Autonomic Nervous System Activity Distinguishes among Emotions

Biological Psychology, 2014

The issue of concordance among the elements of emotional states has been prominent in the literature since Lang (1968) explored the topic in relation to therapy for anxiety. Since that time, a consensus has emerged that concordance among these components is relatively low. To address this issue, redundancy analysis, a technique for examining directional relationships between two sets of multivariate data, was applied to data from a previously published study (Stephens, Christie, & Friedman, 2010). Subjects in this study listened to emotion-inducing music and viewed affective films while a montage of autonomic variables, as well as self-reported affective responses, were recorded. Results indicated that approximately 27-28% of the variance in self-reported affect could be explained by autonomic variables, and vice-versa. When all of the constraints of this emotion research paradigm are considered, these levels of explained variance indicate substantial coherence between feelings and physiology during the emotion inductions. These results are considered vis-à-vis the low levels of coherence that have often been reported in the literature.

Psychophysiology, 2008

An experiment was designed to evaluate the effects of pleasantness and tmpleasantness and instructions to verbalize on directional fractionation of autonomic response. Degrees of pleasant and impleasant stimulation were presented to Ss under two verbalization instruction conditions. Something like directional fractionation was found for the very impleasant no-verbalization condition only, but the pattern disappeared upon the addition of a later-verbalization requirement. More generally, it was found without exception that conditions of no verbalization are accompanied by cardiac deceleration, regardless of degree or of quality of affect, while later verbalization conditions produce cardiac acceleration, again regardless of degree or quality of affect. The authors conclude that verbalization instructions are important for determining the degree and direction of cardiac activation.

Psychophysiology, 1995

The startle reflex, facial electromyogram (EMG), and autonomic nervous system responses were examined during imagery varying in affective valence and arousal. Subjects (N= 48) imagined affective situations during tone-cued 8-strials. Startle blink magnitudes were larger and latencies faster during negatively valent than during positively valent conditions and during high-arousal than during low-arousal conditions. Greatest heart rate acceleration and fastest and largest skin conductance responses to startle probes occurred during high-arousal imagery. Zygomatic and orbicularis oculi facial muscle activities were higher during high-arousal imagery, whereas corrugator muscle activity was higher during low-arousal imagery. Zygomatic and corrugator activity also varied with emotional valence. The startle and facial EMG responses are most parsimoniously organized by the negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA) dimensions, respectively. This NA/PA framework integrates previous research, dimensional theories of emotional behavior, and physiological assessment of pathological emotion.

Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2011

This study examined the relationship between emotion and physiological measures of autonomic system response. Features of electrodermal, cardiac, respiratory, movement, and oculomotor response were measured from a population of normal subjects while they were presented standard acoustic and visual stimuli designed to evoke specific emotions. The subjects' assessments of their emotional response to the stimuli (self-report) were also recorded. We present results of a preliminary analysis of the statistical relationship between the stimulus category, the physiological features and self-report. We found significant differences across stimulus categories, as well as across self-reported emotions, suggesting that a combination of features could be used to classify the emotional content of a discrete stimulus. We also examine the dependence of physiological signals on the mode of stimulus presentations.

Neurophysiology [Working Title], 2022

Emotions are automatic and primary patterns of purposeful cognitive-behavioral organizations. They have three main functions: coordination, signaling, and information. First, emotions coordinate organs and tissues, thus predisposing the body to peculiar responses. Scholars have not reached a consensus on the plausibility of emotion-specific response patterns yet. Despite the limitations, data support the hypothesis of specific response patterns for distinct subtypes of emotions. Second, emotional episodes signal the current state of the individual. Humans display their state with verbal behaviors, nonverbal actions (e.g., facial movements), and neurovegetative signals. Third, emotions inform the brain for interpretative and evaluative purposes. Emotional experiences include mental representations of arousal, relations, and situations. Every emotional episode begins with exposure to stimuli with distinctive features (i.e., elicitor). These inputs can arise from learning, expressions, empathy, and be inherited, or rely on limited aspects of the environment (i.e., sign stimuli). The existence of the latter ones in humans is unclear; however, emotions influence several processes, such as perception, attention, learning, memory, decision-making, attitudes, and mental schemes. Overall, the literature suggests the nonlinearity of the emotional process. Each section outlines the neurophysiological basis of elements of emotion.

2002

... By comparison, the musical affect manipulation generated and used by Nyklicek et al. ... relaxed, active, positive, agitated, bad, and pleasant) models. The discrete portion of the scale is ... 1995) and the dimensional portion is based upon an English translation of the scale used by ...

In a previous publication from the current research group we reported higher physiological arousal (skin conductance) in response to angry at- threshold faces when compared to neutral at- threshold and no faces with backwards masking. We reported evidence that angry faces are detected more accurately than neutral faces when presented for the same per participant defined at – threshold duration due to mask to masked stimuli mismatch. We reported that replication of the effect requires a per stimulus type detection threshold and the addition of a non – threatening and non – neutral condition. In this follow up study we defined the detection threshold per participant and per stimulus type. We presented for individual and per stimulus type at – threshold durations angry, sad, neutral and no faces with backwards masking to neutral masks and measured skin conductance. We reported higher post than pre stimuli onset arousal only for angry faces. Subsequently, we presented the previously at – threshold faces and novel faces of the same emotion for 400 ms. We reported higher arousal post as compared to pre stimuli onset for old and novel angry faces only but also higher arousal for post minus pre GSR scores for old as compared to novel angry faces. Our data suggest that the effect is not due to mask to masked stimulus mismatch.

Neurophysiological studies over the last decade have led to the concept that topographically separated neural systems mediating different components of emotional responses in humans are specific and relatively universal [1,. However, the question of how emotions are reflected in brain bioelectrical activity remains largely unclear. There is now a limited number of EEG studies, though these analyzed only two emotions of the same sign , and meta-analysis of investigations of individual discrete emotions using EEG, positron emission tomography, and functional MRI scans show that these do not provide "brain portraits," because of significant differences in the methodological approaches .

2018

Complex organisms must not only perceive and evaluate changes in their internal and external environment, but also generate appropriate responses to survive. In general, emotions help an organism to survive by embodying a multitude of nervous system functions for perception of the valuable components of the external environment. At the same time, emotions are a way for directly communicating our internal world to others through non-verbal means (Öztürk et al., 2005). Emotions aid an individual to interact with his/her external –or more specifically socialenvironment in a flexible way, while also helping in the regulation of an individual’s internal world. Emotional information is used for personal, as well as social decision making of an individual with ABSTRACT

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2014

Physiological changes have long been associated with emotion. Although the relative role of cognitive versus physiological processes in emotion has been debated, it is acknowledged that in almost all cases, measurable physiological changes co-occur with emotion, for example: changes in heart rate, sweat level, muscle tension, breathing rate, facial expression and electrical activity in the brain. By sensing these changes we can hope to build computer systems that can automatically recognize emotion by recognizing patterns in these sensor signals that capture physiological responses. This chapter will give a detailed introduction to measuring physiological signals that reflect affect (emotion) with a focus on measuring cardiac activity and skin conductance. The discussion will include why these signals are important for measuring emotional activity, how they are most commonly measured, which features are most often extracted for use in recognition algorithms and the trade-offs between signal quality and wearability and convenience for different sensing systems.