01:830:101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Parasympathetic Nervous System, Sympathetic Nervous System, Autonomic Nervous System

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:101
• Professor: Lawrence Jacobs

Document Summary

Emotion: emotions are significant and crucial parts of our experience, emotion is an elusive construct, hard to define and measure. We would make better decisions if we could keep our emotions in check. Brain damaged people with impaired emotions are generally inferior decision-makers. Emotions are a powerful informer of our decisions, closely related to motivation, as almost any motivation has an emotion tied to it. The role of the autonomic nervous system: the autonomic nervous system is the division that controls the functioning of the internal organs, the ans has two subdivisions, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. It describes functions of the nervous system not under voluntary control, e. g. the regulation of heartbeat or gland secretions. It describes an action or response that occurs without conscious control. The sympathetic nervous system: the sympathetic nervous system is comprised of two chains of neuron clusters just to the left and right of the spinal cord.