow animals.
© 2007 Association for Psychological Science.
Our basic thesis is that depression is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism in mammalian brains, selected as a shutdown mechanism to terminate protracted separation distress (a prototype mammalian emotional state), which, if sustained, would be dangerous for infant mammals. However, this fundamental shutdown mechanism remains available to more mature mammalian and hominid brains, particularly those with certain polymorphisms in genetic endowment, early loss/separation trauma, or other predisposing factors, which can promote reactivation in relationship to almost any chronic stressor. Such evolutionarily selected shutdown mechanisms could become hypertrophied, and released from normal adaptive control mechanisms in vulnerable individuals, to potentially yield the full spectrum of depressive illness. Depression remains a challenging puzzle of neurobiological correlates, involving changes in many biogenic amine and neuropeptide systems and alterations in neuroendocrine and immune function. We suggest that core factors form an interactive and even synergistic “depressive matrix,” which argues against any “single-factor” theory. We examine core contributions from stress cascades, immune function, and multiple neuropeptide and monoamine systems. Contrary to many single-factor or primary factors, our review suggests active synergisms between factors, as well as a complex recursive (looping) control architecture regulating both entry and exit from depression. Such an interactive matrix of factors may help explain why such an enormous multiplicity of potential treatments are antidepressant, ranging from psychotherapy and exercise to multiple drugs, vagal and deep brain stimulation, and ECT. This review bridges domains generally disconnected in current literature. Traditional biological psychiatric perspectives are almost totally “bottom-up” (neglecting relationships between depression and social stress) and typically cannot explain why depression is such a pervasive problem, or why evolution could have ever selected for such a mechanism. Linking depression to protracted separation distress provides a heuristic potential integration of findings, particularly between long-standing psychotherapy and psychodynamic perspectives and emerging neuroscience insights. This hypothesis yields various testable predictions at both clinical and neuroscience levels.
Based on evidence for brain affective systems, parceled into six distinct groups (Panksepp, 1998a), it was hypothesized that a great deal of personality variability would be related to strengths and weaknesses found in these six systems. If supported, this hypothesis would provide further evidence for the physiological bases of personality. Personality scales, modeled after the Spielberger State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI), were constructed to estimate self-reported feedback concerning the putative influences of these six neurally based networks, which are labeled PLAY, SEEK, CARE, FEAR, ANGER, and SADNESS systems, along with a Spirituality scale and various filler questions. Subjects completed these Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) as well as a Five-Factor Model (FFM) scale. Data revealed various strong relationship between the APNS and the FFM scales. Implications for psychometric theory, the relationships between affect and personality, as well as the physiological bases of personality are discussed.
Empathy is a process essential for mitigation of human suffering and for the creation and long-term stability of social bonds. Although it has recently become the focus of intensive study after decades of neglect, models of empathy emerging from cognitive neuroscience, affective neuroscience, and functional imaging studies show considerable confusion about defining empathy and widespread differences of opinion about the cognitive vs. affective dimensions to empathy. Human empathy probably reflects variable admixtures of more primitive affective resonance mechanisms, melded with developmentally later-arriving theory of mind and perspective taking. This integration of primitive with more cognitive mechanisms occurs under the “supervision” of a motivated valuing of another sentient creature, a supervision that underlines intrinsic ties between empathy and attachment processes. We know little, however, about how more primitive resonance-induction mechanisms centrally involved in attachment connect developmentally to more later arriving cognitive theory of mind components. From these considerations, a basic model of affective empathy is generated as a gated resonance induction of the internal distress of another creature, with an intrinsic motivation to relieve the distress. It is “gated” in that at least four classes of poorly mapped variables determine the intensity of an empathic response to the suffering of another. Potential classes of variables affecting empathic inductions are: (1) genotypic and (2) phenotypic effects; (3) state-dependent influences (on the affective state of the empathizer); and finally (4) the perceived qualities of the suffering party. Most current models have failed to conceptualize this critical “gating” process, subsequently losing any naturalistic predictive efficacy in modeling real-world social phenomena. Contagion has been generally neglected in affective neuroscience, but it may point to poorly understood receptive processing capabilities, embedded in the distributed paralimbic and subcortical architectures for primary emotion. Thus, contagion may be a developmentally primitive emotion-induction mechanism that cognitive development largely (but not totally) supplants. Detailed differential predictions of this model are proposed.
Some of the personality characteristics of infants emerge from the positive and negative interactions of their brain emotional strengths with world events. Positive emotional systems appear to operate as attractors that capture cognitive spaces, leading to their broadening, cultivation, and development. Negative emotions tend to constrain cognitive activities to more narrow and obsessive channels. One aim of healthy development is to generate harmonious, well-integrated layers of emotional and higher mental processes, as opposed to conflicts between emotional and cognitive experiences. To understand such processes scientifically, we need to conceptualize the deep nature of the emotional brain and the psychiatric difficulties that can emerge from underlying imbalances. Obviously, one has to view the infant as a coherent entity rather than a conglomeration of neurological parts—but a scientific understanding of how their fundamental brain emotional systems may operate (based on the detailed neurobehavioral study of other mammals), may provide new ways to conceptualize how different social environments may modify those paths. Herein, I will highlight areas of research we might cultivate to promote a deeper understanding of key neuro-developmental issues. The basic premise is that with the emergence of habitual capacities to project their emotions into the world, infants gradually come to see their environments as fundamentally friendly places or uncaring and threatening ones. A great deal of this presumably emerges from brain systems that control sadness and joy. Those brain processes, along with developmental implications, are discussed in some detail. ©2001 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.
Episodic memory is a neurocognitive (brain/mind) system, uniquely different from other memory systems, that enables human beings to remember past experiences. The notion of episodic memory was first proposed some 30 years ago. At that time it was defined in terms of materials and tasks. It was subsequently refined and elaborated in terms of ideas such as self, subjective time, and autonoetic consciousness. This chapter provides a brief history of the concept of episodic memory, describes how it has changed (indeed greatly changed) since its inception, considers criticisms of it, and then discusses supporting evidence provided by (a) neuropsychological studies of patterns of memory impairment caused by brain damage, and (b) functional neuroimaging studies of patterns of brain activity of normal subjects engaged in various memory tasks. I also suggest that episodic memory is a true, even if as yet generally unappreciated, marvel of nature.
Basic affects reflect the diversity of satisfactions (potential rewards/reinforcements) and discomforts (punishments) that are inherited tools for living from our ancestral past. Affects are neurobiologically-ingrained potentials of the nervous system, which are triggered, moulded and refined by life experiences. Cognitive, information- processing approaches and computational metaphors cannot penetrate foundational affective processes. Animal models allow us to empirically analyse the large-scale neural ensembles that generate emotional-action dynamics that are critically important for creating emotional feelings. Such approaches offer robust neuro-epistemological strategies to decode the fundamental nature of affects in all mammals, including humans, but they remain to be widely implemented. Here I summarize how we can develop a cross-species affective neuroscience that probes the neural nature of emotional affective states by studying the instinctual emotional apparatus of the mammalian body and brain. Affective feelings and emotional actions may reflect the dynamics of the primal viscero-somatic homunculus of SELF-representation.
Tornochuk and Ellis argue that DISGUST should be considered a basic emotional system, on a par with the other basic emotional systems such as SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC and PLAY, which constitute the groundwork for a cross-species emotion neuroscience with immediate implications for understanding emotional imbalances that characterise psychiatric disorders. Disgust is clearly a basic sensory/interoceptive affect (Rozin & Fallon, 198736.
Rozin , P. and Fallon , A. 1987 . A perspective on disgust . Psychological Review , 94 : 23 – 41 . [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references), and a socially constructed moral emotion (Haidt, 2003a14.
Haidt , J. 2003a . “ The moral emotions ” . In Handbook of affective sciences , Edited by: Davidson , R. J. , Scherer , K. R. and Goldsmith , H. H. 852 – 870 . New York : Oxford University Press . View all references, b15.
Haidt , J. 2003b . The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment . Psychological Review , 108 : 814 – 834 . [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references), but perhaps it is a category error to classify disgust as a basic emotion. It is more akin to a sensory affect. If we consider sensory disgust to be a basic emotional systems, then why not include hunger, thirst, fatigue and many other affective states of the body as emotions?
Summarizes results from a series of open and double-blind trials that have yielded positive therapeutic effects with low doses of naltrexone (NTX), including reductions in autistic stereotypes, aggressiveness, and self-injurious behaviors, and the production of heightened prosocial emotional attitudes that are accompanied by increased smiling, eye contact, attention, and attempts to communicate. The positive behavioral change seems to be enhanced by social support, and how such features of therapeutic situations can be maximized to optimize clinical benefits from NTX is discussed. Since "serenic" drugs (e.g., eltoprazine) have strong antiaggressive effects in other preclinical models while leaving prosocial activities intact or elevated, they may be useful agents for the treatment of various autistic symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter is about the human sense of subjective time. To distinguish it from other time-related and time dependent achievements of the brain/mind, the author refers to it as chronesthesia, which is tentatively defined as a form of consciousness that allows individuals to think about the subjective time in which they live and that makes it possible for them to "mentally travel" in such time. In this chapter, the author attempts to explicate the concept of chronesthesia, suggests what it is (and what it is not), contrast it with other kinds of time-related mentation, discuss the origin of the concept, and, the main reason for the chapter's appearance in the present volume, speculate on chronesthesia's relation to prefrontal cortex. The author concludes the chapter by discussing the role of chronesthesia in human evolution and human culture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Drug-induced state dependent learning (SDL), as well as similar effects on memory retrieval exercised by physiological states, have been known since 1830. Before 1950, understanding of this area derived primarily from clinical descriptions of somnambulism, dream recall, fugue states, and cases of multiple personality. After 1950, experimental demonstrations of the properties of SDL and drug discriminations (DDs), along with a series of changes in the DD procedure, have led to the DD paradigm that is currently employed, and which has properties that make it an extremely useful tool for preclinical investigation of a variety of pharmacological and psychological questions. These conceptual and technical developments have resulted in widespread acceptance of the DD paradigm as a preclinical research method. This paper reviews the nineteeth and twentieth century history of clinical observations, concepts, and experiments, that have led to our current status of knowledge about drug discriminations and SDL.
(C) Lippincott-Raven Publishers.
Emotions seem to arise ultimately from hard-wired neural circuits in the visceral-limbic brain that facilitate diverse and adaptive behavioral and physiological responses to major classes of environmental challenges. Presumably these circuits developed early in mammalian brain evolution, and the underlying control mechanisms remain similar in humans and “lower” mammals. This would suggest that theoretically guided studies of the animal brain can reveal how primitive emotions are organized in the human brain. Conversely, granted this cross-species heritage, it is arguable that human introspective access to emotional states may provide direct information concerning operations of emotive circuits and thus be a primary source of hypotheses for animal brain research. In this article the possibility that emotions are elaborated by transhypothalamic executive (command) circuits that concurrently activate related behavior patterns is assessed. Current neurobehavioral evidence indicates that there are at least four executive circuits of this type – those which elaborate central states of expectancy, rage, fear, and panic. The manner in which learning and psychiatric disorders may arise from activities of such circuits is also discussed.
Utility of Animal ModelsBasic Emotional Substrates of JealousyOnce More: Is Jealousy Initially an “Objectless” Primary-Emotional Process?Jealousy: From Primary Process to Tertiary Process Levels of AnalysisNeurological and Gender Aspects of JealousyJealousy in AnimalsToward a Neurochemistry of JealousyEvolutionary ReflectionsConclusions
References
This chapter reviews current perspectives on the neural substrates of consciousness, including a basic functional neuroanatomy and neurodynamics of consciousness, emphasizing concepts about the extended reticular thalamic activating system (ERTAS) and the importance of multiple mesodiencephalic regions for core consciousness, and various thalamocortical regions for extended consciousness. There is also a summary review of basic lesion correlates for major diseases of consciousness, including coma, persistent vegetative state, akinetic mutism, hyperkinetic mutism, and delirium, along with summary heuristics for current and future research.
Laypeople and scientists alike believe that they know anger, or sadness, or fear, when they see it. These emotions and a few others are presumed to have specific causal mechanisms in the brain and properties that are observable (on the face, in the voice, in the body, or in experience)-that is, they are assumed to be natural kinds. If a given emotion is a natural kind and can be identified objectively, then it is possible to make discoveries about that emotion. Indeed, the scientific study of emotion is founded on this assumption. In this article, I review the accumulating empirical evidence that is inconsistent with the view that there are kinds of emotion with boundaries that are carved in nature. I then consider what moving beyond a natural-kind view might mean for the scientific understanding of emotion.
© 2006 Association for Psychological Science.
The development of clinically useful drugs to modify brain neuropeptide activities is yielding new therapeutic possibilities. Although psychiatric payoffs from the study of these systems remain modest, the potential remains vast. A conceptual shift in pre-clinical studies from mere behavioral analyses to deployment of affective constructs opens novel opportunities. Since affective feelings probably arise from the intrinsic properties of instinctual emotional systems in action, to understand the neurochemical details of such brain systems in humans may we advocate investment in ethological animal models. Neuropeptide controls revealed by such strategies provide opportunities to modify specific emotional and motivational processes at a level of precision inconceivable with traditional agents used in psychiatric practice.
Major depressive disorder has recently been characterized by abnormal resting state hyperactivity in anterior midline regions. The neurochemical mechanisms underlying resting state hyperactivity remain unclear. Since animal studies provide an opportunity to investigate subcortical regions and neurochemical mechanisms in more detail, we used a cross-species translational approach comparing a meta-analysis of human data to animal data on the functional anatomy and neurochemical modulation of resting state activity in depression. Animal and human data converged in showing resting state hyperactivity in various ventral midline regions. These were also characterized by abnormal concentrations of glutamate and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) as well as by NMDA receptor up-regulation and AMPA and GABA receptor down-regulation. This cross-species translational investigation suggests that resting state hyperactivity in depression occurs in subcortical and cortical midline regions and is mediated by glutamate and GABA metabolism. This provides insight into the biochemical underpinnings of resting state activity in both depressed and healthy subjects.
John Searle's Speech Acts (1969) and Expression and Meaning (1979) developed a highly original and influential approach to the study of language. But behind both works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branch of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and represent just one example of the mind's capacity to relate the human organism to the world. The present book is concerned with these biologically fundamental capacities, and, though third in the sequence, in effect it provides the philosophical foundations for the other two. Intentionality is taken to be the crucial mental phenomenon, and its analysis involves wide-ranging discussions of perception, action, causation, meaning, and reference. In all these areas John Searle has original and stimulating views. He ends with a resolution of the 'mind-body' problem.
Various surgical brain ablation procedures for the treatment of refractory depression were developed in the twentieth century. Most notably, key target sites were (i) the anterior cingulum, (ii) the anterior limb of the internal capsule, and (iii) the subcaudate white matter, which were regarded as effective targets. Long-term symptom remissions were better following lesions of the anterior internal capsule and subcaudate white matter than of the cingulum. It is possible that the observed clinical improvements of these various surgical procedures may reflect shared influences on presently unspecified brain affect-regulating networks. Such possibilities can now be analyzed using modern brain connectivity procedures such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography. We determined whether the shared connectivities of the above lesion sites in healthy volunteers might explain the therapeutic effects of the various surgical approaches. Accordingly, modestly sized historical lesions, especially of the anatomical overlap areas, were 'implanted' in brain-MRI scans of 53 healthy subjects. These were entered as seed regions for probabilistic DTI connectivity reconstructions. We analyzed for the shared connectivities of bilateral anterior capsulotomy, anterior cingulotomy, subcaudate tractotomy, and stereotactic limbic leucotomy (a combination of the last two lesion sites). Shared connectivities between the four surgical approaches mapped onto the most mediobasal aspects of bilateral frontal lobe fibers, including the forceps minor and the anterior thalamic radiations that contacted subgenual cingulate regions. Anatomically, convergence of these shared connectivities may derive from the superolateral branch of the medial forebrain bundle (MFB), a structure that connects these frontal areas to the origin of the mesolimbic dopaminergic 'reward' system in the midbrain ventral tegmental area. Thus, all four surgical anti-depressant approaches may be promoting positive affect by converging influences onto the MFB.
Behaviourists have long neglected experiential states in animals because of inadequate experimental approaches. As [Tinbergen (1951)][1] highlighted in his classic Study of Instinct (1951, p. 4): ‘Because subjective phenomena cannot be observed objectively in animals, it is idle to claim or deny