Gary G. Berntson

Amygdala contribution to selective dimensions of emotion

The amygdala has been implicated in emotional processes, although the precise nature of the emotional deficits following amygdala lesions remains to be fully elucidated. Cognitive disturbances in the perception, recognition or memory of emotional stimuli have been suggested by some, whereas others have proposed changes in emotional arousal. To address this issue, measures of emotional arousal and valence (positivity and negativity) to a graded series of emotional pictures were obtained from patients with lesions of the amygdala and from a clinical contrast group with lesions that spared this structure. Relative to the contrast group, patients with damage to the amygdala evidenced a complete lack of an arousal gradient across negative stimuli, although they displayed a typical arousal gradient to positive stimuli. These results were not attributable to the inability of amygdala patients to process the hostile or hospitable nature of the stimuli, as the amygdala group accurately recognized and categorized both positive and negative features of the stimuli. The relative lack of emotional arousal to negative stimuli may account for many of the clinical features of amygdala lesions.

Handbook of Psychophysiology: Psychophysiological Science: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Classic Questions About the Mind

Psychophysiology is an old idea but a new science. It is a likely assumption that ever since man began to experience himself as an object of his own awareness he has had some intuitive notion that bodily changes were, in some measure, related to his moods, his sentiments, his frustrations, his elations. How to relate these dual aspects of human functioning has been a concern of philosopherscientists throughout the course of intellectual history. (Greenfield & Sternbach, 1972, p. v)

Feelings and Emotions: The Affect System

The structure of affective space has been debated for more than fifty years. According to the model of evaluative space (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994; Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1997),thecommon metric governing approach /withdrawal is generally a single bipolar dimension at response stages that itself is the consequence of multiple operations, such as the activation function for positivity (appetition) and the activation function for negativity (aversion), at earlier affective processi ng stages. Accordingly, affective space can be bipolar or bivariate depending on specific circumstances. We further extend the model by reviewing evidence for coactivated emotional states and component processes underlying affect, emotion, and feeling. Two different event-related brain components that reflect implicit affective processing provide specific information on the general location and timing of component affective processing. Not long ago, the camera was a metaphor for memory, the computer for the brain. Memory, however, does not activate a stored depiction of the event but rather reconstructs the event (Loftus, 1979; Roediger & McDermott, 2000). Contrary to the doctrine of rationality, the inferences drawn from facts (e.g., syllogisms) are not coldly calculated conditional probabilities butt calculus shaped in part by wishful thinking (McGuire, 1981). People do not weigh evidence objectively but generally exercise a confirmatory bias. For example, disagreeing parties who receive mixed messages containing evidence for and against each partys position tend to polarize rather than moderate their attitudes (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). The metaphors of the camera and the computer failed because they are based on the notion that the brain is a passive, dispassionate recorder and processor of information rather than a builder of meaning in ways sculpted by experience, personal and ancestral. Research reported in this paper was supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. BCS-0086314. 224 John Cacioppo, Jeff Larsen, Kulc Smith, and Gar, G. Berntson One tray in which this operates is well known. Sense organs filter most of the information available in a riven environment. with the brains of different Species receiving quite different types and bandwidths of the available information. Visual light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum (400-700 nanometers/millimicrons), with changes across this spectrum perceived as changes in color. The visual perception of the bumblebee, in contrast, does not include the relatively long wavelengths that we see as red, but extends into the region of ultraviolet light below 400 nm i nto aspects of the environment that are invisible to humans. Moreover, the fusion flicker rate is much faster for bees than humans, so that a movie depiction of a moving object that appears in motion to humans nay appear as a series of still images to bees. Our evolutionary heritage sculpts ongoing perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions in a deeper sense as well. Close or occlude your left eve, fixate on the , and note the presence of the target 0. Now move your eve closer or turther away from the screen while maintaining fixation on the X. Although the 0 should disappear at some distance (about 12 inches), the horizontal line is perceptually continuous. The continuity of the horizontal line is a visual construction. ==X====---==== ==.===O= Nowhere should the brains construction of mental contents based on personal and ancestral experiences be more evident than in feelings and emotion. Traditionally, however, the scientific study of affect and emotion has centered on discrete feeling states. Among the important contributions of the cognitive revolution was the realization that conscious experiences provide a glimpse of oniv a small subset of the cognitive structures and operations that needed to be explored and understood. Many cognitive (and affective) processes occur unconsciously, with only selected outcomes reaching awareness (Bargh, 2001; Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993; Kihlstrom, 1987) vet, as LeDoux (2000) noted, emotion researchers have generally regarded the end products that have reached awareness or behavioral displays as (lie most appropriate evidence for the study of emotion. In this chapter, aye regard feelings and emotions as a subset of the operations of an affect system, whose structure and operating characteristics have been shaped by evolutionary forces to produce generally adaptive behaviors across a very wide range of circumstances. I r We are not suggesting that evolutionary torces,are t he orrhi i nfluences that produce adaptiv e behaviors. 1 I rrceRF 13.3. Brain regions demonstrated to be important in representing emotion and feelings. Color-coded as follows: Blue: insula (Critchlev et al., 2000a; Damasio et al., 2000) Green: anterior cingulate (Critchley et al., 2000a; Critchley et al., 2001a,b,c Fredrikson et al., 1998; George et al., 1995; Lane et al., 1997a) Purple: posterior cingulate (Critchley et al., 2000b; Damasio et al., 2000) Red: amvgdala (Breiter et al., 1996; Morris et al., 1996; Blair et al., 1999; Buche A Affective facial expressions of taste `liking Positive liking expressions 1k , a 1h Humannewboms Orangutan Chimpanzee NewWoridMonkeys Rat Negative disliking expressions FIGURE 15.2. A. Affective reactions are elicited by sweet tastes from human infants, great apes, monkeys, and rats.

Visualizing Scientific Data

Data visualization is a vital skill for scientists of all disciplines, affording the ability to generate insights about data and communicate those insights to others. In this talk, we will discuss principles for designing effective visualizations that make complex ideas easy to understand. These principles are rooted in innate human perceptual abilities (and limitations) to parse visual features. We will also examine the importance of displaying variation and uncertainty, visualization strategies for highdimensional data, and common pitfalls when using color. After attending the talk, audience members should feel better prepared to design clearer graphics that communicate their intended message. This talk represents a subset of principles in our 2017 invited chapter in the Handbook of Psychophysiology, 4th Edition, Cambridge University Press.