Evolutionary Psychology: Emotion Author Paul Kenyon Facial expression of emotion Basic emotions The brain and emotion What is the role of dopamine in reward? 'Human emotion is cortical, animal emotion is subcortical'? Mood Economic wealth and happiness References Supplementary reading Further reading Visit the SALMON Bookshop for recommended books on this topic

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Facial expression of emotion

Research started by Duchenne de Boulogne who published  The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression in 1862.

Duchenne's pioneering work with an old man afflicted with almost total facial anesthesia influenced Darwin who published The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ten years later in 1872.

Read Ekman, P. (1999) Facial Expressions. In T. Dalgleish and T. Power (Eds.) The Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. Pp. 301-320. Sussex, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  Available online What is a human 'universal'? Critically evaluate the research technique Darwin used to investigate the universality of facial expressions. What are the technical problems associated with using photographs to study facial  expression of emotion? Would you use a 'free' or forced-choice' paradigm in a study of facial expression recognition? To what extent do Ekman's studies in Papua New Guinea rule out the possibility that cross cultural similarities in facial judgement studies are due to common learning experiences across cultures? Are the findings of universal facial judgements an artifact caused by using posed facial expressions? Give an example of how 'display rules' influence facial expression. Why is it necessary to show some similarity between human facial expressions and those in closely related species? What is meant by the term 'species-constant learning'? To what extent is facial expression of emotion a human universal?

Basic emotions

Read Ekman, P. (1999) Basic emotions. In T. Dalgleish and T. Power (Eds.) The Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. Pp. 45-60. Sussex, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Available online and consider the following questions: Why have Ekman's views on basic emotions changed during his research career? What does this tell you about the scientific process? Can social constructionism account for human universals? Is Ekman's view that "our appraisal of a current event is influenced by our ancestral past." consistent with social constructionism? What does Ekman mean by the term 'universal signal'? To what extent is a mood different from an emotion? Can an emotion exist without a 'universal signal', and vice versa? To what extent are there physiological differences between emotions, and if there are, can the differences be explained in terms of social constructionism? Are there similarities between Ekman's 'appraisal mechanisms', LeDoux's 'emotional processing systems' and ethologists  innate releasing mechanisms? Does 'biologically prepared learning' contribute to the development of input events that 'universally' trigger emotions? From an evolutionary point of view would you expect several emotions to be unique to humans? Would you classify Ekman as a 'social constructionist' or an 'evolutionary psychologist'?

Read Griffiths (2002) Basic Emotions, Complex Emotions, Machiavellian Emotions.Available online and consider the following questions: How did Darwin study human emotions? What experimental innovation did Ekman introduce to avoid a source of possible error in Darwin's studies? What 'basic emotions' are found across cultures? List three characteristics of basic emotions identified by Ekman Can emotion occur in the absence of cognition? Where in the brain are 'cognitive' and 'affective' computations carried out according to LeDoux's 'twin-pathway' analysis of fear? What is Buss' explanation of sexual jealousy? Compare and contrast Ekman views on basic emotions with those of the evolutionary psychologists Gaulin and McBurney. Distinguish between primary and secondary emotions What distinguishes 'somatic appraisal' from 'transactional' theories of emotion? Explain, with examples, the terms 'audience effects' and 'cultural display rules'.

The brain and emotion

Read Rolls (1999). Précis of "The Brain and Emotion", available online, and consider the following questions:

• What is the overarching hypothesis developed by Rolls?
• Why is it important to study the brain systems involved in motivation and emotion in primates as well as rodents? What are the practical implications of your answer?
• How does Rolls define an emotion?
• What is a reward?
• What is a punishment?
• Give examples of how emotions can be manipulated through reward and punishment.
• What is the relationship between reinforcer, reward and punishment?
• Explain, with examples, the terms 'primary' and 'secondary' reinforcer.
• Can Rolls' model of emotion explain why, following the loss of a loved one, it is common to experience both anger and grief?
• What part does cognition play in emotion?
• Where do primary reinforcers come from?
• What is the role of dopamine in the initiation of behaviour and reinforcement?
• Do we feel emotion because we engage in emotional behaviour/
• Would you classify Rolls as an evolutionary psychologist, or an evolutionary psychobiologist?

What is the role of dopamine in reward?

According to most textbooks when the dopamine pathway running from the  ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens in the forebrain is activated, the  release of dopamine into the forebrain nucleus accumbens is believed to cause feelings of pleasure. However this conventional view has been challenged by Dr. Mark Wightman and his colleagues (Garris et al, 1999) at the University of North Carolina (see Center Line (2000)). They confirmed   previous findings that:

• Artificially stimulating the ventral tegmental area at a regular or irregular rate released dopamine in the forebrain.
• Rats can be trained to electrically stimulate the ventral tegmental area.
• Rats were unable to learn to self-stimulate if the stimulation produced no dopamine release
• As predicted this self-stimulation is accompanied by the release of dopamine in the forebrain

However this effect does not last.

• With continued training  virtually no dopamine was released in response to self-stimulation of the ventral tegmental area, even though ventral tegmental stimulation remained rewarding—the animal continued performance of the bar pressing response.

Therefore the release of dopamine may not be critical for reinforcement once the task is learned. Wightman has suggested that  dopamine may   be a neural substrate for novelty or reward expectation rather than reward itself.

'Human emotion is cortical, animal emotion is subcortical'?

You may have formed the impression that the cortex is the 'seat' of human emotions, wheresas subcortical areas control emotions in other animals. However this apparent difference may be the result of how emotion has been studied in humans and animals, rather than reflecting a fundamental dichotomy in how the brain controls emotion.

Berridge (in press 2001) argues that studies on emotions in humans and other animals vary in a number of dimensions:

Read Berridge (in press 2001) Comparing the emotional brain of humans and other animals. In Handbook of Affective Sciences, R. Davidson, K. Scherer, H. Hill Goldsmith (Eds.), Chapter 3: pp. 25-51., Oxford University Press, N.Y., 2003. Available online.

Consider the following questions:

• Why is the orbitofrontal cortex so called?
• Briefly outline the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in reward
• Does loss of prefrontal cortex lead to the absence of emotion?
• Is the cingulate cortex the seat of pain?
• What is he role of the amygdala in fear,  learning to fear, and learning what to fear?
• Does dopamine activity in the nucleus accumbens = 'reward'?
• Does dopamine activity in the nucleus accumbens make us 'want' a reward, or 'like' the reward?
• Does the lateral hypothalamus contain elements of discrete 'circuits' mediating hunger, sex, fear, maternal behaviour etc.?
• Does electrical stimulation of the septum activate sexual pleasure circuits in humans?
• Are the brain structures controlling emotion different in humans and other animals?

This figure appears in Berridge (in press 2001).

Mood

Read Evans (1999) From moods to modules: preliminary remarks for an evolutionary theory of mood phenomena. In Proceedings Naturalism, Evolution and Mind, Edinburgh. Available online

• This paper gives a very clear summary of the evidence that emotions have a modular basis. Do you think that mood(s) also consists of several modules?

Economic wealth and happiness

Source Myers (2000)

Several explanataions have been given for why happiness is not generally linked to financial success: the hedonic treadmill effect - we get used to an improved standard of living. asymmetry of affective experiences - we react more to bad things than good things (see Rossano, 2003)

References

• Berridge (in press 2001) Comparing the emotional brain of humans and other animals. In Handbook of Affective Sciences, R. Davidson, K. Scherer, H. Hill Goldsmith (Eds.), Chapter 3: pp. 25-51., Oxford University Press, N.Y., 2003. Available online
• Center Line (2000). New insights on the neural basis of brain reward and alcohol drinking. In Center Line Volume 11, Number 2, 2000 published by UNC Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Available online
• Darwin (1872)The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . Available online
• Ekman, P. (1999) Facial Expressions. In T. Dalgleish and T. Power (Eds.) The Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. Pp. 301-320. Sussex, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  Available online
• Ekman, P. (1999) Basic emotions. In T. Dalgleish and T. Power (Eds.) The Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. Pp. 45-60. Sussex, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Available online
• Evans (1999) From moods to modules: preliminary remarks for an evolutionary theory of mood phenomena. In Proceedings Naturalism, Evolution and Mind, Edinburgh. Available online
• Griffiths (2002) Basic Emotions, Complex Emotions, Machiavellian Emotions.Available online
• Myers (2000) The funds, friends, and faith of happy people. American Psychologist,55, 56-67.
• Rolls (1999). Précis of "The Brain and Emotion". Available online
• Rossano (2003). Evolutionary Psychology: The Science of Human Behavior and Evolution. Wiley.

Supplementary reading

• Buss (2001). Cognitive biases and emotional wisdom in the evolution of conflict between the sexes. Current Directions in Psychological Sciences, 10/6, 219-223. Available online.
• Cosmides & Tooby (2000) Evolutionary Psychology and the Emotion. To appear in: Handbook of Emotions, 2nd Edition M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones, Editors. NY: Guilford. Preprint available online.
• Ekman, P. (1997). Should we call it expression or communication? Innovations in Social Science Research, 10, 333-344. Available online
• Ekman, P. (1993) Facial expression of emotion. American Psychologist, 48, 384-392.  Available online
• Garris, P.A., Kilpatrick, M., Bunin, M.A., Michael, D., Walker, Q.D., and Wightman, R.M. Nature 398, pp. 67-69, 1999.
• Griffiths (In Press) Emotion, Evolution of.To appear in  International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Pergamon/Elsevier Science. Available online
• Griffiths (2001) Emotion and Expression. To appear in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Pergamon/Elsevier. Available online
• Griffiths (In Press) Emotion, Philosophical Issues. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. London,MacMillan. Available online
• Murphy and Stich (nd). Griffiths, Elimination and Psychopathology. To appear in Metascience. Available online.
• Myers. Journal Articles and Book Chapters on happiness

 Copyright Dr. C.A.P. Kenyon 1994-2006