Niedenthal 2007

Niedenthal, P.M., (2007)

Embodying Emotion

Science, 316, 1002-1005.

Embodied cognition:

P1003 ‘ High level processes ( such as thought and language) use partial reactivations of states in sensory, motor and affective systems to do their jobs. Put another way , the grounding for knowledge – what it refers to –is the original neural state that occurred when the information was initially acquired’……. ‘Populations of neurons in the modality-specific sensory, motor and affective systems are highly interconnected and their activation supports the integrated, multimodal experience……… ‘Critically for such an account one reason that only parts of the original neural system are activated is that attention is selectively focused on the aspects of the experience that are most salient and important for the individual.’

suggests that perceiving and thinking about emotion involve

• perceptual
• somatovisceral
• motoric (KRO new element when compared with other theories)

reexperiencing of the relevant emotion in one’s self.

Provides experimental evidence to show that when emotion is induced in human participants by manipulations of facial expression, posture in the lab, it effects how emotional information is processed. ( KRO but the induced emotion was rather nebulous e.g. choice of pen, ‘good news’ not least because only the receiver can realistically judge whether news is personally good or bad. However in the 2005 paper this evidence is described in the section about attitudes and in particular the part that behavioral action plays in manifesting an attitude ).

Quotes some evidence for the effects of emotion on cognition

Priortizes attention (ref 6)

Access to word meaning ( ref 7)

Organisation of material in memory ( ref 8).

What would be the mechanism behind embodied cognition?

Ref 19 for a range of accounts., including mirror neuron system

Perceiving emotion

? due to an overlap of brain areas involved in expression & recognition.

Adolphs (21) recognising a facial expression of emotion involves embodiment of the implied emotion.

Evidence ( which doesn’t actually convince me, it seems to be describing a correlation between site of expression and site of recognition rather than providing and explanation) p1004 ‘ researchers had partipants inhale odors that generated feelings of disgust (22). The same participants then watched videos of other individuals expressing disgust. Results showed that areas of the anterior insula and, to some extent, the anterior cingulated cortex were activated when individuals observed disgust in others and when they experienced disgust themselves

Has Implications of theories of embodied cognition for imitation & observational learning.

Provides an explanation as to why emotional expressions and gestures of others are imitated by observers. When emotional imitation goes smoothly there is a strong foundation for empathy.

Also some evidence that observational learning is supported by reenactment of the emotional experience of the model in the observer. Published comparisons of amygdala activation during conditioned observational, and instructed fear learning in humans are consistent with just such a view. ( Phelps, 31).

Thinking about emotion

Niedenthal Recorded face muscles whilst participants were making judgements about emotional associations of concrete and then abstract words. Results for both types of stimuli ( concrete, abstract) p1004 ‘ showed that in making their judgements, individuals embodied the relevant discrete emotion as indicated by their facial expression. When asked to make a non emotional judgement ie whether words are in upper or lower case, findings showed no systematic activation of facial muscles.

Comprehending emotional language.

P1005 ‘ claim that language comprehension relies in part on embodied conceptualisations of the situations that language describes ( ref 38). The first step …… to index words or phrases to embodied states that refer to these objects. Next, the observer simulates possible interactions with the objects. Finally, the message is understood when a coherent set of actions is created.’

Evidence - Ref 40 ‘if the comprehension of sentences with emotional meaning requires the partial reenactment of emotional bodily states then the reenactment of congruent ( or incongruent) emotions should faciliate or inhibit ( kro -how does the inihibition pattern work from a neural point of view?) language comprehension. Task – to judge whether a sentence describes a pleasant or an unpleasant event , while holding a pen between the teeth ( to induce smiling) or between the lips ( inhibit smiling). Sentences that described unpleasant events were understood faster when participants were prevented from smiling.

Vygotsky lecture on Emotion

Vygotsky, L.S. (1987) “lectures on Psychology’ in L.S. Vygotskii, R.W.Rieber and A.S. Carton (eds), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky. Volume 1: Problems of General Psychology pp. (325-337). New York: Plenum Press.

Lecture 4

Emotions and their development in Childhood.

1930s views about emotion

• Attempts to describe sequential relationships of an emotion prevailed.
• Distinction between higher and lower emotions – a form of dualism also V refers and therefore recognises judgement as a psychological process.
• Related to the former point is the developmental nature of emotional life both in the life time of an individual and in an evolutionary context. From instinct – to – aesthetic.

V’s interpretations

V interpreted the James work as p328 ‘ the internal organs provide the foundation for the emotions’ ‘ similarly to Ribot James defined a theory where in V’s opinion ‘ emotions are torn from a unified whole, from the rest of man’s mental life. The James Lange theory provided the anatomical and physiological foundation for this notion’ also ‘theory stripped emotions from consciousness’ he therefore saw Canon’s work as important in that it p332 ‘shifted the emotions from the periphery to the centre’ ( at that point he links up with Freud ).

(KRO - Emotion as a pruning of animal behaviour

Cognition as a development of animal behaviour)

Review approach

Darwin P325 ‘ ‘In sketching the evolution and origin of human expressive movements, Darwin was pursuing his basic evolutionary concept’ it was accepted by religious tradition ‘from their perspective Darwin had shown that man’s earthly passions ….. do actually have animal origins’

Ribot - (1897) The Psychology of Emotion. P326 ‘ emotions…. Are the sole domain of the human mind that can only be understood retrospectively’ ….. ‘man’s affective reactions are remnants of his animal existence, remnants that have been infinitely weakened in their external expression and their inner dynamics’

Fear as inhibited flight, anger as inhibited fight

Spencer argued that p326 ‘ if we compare animals with man, the child with the adult, or the primitive with the cultured man, we see that the emotions fall back to a less prominent plane as the development process moves forward.’ i.e. logical conclusion that man will become a – emotional.

Comment -Vygotsky p326 ‘ our immediate psychological experience and our experimental research demonstrate the absurdity of this position’

James – Lange P326 ‘ Independently of one another, Lange and James assumed the task of locating the source of the vitality of the emotions in the human organism itself . Each followed his own path, James consciously as a psychologist and Lange as a physiologist. Both found the source of vitality of the emotions in the organic reactions that accompany emotional processes’ ‘key to this theory was the introduction of a change in the traditional view of the sequential relationship between the various components of the emotional reaction’

i.e previously perception : experience of emotion : reflexively elicited organic change then J-L perception : reflexively elicited organic change : emotional experience.

P327 ‘ critics argued that James and Lange wanted to reduce human feelings to the reflection of organic processes in consciousness’

P328 ‘James himself argued that it is the historical period of man’s development that higher human feelings of a kind unknown to animals have been developed and perfected’

Comment ‘ Vygotsky p327 ‘ nowhere, for example, were the higher and the elementary functions separated so clearly as in James’s theory of emotions. The further development of his theory was consistently based on this initial separation of the higher and lower emotions.’ ‘ he isolated the emotional experiences that are directly intertwined with our thinking processes , those that constitute an inseparable part of the integral process of judgement, from organic foundations’

Canon

A physiologist who used a range of method contemporary at the time. Evidence challenged the J-L claim that each basic ‘emotional trigger’ leads to a specific pattern of visceral change’ i.e. Canon showed that the organic expressions of different emotions such as rage, fear etc are identical. For example Canon removed a significant part of an animal’s sympathetic nervous system p300’ According to James if we mentally subtract organic expression eg shivering, heart rate, we will find nothing remains of emotions. Canon attempted this subtraction experimentally and found that emotions remain..’ i.e. emotional states are present in animals that lack the corresponding vegetative reactions. Similarly when subjects were injected with substances known to stimulate autonomic reactions similar to those experienced during emotion, it depended on the prior state of the organism as to whether or not these would be effective. ( KRO hence onwards to Schacter and Singer). Overall the J-L theory did not stand up to experimental evidence of Canon ( the physiologist). P331 however ‘as a biologist, Canon had to explain the paradox that emerged from his experiments. If the profound organic changes that occur with intense emotional reactions in animals are completely inessential for the emotions, if the emotions are preserved despite the elimination of all these organic changes, why are these changes necessary from a biological perspective?..............’Canon explained the contradiction in the following way: An intense emotional reaction in an animal is not the end but the beginning of an action. A reaction of this kind arises in a situation of critical life significance for the animal’ …… The organic reactions associated with emotions exist not for the emotion as such but for what logically follows the emotion’ i.e. preparation of the organism for action….. p332 ‘the bodily symptoms are not so much the companions of the emotions as supplements to certain emotional factors that are associated with instincts’ implied that during evolution emotions have become isolated from the ‘ instinctive domain’.

Freud

Dismissive of organic explanation so of emotion. Whatever the current view of Freud’s contribution to the study of emotion he did p333’ demonstrate that the emotions were not always as they are in adult life……. They cannot be understood outside the dynamic of human life. It is within this context that the emotional processes acquire their meaning and sense’

Adler

P333 ‘ demonstrated that in man the functional significance of the emotions is not linked exclusively to the instincts as it is in animals. The emotions are one of the features which constitute the character of an individual’s general view of life. The structure of the individual’s character is reflected in his emotional life and his character is defined by these emotional experiences’

Buhier

P333 ‘took the critique of the Freudian perspective on emotional life as his point of departure’ he argues that what constitutes pleasure changes during development. In this way similar to Freud he sees pleasure as a motivator. However Buhier ‘when pleasure occurs in an activity shifts in accordance with the degree of the child’s development, changing it relationship to other mental processes with which it is connected’

Initially during development pleasure comes at the end. At a later stage e.g. early stage of children’s play, p334 the child receives satisfaction not so much from the result of the activity as the process itself’. Necessary part of gaining essential skills and habits for survival as a human being.. Finally the focal point shifts to onset of an activity p334 ‘ the characteristic of the process involved in creative play.

Claparede

P335 C raises an important question ‘how do we explain the fact that human emotions become more varied with every step mankind takes on the path of historical development. This development and differentiation of the emotions leads not only to the kinds of disorders of mental life that have been explored by Freud but to the entire vast and diverse content of mankind’s mental life including domains such as art………. Why are the individual’s experiences associated with such intense emotion? Why is every critical moment in the fate of the adult or child so clearly coloured by emotion?’

Learning & Emotion in the Classroom Hascher

Learning and Emotion: perspectives for theory and research

Hascher,T (2010)

European Educational Research Journal, 9, 1, 13-28.

Comments on the fragmentation of emotion research ( ? as applied to learning) , p13 ‘The presentation gives an overview of the state of the art, developing a general framework for theory and research’

Three characteristics of emotion

Many different definitions of emotion and many similar terms, mood, feeling, affect,

However maybe we can agree on the following 3 characteristics

P14

(i) ‘An emotion is an affective reaction, which can be determined and described relatively precisely and can be attributed to a cause or an incident.

(ii) ‘The experience of an emotion (in a learning context) .is related to situations which are of importance to an individual’

(iii) As soon as an emotion is experienced, this emotion becomes the centre of the awareness for the person also leading to an increased self-awareness. Emotions can hardly be denied. They can be disguised towards others but rarely towards oneself.

i.e. Schulz et al (2006,p345) ‘emotions are ways of being’ ‘holistic episodes that include physiological, psychological and behavioural aspects’ i.e. they are interrelated with cognition & behaviour. Therefore there are 5 components to an emotion namely, affect, related thoughts, expression, motivation ( impulse for action) and physiological.

Measuring emotion should reflect this multicomponent approach therefore at least 8 indicators, valence, arousal level(activating/deactivation), intensity, duration, frequency, time dimension ( e.g retrospective like relief, orientated to another person like sympathy, context) Remember also for some there is a distinction between trait & state emotions.

How does emotion impact on learning?

Most theories based on experimental research on mood induction

Three theoretical approaches

(i) mood-congruence hypothesis ( Bower, 1981). Based ( at the time) on the idea of cognitive networsk, that p15 ‘ architecture of the brain is organized by associations and semantic similarities, the more similar and the stronger the association, the closer the location of the information and the easier the activation ( ? still in date?)

(ii) Schwatz (1990) mood has information potential ‘ a person interprets their mood and reacts positively in a positive mood and aversively in a negative mood’.

(ii) Integration of mood information with cognition ( (ii) implies behaviour) gives mood dependent cognitive styles.

Functions of emotions for school learning

In a school context positive emotions/mood can be counter productive unless attention is focused. On the other hand in the right conditions + emotions can enhance creativity. Negative emotions tend to lead the individual to self focus. Cognitive and motivational factors can impact on the effect of emotion on learning. i.e. they act as mediators. Teachers can impact on these mediating factors. Context and learning material also carry emotional potential.

How to approach the study of emotion on learning

Experimental – about control not analysis

P18 ‘each learner has their own learning history’

P18 ‘ it has to be taken explicitly into account that the same emotion from a different origin serves identical or even similar functions and has an identical or similar impact on school learning ( KRO- what is the evidence for this?)

Therefore author studied ‘ the emotional phenomenology of everyday school life’ based on 1300 diary entries from 58 adolescent students showed attribution of emotion to teacher 38%, subject (26%), peers 15% and school 26/27 %.

P19 ‘ so far , the only emotion that is well investigated is anxiety’ + effect is that people become more activated with anxiety, a negative effect is that they worry. i.e. p20 ‘ different components of one emotion can serve different functions’ however ‘ frequent experience of an emotion can lead to a form of habituation….. these so-called affective tendencies or trait emotions are probably more influential on learning that a sort term emotional episode’ in the case of anxious traits a student can become hyper vigilant to a certain cue’

Author formulates 3 aspects of special importance for future research in the context of school learning.

(i) how can the process of learning and instruction (KRO and also construction) be modelled in an integrative way i.e. flow of the teacher-learner process

(ii) which functions do the different qualities of emotions have for the learning process?

(iii) what are the mediator variables ( KRo also how do they mediate/)

Immordino-Yang & Damasio

Immordino-Yang M.H., and Damasio, A. (2007)

We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social Neuroscience to Education.

Mind, Brain & Education, 1, 1, 3-10.

Interrelationship of cognition & emotion

1. Patient data

Gives biological/neuroscience i.e. neuropsychological evidence for the interrelationship of cognition and emotion by demonstrating a dissociation between emotion and cognition.

The evidence

‘patients whose ability to make advantageous decisions became compromised’ comprehensive testing showed that not IQ or reasoning problem and that logic and knowledge was intact. But there was an emotional disturbance that included p3/9 ‘ diminished resonance of emotional reactions generally as well as specific compromise of social emotions, such as compassion, embarrassment and guilt. By compromising the possibility of evoking emotions associated with certain past situations, decision options and outcomes, the patients become unable to select the most appropriate response based on past experience’ ‘ do not notice others praise or disapproval’ KRO NVC as indicators of praise/disproval.

2. Developmental evidence Anderson et al, 1999 & Damasio, 2005.

(KRO ? link to callous stuff at CEN but then there is an incidence question)

p4/9 ‘ while adult onset patients know right from wrong in the lab they are unable to use this information to guide their behaviour, childhood-onset patients have apparently not learned right from wrong or the proper rules for social conduct’ (KRO importance of a role model?) i.e. ‘ without the ability to manipulate situations and to mark these situations as positive or negative from an affective point of view, these children fail to learn normal social behaviour’ and therefore don’t acquire the appropriate decision making behaviour’

Individual & social

Accepts and describes a distinction between individual & social p2/9 ‘ makes clear that the very neurobiological systems that support our social interactions and relationships are recruited for the often covert and private decision making that underlies much of our thought.’

Two hypotheses

1. p4/9 ‘ Because these findings underscore the critical role of emotion in bringing previously acquired knowledge to inform real-world decision making in social contexts, they suggest the intriguing possibility that emotional processes are required for the skills and knowledge acquired in school to transfer to novel situations in real life’

2. ‘It may be via the emotional route that the social influences of culture come to shape learning, thought and behaviour’ KRO a large conceptual leap without any direct supporting neuroscience. It also does not have sufficient recognition of the complexity of brain processes.

A physiological account of emotion and cognition from automatic responses to morality, creativity, high reason and culture.

And ultimately relevance to Education

P5/9 uses example of the behaviours involved when an ant carries food to its nest as a ‘primitive instance of cognition composed of complex packages of innate responses’ i.e. the ant behaves in this way in order ‘to promote survival and efficiency’ then goes on to say that ‘humans perceive that efficiency as well being and pleasure’

‘one could argue that the chief purpose of Education is to cultivate children’s building of repertoires of cognitive and behavioural strategies and options’ with ethical decision making and morality as the ultimate manifestation i.e. ‘able to move beyond the opportunistic ambivalence of nature’ ‘the hallmark of ethical action is the inhibition of immediately advantageous ( KRO delay as important part of the ‘emotional’ feedback loop) or profitable solutions in the favour of what is good or right within our own cultural frame of reference’

Damasio’s view of emotion

“Emotion, then, is a basic form of decision making, a repertoire of know-how and actions that allows people to respond differently in different situations. The more advanced cognition becomes, the more high level reasoning supports the customization of these responses, both in thought and action. With evolution and development, the specifications of conditions to which people respond and the modes of response at their disposal become increasingly nuanced’

‘emotions entail the perception of an emotionally competent trigger, a situation either real or imagined, that has the power to induce an emotion’

“Emotions help us to direct our reasoning into the sector of knowledge that is relevant to the current problem’ i.e. emotion as a rudder (KRO emotion as a memory trigger)