CINEMA 3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Medial Forebrain Bundle, Muscle Tone, Affective Neuroscience
Document Summary
We experience emotion in response to physiological changes in our body. Changes in heart rate, muscle tone, lung function. Visual system sends image of spider to brain. Brain issues commands to somatic and autonomic nervous system. Sns and ans alter muscle and organ function. The emotion consists of feelings that result from changes in the body. Rather than being scared of the spider, one is scared because of the awareness of racing heart and tense muscles. Cannon-bard theory (1927: emotional experience can occur independently of emotional expression, emotions can be experienced even if physiological changes cannot be sensed, counter arguments to james-lange theory: The transection of the spinal cord (eliminating bodily sensations ventral to the cut) did not change the fact that animals still exhibited signs of emotions. There is no reliable correlation between the experience of emotion and the physiological state of the body. The same physiological changes can be associated with different emotions / states.
