This weeks’ reading focused mostly on the internal processes and systems leading to emotional experience and expression. It took us into the internal experience of what is an emotion. There seems to be general questions such as, where do our emotions come from, and where do our responses come from? What controls them? Various aspects were put forward in all the readings, such as the importance of our working memory, the central role of the amygdala, the limit between feelings and consciousness and the difference between automatic responses and responses learned by experience.
The difference between primary and secondary emotion I think is crucial in order to understand the different reactions and their origins. In this difference lies the distinction between innate, survival reactions and the more complex reactions of secondary emotions. In the case of primary emotions, our responses depend on survival, instinctual regulation. We will therefore act in order to assure survival, the best way we can. Secondary emotions are more complex. They depend on more aspects and processes, such as the process of decision-making, its relation to memory and passed experience and even take place in a different part of the brain. What happens without consciousness such as innate emotions happens in the old brain structures whereas when the situation is more complex, it occurs in systems in the neocortex, a modern sector of the brain.
The importance of our working memory I thought was very interesting and so was the importance of our memory in the process of responding to a situation. Working memory would be the “origin” of cousciousness. Both Damasio and LeDoux described as “concrete” the question of consciousness and emotion, which I thought was very striking.
To what extend are our emotion conscious? And the question of controlling our emotions still remains.
About controlling our emotions, Damasio talked about the chemical substances part of the emotional experience in our brains. He also mentioned medicines that we can use to control our emotions. I was wondering about the influence of medicine on our emotion in the long run. How does it influence our brain and how can we get out of it?
The body mind connection seems to be very important. Which one governs the other tends to be the main question, and what comes first? We can’t deny the role of both mind and bodily expression in emotional experience, they are strongly connected. The keyword seems to be “interaction”. The answer to most of our question about what comes first and what controls the experience seem to be answered when thinking of it as an interaction between several crucial systems. Finally, another main concern is the definition of a feeling. The readings clearly put consciousness as the main aspect of a feeling. Consciousness makes the experience a feeling. The central role of the body is also crucial in this definition as our feelings let us “mind the body” (Damasio, p159).
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What really stuck out to me in the readings is not only what Naomi and Margot wrote about, but also this idea of the emotional/feeling aspect constantly taking over the intellectual. We, as humans, have this power to analyze our feelings and it's interesting how our brains choose to aid us in the process. Ochsner discusses how the basal ganglia helps to slowly encode sequences of behavior. When dopamine is in the basal ganglia, that helps to mediate the motivation it takes to seek out a reward. We are capable to encode memories and assign them the specific emotions to them that we want through emotion regulation. We can alter our memories and our present situations by our personal interpretation of the emotional aspect of the situation. Ochsner brought up the question, "why do different individuals experience different emotions?" is that the question or is it why do different individuals experience emotions differently? In one scenario, why is everyone involved able to approach the outcome with a different emotional conclusion? Either way, Damasio says that feelings are a "truly privileged status" and I agree. Now, if feelings are such a great thing why doesn't everyone agree? How is it possible to get everyone to understand the attraction of feelings and expressing them?
Damasio characterizes “mind” as the ability to hold, order and assess images. He goes on to discuss what makes these images subjective and offers the idea of the neural self, “a perpetually re-created neurobiological state.” I am not completely sure what he means by the neural self but am left trying to relate this to Damasio’s assertions that we are always in flux on a moment to moment basis. I wonder whether the “self” is the result of the pathways sculpted by experience to exist in our brains at a given moment, resulting in our ordering or preferences (i.e. for one outcome over another) etc. or whether there is something more persistent than that.
He suggests that what should scare us is the idea of a “selfless cognition.” I am not sure exactly what he means by this. (p. 100.)
Throughout this week’s readings, I repeatedly found myself wondering about the author’s claim that an individual can voluntarily manipulate cognitive processes (for example, the ability to alter or even completely repress memories, even emotionally charged ones) due to our innate rewards system of emotions. This made the distinction between primary (our immediate, primal, instinctual response) and secondary (analyzed response) emotional responses all the more intriguing. It’s granted that we may need to modify the way we appear to feel at a given moment, but can an individual really consciously choose how to not only alter their external appearance but their internal experience as well? Are these “calculated emotions” even real, and if they are, are they any less genuine than traditional instinctual and uncontrollable primary emotions? The class has frequently noted the association between emotion and subjectivity and between cognitive processes and objectivity. We’ve also noted the seeming polarity between these two and various author’s attempts to dissuade readers of this established idea. This concept of “calculated emotions” is yet another example of the ultimately indistinguishable boundary between cognition and emotion.
LeDoux does a great job of portraying emotions and feels as dynamic multifaceted systems. In understanding the subjective quality of our emotions he pinpoints three influential factors necessary to understand personal and emotional arousal. (1) A stimulus, (2) the role of the brain, i.e. (in fearful state) the amygdala’s affect on the cortex and amygdala- triggered arousal, and (3) the body’s reaction. In understanding the feeling of being afraid one can see how all three processes influence and shape the outcome of our emotional reaction. I was interested in looking at extreme emotional states that arise without a specific stimulus. For instance, how would a psychological issue and stimuli (something internal or non-physical) generate a state of extreme feeling? How do these processes differ from those in the fear system?
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