![]() We quickly move our foot to the brake pedal. When a car pulls out in front of us on the highway, the thalamus activates and sends an immediate message to the amygdala. Our response to the basic emotion of fear, for instance, is primarily determined by the fast pathway through the limbic system. The distinction between the primary and the secondary emotions is paralleled by two brain pathways: a fast pathway and a slow pathway (Damasio, 2000 LeDoux, 2000 Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002). The thalamus acts as the major gatekeeper in this process (Figure 11.3, “Slow and Fast Emotional Pathways”). You might mull over the event for weeks or even months, experiencing these negative emotions each time you think about it (Martin & Tesser, 2006). But when your close friend wins a prize that you thought you had deserved, you might also experience a variety of secondary emotions (in this case, the negative ones) - for instance, feeling angry, sad, resentful, and ashamed. When you succeed in reaching an important goal, you might spend some time enjoying your secondary emotions, perhaps the experience of joy, satisfaction, and contentment. They are determined by both their level of arousal (mild to intense) and their valence (pleasant to unpleasant). ![]() The secondary emotions are those that have a major cognitive component. The cognitive interpretations that accompany emotions - known as cognitive appraisal - allow us to experience a much larger and more complex set of secondary emotions, as shown in Figure 11.2, “The Secondary Emotions.” Although they are in large part cognitive, our experiences of the secondary emotions are determined in part by arousal (on the vertical axis of Figure 11.2, “The Secondary Emotions”) and in part by their valence - that is, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant feelings (on the horizontal axis of Figure 11.2, “The Secondary Emotions”), Figure 11.2 The Secondary Emotions. For instance, the amygdala may sense fear when it senses that the body is falling, but that fear may be interpreted completely differently (perhaps even as excitement) when we are falling on a roller-coaster ride than when we are falling from the sky in an airplane that has lost power. Not all of our emotions come from the old parts of our brain we also interpret our experiences to create a more complex array of emotional experiences. ![]() View “Video Clip: The Basic Emotions,” to see a demonstration of the basic emotions. Because they are primarily evolutionarily determined, the basic emotions are experienced and displayed in much the same way across cultures (Ekman, 1992 Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002 Fridland, Ekman, & Oster, 1987), and people are quite accurate at judging the facial expressions of people from different cultures. The basic emotions have a long history in human evolution, and they have developed in large part to help us make rapid judgments about stimuli and to quickly guide appropriate behaviour (LeDoux, 2000). The basic emotions are determined in large part by one of the oldest parts of our brain, the limbic system, including the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the thalamus. The most fundamental emotions, known as the basic emotions, are those of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. ![]() Give examples of the ways that emotion is communicated.Summarize the psychological theories of emotion.Explain the biological experience of emotion. ![]()
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