James-Lange theory Lecture # 3: September 29, 2004

1. James-Lange theoryLecture # 3:September 29, 2004

2. James-Lange Theory of Emotion • Contrary to common-sense view, emotion is the perception of physiological arousal • Lange: Emphasized vasomotor changes in the experience of emotion • James: focused on expressive behaviours and instrumental behaviours in addition to autonomic arousal.

3. What would have to be true? • Differentiation of ANS activity with respect to basic emotions. • Preventing feedback from the periphery should change the nature/intensity of the emotional experience • Modifying the amount of feedback from the periphery should change emotional experience • Individual differences in ability to detect changes in physiological arousal should be associated with differences in emotional experience • Inducing behaviour associated with emotion should result in the experience of an emotion

4. Class Demonstration • Which of the points just discussed does this demonstration address? • What are the methodological problems associated with this approach?

5. Cannon’s (1927) Criticisms • Total separation of the viscera from the CNS does not alter emotional behaviour • The same visceral changes occur in very different emotional states and in non-emotional states • The viscera are relatively insensitive structures • Visceral changes are too slow to be the source of emotional feeling. • Artificial induction of the visceral changes typical of strong emotions does not produce them.

6. Feedback should be differentiated • ANS activity should be differentiated with respect to basic emotions if emotion is the perception of bodily changes, because emotions are experienced differently • For example, the physiological changes associated with fear should be different from those associated with happiness.

7. Nervous System • Central Nervous System (CNS) = Brain & Spinal Cord • Peripheral Nervous System • Somatic NS: carry impulses from the brain to the musculature • Autonomic NS: carry impulses from the brain to the various organs that make up the viscera (heart, stomach, lungs, adrenal glands, pancreas, intestines, bladder, etc.). Controls the automatic functions of the organs that are necessary for our survival and matches the inner activity and metabolism to be in accordance with environmental demands (homeostasis). • Sympathetic NS: typically excite the target organs: “All or none” simultaneous activation. Ganglia are located in a chain along the spinal cord. Neurotransmitter is excitatory (norepinephrine). • Parasympathetic NS: modulating or inhibitory effect over organs that are excited by the Sympathetic NS. Also, greater specificity: exerts influence on target organs individually. Ganglia are located on or near the target organs themselves. Neurotransmitter released is acetylcholine (inhibitory or excitatory depending on the target organ).

8. Nervous System • Efferent Nerves: • Somatic: terminating in skeletal muscle and mediate overt emotional behaviours • Visceral: innervate the viscera and mediate the internal expression of emotion. Autonomic NS is ‘Visceral Efferent’ • Afferent Nerves–receptors directed towards: • external environment are called exteroceptive (e.g. eyes) • inner environment are called interoceptors: • Skeletal muscles– proprioception (somatic) • Internal organs and glands– information re: visceral functioning

10. Autonomic Neurotransmission • Preganglionic neurotransmission involves ACh (nicotinic) for both the SNS and PNS • Sympathetic postganglionic transmission involves the release of Norepinephrine, ACh (muscarinic), or Adrenaline and Noradrenaline into the blood stream from the adrenal cortex and into systemic circulation where they have effects on distal target organs. Double excitation of many target organs. Also, longer half-life of circulating substances, explaining the prolonged nature of sympathetic activation). • Parasympathetic postganglionic neurotransmission involves the release of ACh (muscarinic receptors)

11. Autonomic Neurotransmission

12. Pharmacological Effects • Muscarinic transmission can be blocked by drugs such as atropine. • Adrenergic transmission at sympathetic post ganglionic sympathetic nerves can also be blocked: e.g. propanolol is a Beta-adrenergic blocker (heart), phentolamine is an Alpha-adrenergic blocker (blood vessels).

13. Is Emotional ArousalUndifferentiated? • One view: Undifferentiated (e.g. Shacter; Mandler). Derives from Cannon’s emergency theory, and has the most validity for states of intense aversive emotion (but is incomplete). • Emergency reaction: elicitation of emotion induces a state of arousal that prepares the organism for struggle: “fight or flight”. • Diffuse sympathetic activation and the release of Epinephrine and NE from adrenal medulla. Consequences: • increase respiration • redistributes blood flow away from the viscera and skin to the active skeletal muscles. • Circulating Epinepherine releases glycogen from the liver which is available for use by the active muscles. • Mobilization of the organism’s energy stores, and redistribute blood flow away from the body surface and viscera (vasoconstriction) and towards skeletal muscle (vasodilation).

14. Cognitive Labeling theories and related research • Schacter’s two factor theory: Emotion = arousal (undifferentiated) + cognition (situation appropriate) • Experiment: Behaviour of the ‘Stooge’ influenced the emotion experienced by the subject, but only if the subject does not have a plausible explanation for their arousal (in the Epinephrine-Ignorant, and Epinephrine-Misinformed conditions).

15. Cognitive Labeling theories and related research • Misattribution (MA) paradigm: Grew out of observations from Schacter’s ‘informed’ condition who told what the effects of the injection of adrenaline would be. • These subjects reported the least intense emotion of any group, including those injected with saline solution only. Schacter’s explanation was that arousal did not affect these subjects because they could correctly attribute their sensations of arousal to the injection. • Researchers have successfully induced subjects to misattribute arousal produced by pain, fear, anxiety, and anger.

16. Cognitive Labeling theories and related research • Excitation transfer (ET): Zillman and colleagues (1978; 1983) showed that naturally occurring arousal can be attributed to Subjects who have been aroused feel or behave more emotionally • Question: How are these two experimental paradigms different (MA and ET)? • The Capilano suspension bridge experiment… is an example of which paradigm ?

17. Evidence for differentiated arousal • Ax (1953): One of the first successful attempts to differentiate emotions on the basis of their autonomic correlates. Subjects placed in fear or anger conditions • Anger and fear could be differentiated on 7 of 14 physiological dimensions. Anger: Increases in Diastolic BP, muscle tension, # Galvanic skin responses, Heart rate ‘falls’. Fear: Skin conductance increases, # muscle tension peaks, respiration increases. • Anger pattern resembled the effects of intravenous injection of Epinephrine, and the Fear pattern that of intravenous NE. • A similar finding by Funkenstein (1955), who differentiated anger and fear on multiple physiological measurements.

18. Ekman et al. (1983) • Designed a study to overcome methodological flaws in previous investigations: • A broad sample of 6 different emotions were studied • Verification procedures were instituted to maximize the likelihood that each sample contained only the target emotion • A broad sampling of ANS activity was obtained in order to enable differentiation (HR, hand temperature, GSR, muscle tension). • Multiple eliciting tasks were used (directed facial action and relived emotion) • Professional actors and scientists were used as the research subjects to ensure that affect associated with frustration or embarrassment did not contaminate the samples

19. Ekman et al. (1983) Results

20. Visceral afference

21. Is Emotion prevented when ANS afferent return is disrupted? • Functionally separating the viscera from the brain should decrease emotionality if feedback is important for emotional experience • Hohmann (1966) interviewed 25 adult males with lesions at various levels in the spinal column (which left them with different degrees of sensation from visceral feedback). • Almost all subjects reported decreases in feelings of anger, fear, and sexual excitement. Many reported ‘as if’ experiences. • In addition, site of injury corresponded to degree of decrease in feelings of fear and anger: cervical and high thoracic. • Several subsequent studies have failed to support the findings of Hohmann: Lowe (1985), Bermond (1991), Chwalisz

22. Inducing behaviour associated with emotion should elicit an emotion • Remember class demonstration: posture • Facial feedback hypothesis: Awareness of one’s facial expressions IS the emotion. • Evidence to support FFH: Should be possible to create or modify emotional experience by manipulating facial expression • Laird et al. (1974): pose either happy or angry face. Shown emotionally salient slides. Happy face = more +ve to +ve slides, less –ve to –ve slides and vice-versa

23. Facial Feedback Hypothesis • Demand characteristics may explain FFH results. • Shrewd means to circumvent demand characteristics: • Strack & Stepper (1993): Posture & persistence • Strack & Stepper (1988): Facial feedback • Two explanations for FFH effects: • Biological/hardwired • Cognitively mediated (i.e. I feel happy because I perceive that I am smiling)… • not necessarily conscious (may involve sub-symbolic processing)

24. Individual Differences in Susceptibility • When induced to smile or frown or into a posture, some individuals report strong emotional experiences while others do not. • Arises from the kinds of information that people use to identify their own states. • Self-produced cues • Situational cues: normative expectations about what most people would feel in a particular situation. • These differences may arise from socialization practices and the type of information that children are taught to attend to in constructing their own emotional experience.

25. Gender Differences in Sensitivity to Visceral Feedback • Katkin et al. have shown that gender differences are apparent in the ability to perceive physiological / visceral feedback favouring men (very robust finding). • Differences are only found in the laboratory. In more ecologically valid conditions replete with social cues, the gender difference disappears. • Pennebaker & Roberts (1992): Men are more ‘Jamesian’, while women are more ‘Cognitive’ in terms of the information they use to construct their emotional experience.

26. Pennebaker and Roberts • Based on J.J. Gibson’s (1979) ecological approach to perception • Perceptions are based on multiple sources of info • Visual, auditory, sensory stimuli are perceived in a manner that is dependent on all sensory systems • High level integrationist position • Most cues in our environment are overlapping and redundant. • E.g. whether the pencil is in reach is based on visual, vestibular, and kinesthetic cues. Loss of any one source of information would not disrupt the individual’s ability to judge the distance of the pencil.

27. Relevance to emotion: How do we come to know our bodily feelings / emotional experiences? • We have multiple sources of information at our disposal, from which we construct our experience: • Bodily and facial expressions, physiological arousal / visceral changes, action tendencies, eliciting conditions / cues in the environment. • Different theories focus on different types of info, but none take into account all info available • Gibson’s theory provides the prototype: integration of different and redundant sources of information into one coherent percept. • Also implies that people may utilize the different sources of information available to them to greater or lesser degrees.

28. Caccioppo’s SAME Model • Different patterns of somatovisceral afference can lead to the same basic emotion, and the same pattern can lead to different emotions. • Somatovisceral / Reversible Illusions • Rudimentary Stimulus Evaluation • Somatovisceral Response • Cognitive Operations / Elaboration