Monday, March 26, 2007

Emotions and Cognition

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).

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Reading Response for 3/28/07

I was relieved this week to start reading about the cognitive
experience of emotions, and learn more about the distinctions between
emotion and feeling, however subjective the distinctions are (some
people don't make a distinction, I refer to Damasio's discussion).
It's interesting that sometimes we are more aware of our thought
process than other times, when we simply process information and don't
really know how we came up with something. Sometimes I enjoy trying to
trace back a certain thought or conclusion, and it can be extremely
difficult because of the myriad associations, past and present, that
are involved. Like LeDoux explained, in working memory we can
temporarily store about seven pieces of information, but each piece is
bound to have a thousand other associations along with it, like
LeDouxs' example of the seven continents and their associations. Thus,
although we may only be able to hold seven pieces of information to
compare, contrast, and process at any given moment, our brains are
simultaneously utilizing much more information that that, through the
associations which the information holds to past memories and
experiences. In both the LeDoux and Damasio reading emphasis is put on
the fact that working memory is made up of long-term memories of past
experiences, and the new information continually being gathered from
the external environment. Feelings, in LeDouxs' view, come from the
conscious recognition of the information that has been processed by
emotion systems that come to be represented in working memory.

Another important aspect of the conscious experience of emotion (i.e.
feelings) is arousal. The arousal spectrum goes from "completely
unconscious (in a coma), to asleep, to awake but drowsy, to alert, to
emotionally aroused" (LeDoux, pg. 289). LeDoux emphasizes the fact
that the level of arousal may contribute to the level of an
individuals' attention to and awareness of their emotional state. In a
highly arousing emotional state, an individual is more likely to be
fully aware of their emotional state (how they "feel"), and the
experience will be encoded as a highly emotional one, which, according
to previous readings, tells is that it will be remembered more fully
or vividly. In the same vein, Damasio feels that the essence of
conscious feelings are "that continuous monitoring, that experience of
what your body is doing while thoughts about specific contents roll
by" (Damasio, pg. 145).

While reading "The Cognitive Control of Emotion" article by Ochsner
and Gross, questions that came up for me were about ADD, and interest.
The article discussed attention and cognitive control in association
with emotion regulation, and I was wondering how this affects people
with ADD. People with ADD suffer from and attention deficit, as the
name implies, but in my experience people with this "disorder" do not
lack emotional capacity or the ability to express emotions. I also
wonder what role interest plays (because my research paper was about
interest as a primary emotion). Attention in general often has to do
with someone's interest in an object or event, whether it is positive
or negative, pleasurable or unpleasant. I question how much interest
is involved with the processing or events and how much individual
interest has to do with the processing of emotion.

Emotions and cognition

There was much overlap of the topics covered in the readings for this week as both LeDoux and Damasio try to explain and understand emotions. They both talk about the evolution of life and try to consider how emotions have become such a large part of our human landscape. Damasio eloquently pulls apart the evolution of life as he explains that the very first simple organism was without a CNS and performed actions spontaneously or in response to a specific stimulus, and that in turn these actions can be characterized as the organism’s behavioral pattern. It was only later on in the progression of life on this planet that organisms developed a nervous system and a brain. He states that organisms can either have behavior but no mind, have behavior and cognition but no thinkable organism can have a mind but no action (believe in ghosts?).
He also goes through a rudimentary explanation of the brain by stating that “upstairs in the cortex there is reason and willpower, while downstairs in the subcortex there is emotion and all that weak, fleshy stuff” . The upstairs region is believed to be evolutionarily the most recent development of the brain while downstairs houses primal elements of behavior that aided us through the years of cave dwelling. He goes on to say that there has been “evidence that longevity, a likely reflection of the quality of reasoning, is correlated not only with increased size of the neocortex as expected but also with increased size of the hypothalamus, the main compartment of downstairs.” Here is where he draws a connection to the development of the structures that house rationality and emotions and states that they are both necessary to the movement in time of our species. But he also draws upon the idea while referencing William James that the mind and body are connected to each other through the bridge of emotion. This bridge is so important for the human race because it facilitates communication between people and between species.

From here I am reminded of how LeDoux concluded his book. He states at the end of chapter nine that the amygdala has more control over the cortex than the cortex has over the amygdala. He states that there are two possibilities in the future of our brain structuring. Seeing that the neocortex is ever expanding it might gain more and more control over the amygdala possibly allowing future humans to better control their emotions. He also postulates that due to the equality of connecting fibres between the neocortex and the amygdala, the future may behold a time where there is no more struggle between thought and emotions “but a more harmonious integration of reason and passion” . From here I wonder how much LeDoux would agree with Damasio’s view over the importance of emotions in the processes that he discuses extensively in part one while referencing to Phineas Gage and Elliot. I really enjoyed LeDoux book but perhaps that is where I get lost sometimes, because he does not ever really formulate his own opinions but instead covers extensively the research as it pertains to emotions and the brain. But this may be what makes him a highly revered scientific writer, as he brings together scientific facts in order to paint the landscape of emotions and the brain. I guess that is something we will cover in class in the next few weeks.

The goal of Barrett and Ochsner’s research is to identify how appraisal patterns give rise to complexities of emotional experiences, expression and regulation. I wonder why do some people respond one way to an emotional and another person acts in a seemingly different manner. Despite the argument that some of these behaviors are inherited and reinforced, and the role that memory plays in emotional responses, I still wonder about what is responsible for the marked difference in emotional behavior between people be it in automatic emotion processing or controlled emotion processing? I guess the figure on page 273 of Ledoux's book will serve as a map in understanding this dilemma as well as analyzing the their research findings in that different brain structures are responsible for different emotional behavior. I had some trouble understanding some of their findings. For example, what do they mean by “core affective life of the individual”p.29? This paper was well organized and descriptive but I feel that due to my lack of knowledge about neuroscience I would need help in understanding the research and its implications.