PSY 311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex, Somatic Marker Hypothesis, Fire Hydrant

• School: University of Miami
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 311
• Professor: Ray Winters

Document Summary

Lecture topic 7: why we have emotions: how automatic emotions are used in. According to the somatic marker hypothesis, once an automatic emotion is generated, feedback information about the characteristics of that emotion is used as a type of knowledge in making decisions. The affective feedback about the characteristics of the emotion is conveyed to regions of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, that are important to executive functioning and decision-making. Affective feedback from emotions is one source of knowledge used in decision-making. Elliot was a very successful businessman who had surgery to remove a tumor in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is important to the ability to use emotions as information in decision-making. Elliot lost his business because he made poor judgments about the trustworthiness of people. Following his surgery he did business with people that he never would have prior to the surgery.