![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 10 to 34 of 35. Go back in thread:
Posted by Estella on May 17, 2006, at 22:53:47
In reply to Re: opinion survey » Estella, posted by littleone on May 17, 2006, at 21:06:35
> Yes. I don't think their behaviour is *just* behaviour. I think it is driven by emotion. Fear is an obvious one that I think we've all seen animals experience. And from living with my cat I can see her get in certain moods. Moods driven by emotion.
yeah. i think so too. Le Doux studied fear response in rats and made some generalisations back to humans. some philosophers attempt to write off his findings as fairly irrelevant because philosophers tend to think that... cognition is very central to emotion indeed (an intuition that tends to be at odds with people who aren't in the grip of a philosophical theory and so I say YAY!!!! 'cause i don't like cognitive theories of emotion) cognitive theories of emotion sometimes entail that infants and animals can't have emotion because they lack the concepts that are required for emotion. but to me that seems backwards. i think most people think that animals can indeed have emotion and philosophers are in the grip of a theory...
:-)> how about human infants?
> I would guess yes, but I've never really spent any time around babies. So that is not an educated guess.happiness is an emotion
and rage... i think infants can get frustrated / angry when they are hungry etc.
seems fairly plausible...
but i have read descriptions of them as having emotions and i haven't spent any time around them particularly...
> > which seems to be most central to emotion?
> I think your body changes are a result of the emotions you are experiencing (although I don't think my T thinks the same as me re that).so emotion -> body changes.
(in which case emotions aren't identical with body changes because emotions CAUSE body changes)> I think your emotions can affect your thoughts and your thoughts can affect your emotions.
so emotions can cause thoughts
and thoughts can cause emotions
(so emotions aren't identical with thoughts because something can't cause itself...)so...
> To me the felt quality you mention *is* emotion. But once again, I think my T believes something different to that.
that leaves phenomenology. i think that most people (aside from philosophers and maybe psychologists and clinicians) think that phenomenology is most central :-)
i think philosophers / psychologists / clinicians don't like to talk about phenomenology because phenomenology is a hard topic that isn't very well understood... but IMO that is no excuse...
> > 3. are unconscious emotions possible?> I would definately say yes to this, but I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing.
> I know you can *feel* sad, but it is really anger that's driving you. And in fact you can be totally unaware of that anger. You are only conscious of feeling sad.okay. so we can mistake what particular emotion we are experiencing... but can we make a mistake in the fact that we are / are not experiencing an emotion?
(though this does seem to create some trouble for the notion that phenomenology might not only determine whether we are having an emotion or not but might also determine which emotion we are experiencing... basically... the latter claim seems to be false...)
> Also, often I will *know* that I am very angry about something, but I will feel nothing. Psychological numbing.hmm.
i mean this question very genuinely...
how do you know you are angry if you feel nothing?
(i get that too... i'm not sure what to say in response to that question...)
> And I also definately think you can be mad at something/someone and know you're mad but have no idea what it is you're mad at. Same with mis-directed anger. Mad at my boss/T/husband instead of at my mum or dad.yeah. i find that too.
> Hope this was what you were talking about.yes it was indeed. thanks very much. yeah the notion of 'unconscious emotion' is (all by itself) a fairly badly formed question thanks for drawing my attention to that... best segment it off into a few related questions thanks :-)
Posted by Phillipa on May 17, 2006, at 22:57:53
In reply to Re: opinion survey » greywolf, posted by Estella on May 17, 2006, at 22:39:48
Estella I'm going to make this real simple right now as I'm tired. But yes animals have emotions. My example is that if Greg and I are having a fight not bad that my toy poodle reacts by acting afraid and clinging to one of us. 2. I think we all experience emotions we are not fully aware of. Sometimes I get anxious and don't realize the reason is that I am mad at Greg and feel threatened that he will abandon me. 3. not in order sorry. But we subconsiously as in dreams expereience emotions we are afraid to openly display in real life. Leading to nighmares and insomnia. Sorry bad short term memory I forgot the rest. (: Love Phillipa promise I'll do better the next time.
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 0:47:51
In reply to Re: opinion survey, posted by madeline on May 17, 2006, at 21:40:39
> I think both animals and human infants have emotions.
yeah me too :-)
> I lean toward the body changes as necessary and sufficient for emotion. For instance, mitral valve prolapse in the heart mimics anxiety and panic. Morphine induces euphoria. Beta-blockers reduce anxiety, not due to any action in the brain, but by blocking the peripheral response.Yeah. That is similar to the James-Lange / Damasio / Le Doux / Prinz view of emotions...
What they also seem to want to say is that the felt quality of emotion... Just is the feeling of bodily changes.
They think that there are two different aspects to emotions:
1) Bodily changes
2) Phenomenology / the felt quality which JUST IS the experience of bodily changes.I'm wondering whether you think bodily changes are necessary and sufficient for emotions, or whether you think that both of the above aspects are together necessary and sufficient for emotions.
Do you need to attend to the bodily changes (so that you have the conscious experience of phenomenology) in order to have an emotion, or if you could have the bodily changes without attention (ie in the absence of phenomenology) then would the latter count as an emotional state or not?
(maybe emotions are the phenomenology of awareness of bodily changes, or maybe emotions are simply the bodily changes)
does that make sense?
what do you think??
> > 3. are unconscious emotions possible?
> I would definately say that unconcious emotion is not only possible, but likely. In reality, I think all emotion is pre-conscious. We don't make a conscious decision to be mad, but we get mad nonetheless.but do we have to consciously experience the rage or can we be unaware that we are having an emotion?
the CAUSE of emotions seems to be pre-conscious...
But can the emotion it self be pre-conscious / unconscious?(by analogy thoughts seem to have pre-conscious causes but thoughts are consciously experienced - typically that is the way the terminology goes that thoughts are consciously experienced while beliefs don't have to be)
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 0:52:06
In reply to Re: opinion survey » Estella, posted by sleepygirl on May 17, 2006, at 21:45:38
> > 1. do animals (dogs, cats, rats etc) have emotions? how about human infants?
> absolutely:-)
> well I really don't think you can separate the factors, but the one that jumped out at me maybe as "most significant" was phenomenology, etc, etc
Okay.
I'll try to seperate the factors in a later post...
I'll have to think about how to do that (and I need to do something in about 5 minutes...) but I'll get back to it...
> > 3. are unconscious emotions possible?
> I think so. In my experience that's a wholehearted YES!!Okay... Though... If phenomenology (the felt quality) is conscious... And the phenomenology is necessary and sufficient for emotion... Then it would seem that emotions would have to be conscious (by definition).
Maybe Freud's notion of the unconscious is part of common sense intuition now...
But maybe you want a cluster concept view (where cognition and bodily state and phenomenology are all parts of emotion and thus if you have the relevant cognition and bodily changes and the absence of phenomenology then you would have an unconscious emotion).
I'll get back to that issue.
Thanks for your response :-)
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 3:13:49
In reply to Re: opinion survey, posted by Racer on May 17, 2006, at 22:04:46
> 1. Do animals have emotions? That's one of those questions that really shouldn't be difficult: yes, animals have emotions.
yeah. i think so too.
> What's that? You're asking me to back that up with evidence? OK, I can prove that ONE animal has emotions -- humans. Therefore, someone has to prove to me that other animals DON'T have emotions before I believe it.> So, I say, turn the question around: if humans have emotions, why should we believe that emotions come from our increased reasoning powers? Emotions are hardly the epitome of reason, are they?
cognitive theorists say cognition is a necessary cause of emotion.
animals (and infants) lack the cognitive sophistication necessary for emotion
therefore animals (and infants) lack emotional responses.how do they account for the behaviours that we typically take to be evidence for their having emotion?
they say the responses are so basic they are kind of like proto-emotions. they aren't emotions proper but if you add cognitive sophistication to proto-emotions you might just get yourself an emotion.
why do they go that way?
because emotions are typically evoked in theories of
1) ethics
2) rationality
thus people want there to be norms around when it is and is not appropriate to have an emotional response. body changes, phenomenology, sensations aren't typically thought to be rationally evaluable whereas we want emotions to be rationally evaluable (for our theories of rationality and ethics). cognitions are rationally evaluable therefore emotions must surely be cognitions.i don't like it...
i think the theory is getting people into a muddle...emotions have traditionally be contrasted with reason. recently there has been a move towards considering that emotions actually serve a useful function and there is a kind of rationality that can be exhibited by emotions (when all goes well) like there is a kind of rationality that can be exhibited by beliefs (when all goes well).
Damasio writes about people who have lost the capacity for emotional response (but their rationality is okay) by head injury. they perform well on standard IQ tests. inductive and deductive reasoning tasks. yet they go around making bad decisions...
Theorists have also started writing about game theory... And about how people do badly at game theory (they will make bad decisions and don't perform optimally)
Their decisions seem to be based on emotions...
Their decisions seem to be based on norms of cooperation e.g. punishing cheaters and deflectors.
Rational in a sense...
> 2. What's most important about emotions? Personally, I tend to see things in terms of the physical response, probably since I don't recognize my own emotions. So, I'd say that the physical response happens, and the emotion follows from it. So, I'd vote physical, although I repeat that that opinion is based in my own psychopathology.
Do you know that you are in an emotional state but you can't distinguish which one so you look to your body for cues or do you need to look to your body to distinguish whether you are in an emotional state or not?
> 3. Unconscious emotion? I don't know. Since I won't be graded on this, I'd repeat what someone else said in this thread: no, we may not recognize the emotion, and the thoughts which provoked it may be unconscious, but the emotion itself is not unconscious.Yeah. I think so too...
But there can be tricky issues. Pain is typically defined (in philosophy) as being essentially phenomenological.
But... If I have a headache I might be distracted from the phenomenology for a couple of minutes. During that time... Was I still in pain or not?Some people say yes
Others say no
Some people say you could have experienced it if you had attended to it and thus it counts as pain.I'm not sure what to say...
> How'd I do? Do I get an A? :-)Absolutely :-)
Thank you.
Posted by Damos on May 18, 2006, at 4:01:29
In reply to opinion survey, posted by Estella on May 17, 2006, at 20:14:02
Hmm,
1) Definitely, absolutely for animals (puppy said so) and I also believe so for infants
2) This is really interesting and I don't believe that one is more important than the others 'in all cases'. Guess I believe that different trigger events may set of a different chain of internal events where all 3 are in the sequence of things you experience as the 'emotion' and that your ability to perceive the actual sequence of internal events and processes maybe almost non existent but nonetheless there.
3) Yes I definitely believe this is possible. But it may also just be a case of being in denial of the actual underlying emotion.
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 4:45:42
In reply to Re: opinion survey » Estella, posted by Phillipa on May 17, 2006, at 22:57:53
> Estella I'm going to make this real simple right now as I'm tired.
thats cool, thanks for your response.
sorry if i got a bit incoherant...
had a busy day with pre talk for seminar then seminar then fairly much compulsory off to the pub (one pint later...). so i might still be incoherant... but i didn't want people to think i was ignoring them...> But yes animals have emotions. My example is that if Greg and I are having a fight not bad that my toy poodle reacts by acting afraid and clinging to one of us.
yeah i think so too. i think the only reason why people say that animals and infants don't have emotions is because they are in the grip of cognitive theory...
but if you can undermine their reasons for believing in cognitive theory (as i think i can by showing that phenomenology / representational content / bodiliy changes / core relational themes can be normative) then they might be willing to go back to their pre theorietical intuititions re animals and infants...
> 2. I think we all experience emotions we are not fully aware of. Sometimes I get anxious and don't realize the reason is that I am mad at Greg and feel threatened that he will abandon me.
yeah. but in that case you are aware of feeling anxious you are just unaware of the cause of your anxiety / what it is that you are anxious about.
do you think you could have an emotion (say anxiety) without being aware that you feel anxious?
or (if your answer to that is yes) then do you think you could be in an emotional state (any kind of emotional state) without being aware that you are in some emotional state or other? (that is just to say that while it might be possible to not know which emotion you are having you couldn't be having an emotion without knowing that you are having some emotion or other)?
you did great :-)
thanks :-)
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 4:51:28
In reply to Re: opinion survey » Estella, posted by Damos on May 18, 2006, at 4:01:29
> 1) Definitely, absolutely for animals (puppy said so) and I also believe so for infants
yeah. i wonder if anyone (aside from philosophers in the grip of a theory) think that animals and infants don't have emotions...
> 2) This is really interesting and I don't believe that one is more important than the others 'in all cases'.okay.
> Guess I believe that different trigger events...
yeah. i haven't talked about commonalities / differences in the events / states of affairs / objects that trigger emotions. one thought is that... there is some commonality (people seem to be predisposed to develop fear resposnes to snakes, spiders, and heights for example. but then you also want to allow for cultural and individual variation... one way to go is to abstractly characterise the property that all objects of fear (should) have in common. as one fairly rough account... fear is an appropriate response to the property of being a threat.)
> all 3 are in the sequence of things you experience as the 'emotion' and that your ability to perceive the actual sequence of internal events and processes maybe almost non existent but nonetheless there.
so you think that cognitive judgement, bodily change, and phenomenology are none of them by themselves sufficient for emotion... but that joined together all of them are necessary and sufficient (in the sense that when all three occur then those three things constitute an emotion)?
i will try and tease them apart...
> 3) Yes I definitely believe this is possible.
okay....
thanks...
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 5:17:56
In reply to Re: opinion survey » Damos, posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 4:51:28
so we have:
1. cognition
2. bodily change
3. phenomenology (i'll use that for 'felt quality')nobody seemed particularly keen on cognition...
but lets imagine someone forms the judgement 'that object can hurt me'. on cognitive accounts of emotion (where those kinds of judgements are necessary and sufficient for emotion) the person will have an emotion on the basis of forming that judgement (or something comperable to it.
but it seems possible to think 'that object can hurt me' but to think this cooly and dispassionately. in this case most people seem to conclude that one does not have an emotion in response. hence emotions cannot be identified by cognitions (and cognitions cannot be a necessary and sufficient cause of emotion).
2. bodily change.
surely not just any old bodily change is relevant... there must be certain kinds of bodily changes that are particularly relevant for emotion. now if the theory is that certain kinds of bodily changes are necessary and sufficient for emotion then it would seem to be the case that people paralysed from the neck down cannot have emotions. does this seem plausible? (one could say that hormone and endocrine changes etc still occur and they are the relevant bodily changes for emotion thus paralysed people still have the relevant bodily changes and hence emotion... but i'm not sure how plausible this is...)
can we imagine the relevant bodily change (in the absence of cognitive judgement and in the absence of phenomenology?
for people who thought unconscious emotion was possible (in the sense that you might not be aware you are in an emotional state) this seems to be because people are thinking that bodily change is necessary and sufficient for emotion. maybe...
not sure what else to say...
but if phenomenology is the most central feature for emotion (as most people seem to want to say) then it seems possible to imagine someone having the bodily change in the absense of phenomenology (in the absence of being aware of the bodily change). is this person having an emotion or not? if bodily change is necessary and sufficient then yes. if phenomenology is necessary and sufficient then no.3. phenomenology.
it is possible to imagine someone having the phenomenological experience of fear without undergoing the relevant bodily changes and without having the relevant cognitions. at least... that seems to be so to me. at least... it seems to be possible in principle the same way that it seems possible in principle for someone to be a physical duplicate of me (down to the last atom) and yet have no phenomenological experiences whatsoever. that is a little controversial... but it seems to be conceptually possible...
James argued that if you imagine the phenomenology of fear... then subtract away the body changes... subtract away the racing heart the sweaty palms etc... then what you are left with is a cool cognitive state that isn't an emotion at all. he thinks that the phenomenology of emotions is comprised by the experience of the bodily changes (the racing heart and the sweaty palms etc).
while different theorists interpret him differently it seem to me that what he is saying is that....
the phenomenology of emotions JUST IS the bodily changes.
not that emotion causes body changes
not that body changes cause emotions
not that phenomenology causes body changes
not that body changes cause phenomenologyrather he is making the identity claim that the experience of emotions JUST IS ONE AND THE SAME THING as the experience of bodily changes.
this is comperable to materialism where the phenomenology of thinking JUST IS ONE AND THE SAME THING as the experience of certain kinds of brain state changes.
hrm.
but the problem with the identity theory (the theory that mental states just are certain kinds of brain state) is that we want to allow other organisms (martians or computers perhaps) to have mental states even though they lack brains like ours.. so long as they have states that play the same causal role as brain states (e.g. beliefs) play then they would have cognitive states.
comperably the problem with the identity theory (the theory that emotions are bodily states) is that we (might?) want to allow that other organisms (martians or computers perhaps) to have emotional states even though they lack bodies like ours. so long as they have states that play the same causal role as bodily states (e.g. emotions) play then they would have emotional states.
but then...
beliefs seem to be definable in accordance with their functional role (what seems to be essential about belief is that it plays its functional role)
emotions (on the other hand) seem to (according to most people) be phenomenological rather than functional. hence if you replicated the functional role without the phenomenology you wouldn't have an emotional state.hrm.
of course it might be the case that none of the above three features (by themself) are both necessary and sufficient for emotion. some emotions seem more cognitive (awe seems to be an emotion that is very cognitive and can't be experienced by animals or infants) others seem less phenomenological (does wonder count as an emotion? is there a phenomenology there?) others seem more bodily (burning rage or stomach churning disgust). it might be the case that emotions are a cluster concept and the search for necessary and sufficient conditions is futile.
still... best try and resort to cluster concept when alternatives fail...
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 5:18:35
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 5:17:56
ps... that wasn't an argument.
just some random thoughts...
Posted by wildcardII on May 18, 2006, at 10:49:24
In reply to Re: opinion survey » wildcardII, posted by Estella on May 17, 2006, at 22:38:55
Posted by llrrrpp on May 18, 2006, at 11:36:45
In reply to opinion survey, posted by Estella on May 17, 2006, at 20:14:02
disclaimer: feeling kind of dumb right now. I should be able to cite references and studies, but my memory fails me.
> 1. do animals (dogs, cats, rats etc) have emotions? how about human infants?Cats have emotions. When we get out the suitcase, cat knows we're going away. she misbehaves and bites our heels. while we're gone, she sleeps too much, and undereats. when we come back, her fur is greasy, and dandruffy, and it's obvious that she hasn't been cleaning herself. she meows a lot when we come back, and is very needy, always staying very close to us, and sleeping near our heads, which she never does otherwise. I think the cat has separation anxiety, and possibly depression. (don't worry, she has a very nice cat sitter. we don't neglect her)
dogs. I don't do dogs.
Human infants. I hang out a lot with human infants. They have distinct personalities. some are very easy-going. They smile at the slightest provocation. Others really take a long time to warm up to a strange situation. babies get bored. babies get frustrated. babies have rage. babies get anxious. babies get happy, babies get silly. Preverbal infants have fairly sophisticated cognitive abilities. They are able to categorize humans as different from other animals. They react to human facial expressions. They learn the sound patterns unique to their native language long before they start "speaking". They understand that an extended index finger is a cue to pay attention to the thing pointed to. (try to get your cat to understand what a point means! ha!). I think the most compelling evidence for infant emotion is infant's profound sensitivity to the tone o voice. happy high-pitched voice usually associated with relaxed, happy, playful baby. Serious voice, or sharp voice, with increased vigilance of baby. Angry voice with a crying baby. try it sometime.
In order to have an emotional reaction, there has to be some processing of an external stimulus, like a face, or a voice; and this processing is cognitive in nature (regardless of whether it's available to consciousness). I'm arguing that babies have quite a repertoire of cogntive processes available that allow them to interpret their world, albeit in some ways that seem quite unlike adult perception and cognition. My T would even argue that their emotions are even more "pure" than adult emotions, because they are untainted by, and uninfluenced by the ambiguities of language.
> 2. of the following factors:
> -body changes (racing heart etc)
> -cognition / judgment / belief / apppraisal (that is dangerous etc)
> -phenomenology / the felt quality / the experiential aspect / what it is like (how happiness feels)> which seems to be most central to emotion?
>
> (what i am getting at here is whether one of those factors might be both necessary and sufficient so if you had one in the absence of the others then you would be in an emotional state. or whether some combination is needed).
>
Well, psychologists are still defining emotion, as you know. Every theory uses its own definition, in order to investigate a particular phenomenon. For empirical investigations, the physiological response is usually taken as best evidence. For introspective investigations, the phenomenological aspect is by far the most relevant. For studying the way emotions arise and are modulated, the cognitive aspect is cruicial (again, cognitive need not necessarily indicate a process that is available to consciousness). I think it's fascinating that in many cases, like feelings of fear and anxiety, that the physiology informs the conscious mind of the presence of a stimulus. We do not "see" the snake, and then feel the fear; rather, we feel our heart jump, and look around for the think in our environment that triggered it. So automatic, so effortless. Other emotions are very much under conscious control. How do I interpret the finding of a $100 bill on my desk? Before I allow myself to feel joy at my luck, I have to do some very conscious problem solving to figure out whether I deserve to keep it. Otherwise I might feel guilt, a very different emotion altogether.> 3. are unconscious emotions possible?
yes, many illnesses may be emotions that are not being interpreted by the conscious mind. If I have a stomachache, I might think of it as a result of my taco salad. I might experience it as a result of a stressfull conversation. In one case, it's an emotion. In another case, it's a symptom of physical illness. Also, I think that many times our conscious mind is so distracted by other processes that we don't experience an emotional stimulus until much later. (but perhaps the unconscious mind is working on the emotion, even as the conscious mind ignores it).
Well, I think that was pretty jumbled and incoherent, but it's my small contribution to your interesting thread.
Posted by madeline on May 18, 2006, at 15:32:53
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 5:17:56
"now if the theory is that certain kinds of bodily changes are necessary and sufficient for emotion then it would seem to be the case that people paralysed from the neck down cannot have emotions. does this seem plausible?"
The primary nerves that control the "fight or flight" response and the "seat of sadness" come straight out of the brain. Paralyzed people can mount a physical response to an emotion, because those nerves have not been severed.
Posted by llrrrpp on May 18, 2006, at 15:45:09
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by madeline on May 18, 2006, at 15:32:53
> "now if the theory is that certain kinds of bodily changes are necessary and sufficient for emotion then it would seem to be the case that people paralysed from the neck down cannot have emotions. does this seem plausible?"
>
> The primary nerves that control the "fight or flight" response and the "seat of sadness" come straight out of the brain. Paralyzed people can mount a physical response to an emotion, because those nerves have not been severed.
>the cranial nerves would be sufficient to control physiological mechanisms and provide sensory feedback associated with emoting. For example,
Vagus Nerve (X) emerges out of the brain stem, and is not affected when the spine is injured. "efferents to branchial arch muscles mediate swallowing (gulp) and phonation (talking). Efferents to parasympathetic ganglia for thoracic and abdominal viscera arise from the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus and nucleus ambiguus (i have a big n. ambiguus) in the medulla; afferent fibers mediate general visceral sensation (butterflies in the stomach, anyone?) taste from the epiglottis, and cutaneous sensation behind the ear (a kiss from a special person). "
Lest you think I'm one of the supergeex, I copy verbatim (except you know where) from Nolte & Angevine. The Human Brain in Photographs and Diagrams. 2nd ed. (2000)
Indeed, Maddie, you raise an interesting point. When I take beta-blockers before a nerve-wracking concert, I don't, in fact experience emotions in the same way. they don't feel. I'm probably going to be taking one in about 4 hours. (see my post ..."Need Help" below. this was a good distraction. now I return to the pit.
Posted by madeline on May 18, 2006, at 17:18:07
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by llrrrpp on May 18, 2006, at 15:45:09
exactly, the vagus nerve controls most of the emotional response.
I started to write something similar to what you did, but I was also afraid of the supergeekiness.
However, I teach anatomy and physiology so that vaults me right up to ubergeeky. Sometimes it just goes without saying.
Posted by llrrrpp on May 18, 2006, at 17:35:28
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by madeline on May 18, 2006, at 17:18:07
> exactly, the vagus nerve controls most of the emotional response.
>
> I started to write something similar to what you did, but I was also afraid of the supergeekiness.
>
> However, I teach anatomy and physiology so that vaults me right up to ubergeeky. Sometimes it just goes without saying.Well, i don't know if I would go so far as to say that Vagus nerve "controls" emotion. It might be sufficient for emotion? I don't know...
I don't think that spinal injuries typically affect the vagus nerve. If the brainstem is traumatized at the level where the vagus nerve exits, near the olive, a person will have bigger problems than his emotional deficit. (brain death?) And if the vagus is interupted somewhere in the neck- well, there might also be bigger problems than emotional deficits... e.g. heart arrhythmias?
Viva Las Vagus. Happy to see you around Maddie :)
It's fun to play supergeexs sometimes. Don't be scared. I bet you're a great prof!nongeex, don't be scared either. Us geeks are specialists in somethings, and you are specialized in other things, and we envy you that.
Posted by Phillipa on May 18, 2006, at 19:22:05
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by madeline on May 18, 2006, at 17:18:07
The vegus nerve also control the heart. Love Phillipa
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 21:22:58
In reply to Re: opinion survey, posted by llrrrpp on May 18, 2006, at 11:36:45
> I should be able to cite references and studies, but my memory fails me.
lol ditto.
when you talk about babies and cats it seems that you are basing your decision (that they do have emotion) on a behavioural criteria. so the cat has an emotion because it displays emotional behaviour and the same for the infant.
some theories of emotion... maintain that emotions are tendancies (or dispositions) to display emotional behaviour.
(behaviourism led by Gilbert Ryle).> In order to have an emotional reaction, there has to be some processing of an external stimulus...
though some emotions can be 'top down' driven. if you imagine a scarey situation... that might serve as an internal stimulus for fear.
> this processing is cognitive in nature (regardless of whether it's available to consciousness)
depends how you define 'cognitive'.
lets consider the visual system.
early levels of processing process basic sensory features such as lines and edges at certain orientations.
mid levels of processing process three dimensional objects.
if we consider the pre-conscious first level of processing...
there are populations of neurons that go haywire when and only when they are processing a line of a certain orientation.
we can't be consciously aware of the contents of that population of neurons...
does their activity count as cognitive?
on some theories of cognition... something counts as cognitive when and only when there is the possibility that it could be consciously experienced. not to say that it is consciously experienced but only to say that it could be consciously experienced if it were attended to. the brain processes that are too low level to be conscious may be described as processing information but not described as cognitive (depending on your theory of cognition).in the emotions literature cognitive theories are typically contrasted with non cognitive theories. according to cognitive theories to have an emotion requires one to make a cognitive judgement of the form 'that object poses a threat to me' or 'that is an irrevokable loss' or 'there has been a demeaning offence to me or mine' or similar.
if the cognition 'there has been a demeaning offence to me or mine' requires one to have the concepts of 'demeaning offence' and the concept of 'me' and those are the relevant judgements for anger then animals and infants cannot experience anger because they lack the concepts required for the judgement. people don't acquire the concept of self until... age three or around there? animals don't seem to (aside from arguably the higher apes). dogs and cats are incapable of it...
if the cognition can be unconscious and non conceptual then this is a lot more plausible... though then the distinction between cognitive and non cognitive theories seems to lapse.
Le Doux talks about how the amygdala can produce a fear response (in terms of behaviours) without any input from the higher cortical areas (where the higher cortical areas seem to be the areas involved in processing at the level of concepts). the amygdala can trigger a response to fairly basic perceptual processes such as a coiled object. the response is triggered before the higher visual processing where the object is classified as a snake or a garden hose. the amygdala is incapable of conceptualisation, it is incapable of complex cognitive judgement, it is capable of triggering an emotional response hence... emotions don't require complex cognitions.
unless they do by definition and startle response to snakes is too low level to count as a proper fear response. that would be what the cognitive theorist would say (and indeed that is typically what they do say).
> Well, psychologists are still defining emotion, as you know.
indeed :-)
and the matter is partly empirical...
(for the psychologists)
and partly conceptual...
(for the philosophers)
:-)> Every theory uses its own definition, in order to investigate a particular phenomenon.
yes. and that is why it is hard to work out what the significance of the findings for emotion is. because theorists define emotions differently and then proceed to talk past each other.
> For empirical investigations, the physiological response is usually taken as best evidence.
yeah. SGR and heart rate in particular.
then there is facial response (a long tradition of that beginning with Darwin)
then there is verbal report
then there is behaviour
then there is tapping into peoples thoughts about emotions by conducting surveys. for example: is it possible to feel jealous without feeling angry? if people say no then that is taken as evidence that jealousy is anger plus something else. the trouble with this is that sometimes... the folk are wrong. if you want to know about the nature of water you don't ask the folk you conduct systematic investigation. likewise if you want to know about the nature of emotion you don't ask the folk you conduct systematic investigation. on the other hand if the scientists were to tell us that actually snails have emotions and people don't have them after all then we would suspect they weren't really talking about emotions they had switched to talking about something else.> For introspective investigations, the phenomenological aspect is by far the most relevant.
well... if phenomenology is what most people mean by emotion so that one is feeling angry when one feels a certain special way and one is sad when one feels another certain special way then it would seem that emotions are phenomenological states (according to the folk).
just like sensory experiences...
just like perceptual experiences...and how the phenomenology relates to physical processes such as cognition, bodily changes, brain state changes etc is a matter of investigation... but if phenomenology is essential to emotions then if you could make a computer with the phenomenology... if you encountered aliens made of silicon (with bodies and brains radically different to ours) with the phenomenology...
> yes, many illnesses may be emotions that are not being interpreted by the conscious mind. If I have a stomachache, I might think of it as a result of my taco salad. I might experience it as a result of a stressfull conversation. In one case, it's an emotion. In another case, it's a symptom of physical illness.
hmm. that is interesting...
thanks...
Posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 21:30:43
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by madeline on May 18, 2006, at 15:32:53
> "now if the theory is that certain kinds of bodily changes are necessary and sufficient for emotion then it would seem to be the case that people paralysed from the neck down cannot have emotions. does this seem plausible?"
> The primary nerves that control the "fight or flight" response and the "seat of sadness" come straight out of the brain.ah...
so emotions aren't the feeling of bodily changes...
they are the feeling of certain kinds of brain state changes (the kinds of brain state that are typically associated with bodily changes)?(that is where i was getting with that...)
it is interesting because studies have been done on paralysed people. the James-Lange theory of emotions... Well it was a bit hard to figure quite what they meant by emotions are the feelings of bodily changes. at one point I think james said something along the lines of:
our common sense intuition is that we cry because we are sad but really we are sad because we cry
(though i think he meant sadness is the phenomenology of crying)
but by bodily changes is he talking taxic responses (running away) or is he talking coarse grained responses (like crying) or is he talking relatively fine grained responses (like facial response and clenched fists etc) or is he talking very fine grained responses (like hormone and endocrine changes)
?
which of the above do paralysed people lack?
anyhoo...
someone or other did a survey of paralysed people because it was thought the James-Lange theory would predict that they wouldn't have emotional responses. They reported decrease in emotional responses. But then... Later studies came up with no decrease in emotional responses. Basically the data is mixed.
Basically the data doesn't show you squat anyhoo...
> Paralyzed people can mount a physical response to an emotion, because those nerves have not been severed.
depends on what kind of bodily changes are thought to be necessary and sufficient for emotion...
Posted by Estella on May 19, 2006, at 7:16:05
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart » madeline, posted by Estella on May 18, 2006, at 21:30:43
at the risk of going completely nuts...
- if A reliably causes B then B carries information about A (because the probability of A given B is higher than the probability of A given not B all else being equal)
(here we can say that B 'registers' A)
if we add the following two conditions as well...
- if there is the possibility of B and not A (the capacity for error)
and
- if the function of B is to register A (because of some selectional advantage is conferred)
then we can say that B 'represents' A.
(that is Dretske's theory of psychosemantics - which is to say a theory of how mental states (B) can represent something outside of themselves such as dogs (A)
one theory is that
emotions register bodily state changes.
emotions register core relational themes (Relations that Matter - such as the property of being a threat, a loss, a demeaning offence etc)
moreover they represent core relational themes because there is a selectional advantage conferred on organisms that can track core relational themes.consider the concept of a dog.
we track dogs by having a concept with a cluster of features like 'four legs' and 'furry' and 'wagging tail' and 'panting tongue' etc. none of those features are necessary and sufficient for being a dog... but those features are reliably caused by...
dogs. where what is essential to being a dog is that it is an organism that if from a particular clade (ie that it has ancestors of a particular biological kind) sorry... can't be more specific with the biology / clade stuff...
the concept DOG
registers (or tracks) the superficial features (or the nominal essence).
it also...
registers (or tracks) the deeper property (the real essence) that is fixed by biology.the analogy is supposed to be...
that emotions register bodily changes
and emotions represent core relational themes
and emotions track core relational themes (the real essence)
by tracking the patterns of bodily change (the nominal essence)not sure whether that is coherant...
but it is one theory anyhoo...
emotions are the experience (phenomenology) of certain kinds of brain states (or states that play the brain state role) that register bodily changes (when all goes well) where the bodily changes represent core relational themes (when all goes well)
and sometimes all does not go well...
Posted by Estella on May 19, 2006, at 7:16:41
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by Estella on May 19, 2006, at 7:16:05
oh.
and not a cognition (judgement) in sight :-)
Posted by Estella on May 19, 2006, at 7:20:10
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by Estella on May 19, 2006, at 7:16:41
because...
you can make a device called a 'fuzz buster' which is designed to track the presence of police radar.
it beeps when there is police radar...
but there are no meaningful sub beeps for the presence of police in the absence of radar
there are no meaningful sub beeps for the presence of radar in the absence of police
so while the device functions to register (represent even) police radar that doesn't entail that the device has the concepts 'police' and 'radar'. it is an unstructured representation even though it represents a complex property.
likewise having a state that represents a 'demeaning offence to me and mine' doesn't entail that one has a structured arrangement of concepts...
and hence...
it doesn't count as a cognitive theory on standard understandings of cognitive...
:-)
Posted by Estella on May 19, 2006, at 7:28:25
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by Estella on May 19, 2006, at 7:20:10
though of course that is getting all confusing...
and it relies on different emotions being differentiated by different patterns of bodily change which is an empirical matter and might well turn out to be false.
he tries to do something dodgey with calibration files but f*cked if i can understand it as yet...
but...
er...i quite liked that theory.
'cause it credits our intutions re phenomenology
(though more work needs to be done)
and it credits our intuitions on bodily changed
(which some people do have - and i do think james subtraction argument of subtracting bodily feelings and one is left with a cool cognitive state that is not an emotion at all is kinda compelling)
and 'cause cognitions are kinda pushed to one side...(though calibration files are supposed to play that role though it is not clear how they can...)
and 'cause i like causal informational theories of mental representation 'cause they lead nicely into the function of emotion and what emotions evolved for etc.
the bodily changes are supposed to explain our 'tendancies to behave' intuitions too... 'cause the bodily changes are supposed to prepare us for response. our hearts race to prepare us for fight or flight and so forth...
:-)
Posted by llrrrpp on May 19, 2006, at 7:36:34
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by Estella on May 19, 2006, at 7:20:10
oh my!
this is getting over my head. I am learning a lot. Thank you for correcting me earlier when I asserted that emotions are responses to external stimuli (duh, of course can be internally generated too... can you hear me kicking myself?)The amygdala is a fascinating little bit of tissue isn't it?
Are you psycholinguist, or cogn. psychologist?
you might be interested in some work on pain by Jean Decety. He's looking at neural correlates of this, and I like his theory. It may not be descriptive or useful to describe less somatic emotions, like... I don't know? Schadenfreude?
Also, you asked me earlier when I was talking about babies and cats about behavior being a good proxy for emotion. Well, in judeging others' emotional states, I think it's about all we have to go on. Thank goodness for theory of mind! I believe you have a mind that is like mine, so when you cry, I think "wow she must be sad" I'm not exactly sure what the cat is thinking (cat has a different mind, certainly), but I think that her odd behavior in certain circumstances is consistent with processing the meaning of events, and reacting to them in a way that shows that she's attached to her humans. With babies, there is a nice developmental continuum. The same rage in infants is found in toddlers, who have the rudimentary vocabulary to tell you what they are feeling. Lacking first-person insight into the minds of others, we can now feel somewhat more confident that it is rage, because the report and the behavior are in correspondence.
I don't know much about different theories of emotion. But I'm learning from your posts. This has been really fascinating. I'm sorry I don't have anything of more substance to write. I try to avoid lectures that include "social" "emotion" or "linguistic" in the course description. Scares the bejeezus out of me!!
Posted by Estella on May 21, 2006, at 1:54:53
In reply to Re: three factors of emotion pulled apart, posted by llrrrpp on May 19, 2006, at 7:36:34
> this is getting over my head.
mine too... lots of random thoughts...
> Thank you for correcting me earlier when I asserted that emotions are responses to external stimuli (duh, of course can be internally generated too... can you hear me kicking myself?)
there is an intuition though... i have it too. prinz argues for it explicitly... that initially our brain states (hence body responses) are reliably caused by external events. he thinks the brain states need to be set up that way. after they have been set up that way we can learn to initiate them top down (from thoughts) but he thinks we couldn't do that without the training from world to brain (to fix the content of the brain state)
> The amygdala is a fascinating little bit of tissue isn't it?yeah. i don't know too much about it...
> Are you psycholinguist, or cogn. psychologist?philosopher :-)
> you might be interested in some work on pain by Jean Decety. He's looking at neural correlates of this, and I like his theory. It may not be descriptive or useful to describe less somatic emotions, like... I don't know? Schadenfreude?
neural correlates of pain is interesting... philosophers still go on about 'c fibers' and apparantly that is a very old theory now (and there are many counter-examples to it). we get around the issue by saying things like: 'pain is x' where x is to be determined by science ;-)
> Also, you asked me earlier when I was talking about babies and cats about behavior being a good proxy for emotion. Well, in judeging others' emotional states, I think it's about all we have to go on.yeah. though there are many different components to behaviour. fairly coarse grained behavioural responses (like crying and running away), and facial expressions and posture and things like that too.
not only that but in learning how to use emotion terms properly we can't learn what they designate by matching the name with the phenomenology because nobody else can access our phenomenology to verify or dispute the match when we are trying to learn the language. behaviourism offers a better account of how we can learn to use emotion terms: we learn them on the basis of matching a term to the behaviour. then we can add in the typical stimuli and judgements as well (seeing as they tend to co occur in most episodes of emotion).
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