Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-mzp66 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-31T02:50:33.806Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Feeling States in Emotion

Functional Imaging Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Joel S. Winston  and
Raymond J. Dolan
Edited by
Antony S. R. Manstead ,
Nico Frijda  and
Agneta Fischer
Joel S. Winston
Affiliation:
University of London
Raymond J. Dolan
Affiliation:
University College London Wellcome
Antony S. R. Manstead
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Nico Frijda
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Agneta Fischer
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Get access

Summary

ABSTRACT

An essential feature of emotional states is their association with change in autonomic function. The importance of these changes lies in the fact that in many theoretical accounts of emotion the realization of autonomic states is a primary means through which feeling states are realized. The issue addressed in this chapter is how the brain generates and represents autonomic states of the organism and their importance in feeling states. A distinction will be drawn between brain systems that mediate relatively automatic responses to emotional stimuli and systems that are involved in what can be termed conscious feeling states. These distinctions will be illustrated by observations from functional neuroimaging and patients with focal brain lesions and pathology of the autonomic nervous system.

Despite the impact of William James at the end of the nineteenth century, for the best part of several decades in the middle of the twentieth century, neuroscientists treated “emotion” and “feeling” as interchangeable terms. This approach to the language of emotion, coupled with the behaviorist movement prevalent in twentieth century psychology, meant that the neuroscientific study of emotion was grossly neglected, often seen as conceptually ragged and its practitioners as pursuing “soft science” (Damasio, 1999; Damasio, 1994; Damasio, 1998; LeDoux, 1996; LeDoux, 2000). Recent efforts, however, have put the study of emotion center stage in understanding the workings of the brain, proposing roles in cognition (Zajonc, 1980), decision making (Damasio, 1994), perception (Anderson & Phelps, 2001), and even consciousness (Panksepp, 1998; Damasio, 1999).

Type
Chapter
Information
Feelings and Emotions
The Amsterdam Symposium
 , pp. 204 - 220
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adolphs, R.; Russell, J. A. & Tranel, D. (1999). A role for the human amygdala in recognizing emotional arousal from unpleasant stimuli. Psychological Science 10, 167–171CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adolphs, R.; Tranel, D.; Damasio, H.; & Damasio, A. (1994). Impaired recognition of emotion in facial expressions following bilateral damage to the human amygdala. Nature 372, 669–672CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Adolphs, R.; Tranel, D.; Damasio, H.; & Damasio, A. R. (1995). Fear and the human amygdala. Journal of Neuroscience 15, 5879–5891CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Adolphs, R.; Tranel, D.; Hamann, S.; Young, A. W.; Calder, A. J.; Phelps, E. A.; Anderson, A.; Lee, G. P.; & Damasio, A. R. (1999). Recognition of facial emotion in nine individuals with bilateral amygdala damage. Neuropsychologia 37, 1111–1117CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Amaral, D. G., & Price, J. L. (1984). Amygdalo-cortical projections in the monkey (Macaca fascicularis). Journal of Comparative Neurology 230, 465–496CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amaral, D. G.; Price, J. L.; Pitkänen, A.; & Carmichael, S. T. (1992). Anatomical organization of the primate amygdaloid complex. In J. P. Aggleton, (Ed.), The amygdala: Neurobiological aspects of emotion, memory, and mental dysfunction (pp. 1–66). New York: Wiley-Liss
Anderson, A. K., & Phelps, E. A. (2001). Lesions of the human amygdala impair enhanced perception of emotionally salient events. Nature 411, 305–309CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A.; Damasio, H.; Tranel, D.; & Damasio, A. R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science 275, 1293–1295CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A.; Tranel, D.; Damasio, H.; Adolphs, R.; Rockland, C.; & Damasio, A. R. (1995). Double dissociation of conditioning and declarative knowledge relative to the amygdala and hippocampus in humans. Science 269, 1115–1118CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A.; Tranel, D.; Damasio, H.; & Damasio, A. R. (1996). Failure to respond autonomically to anticipated future outcomes following damage to prefrontal cortex. Cerebral Cortex 6, 215–225CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blair, R. J.; Morris, J. S.; Frith, C. D.; Perrett, D. I.; & Dolan, R. J. (1999). Dissociable neural responses to facial expressions of sadness and anger. Brain 122, 883–893CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Breiter, H. C.; Etcoff, N. L.; Whalen, P. J.; Kennedy, W. A.; Rauch, S. L.; Buckner, R. L.; Strauss, M. M.; Hyman, S. E.; & Rosen, B. R. (1996). Response and habituation of the human amygdala during visual processing of facial expression. Neuron 17, 875–887CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Broks, P.; Young, A. W.; Maratos, E. J.; Coffey, P. J.; Calder, A. J.; Isaac, C. L.; Mayes, A. R.; Hodges, J. R.; Montaldi, D.; Cezayirli, E., et al. (1998). Face processing impairments after encephalitis: Amygdala damage and recognition of fear. Neuropsychologia 36, 59–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchel, C., & Dolan, R. J. (2000). Classical fear conditioning in functional neuroimaging. Current Opinion Neurobiology 10, 219–223CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buchel, C.; Dolan, R. J.; Armony, J. L.; & Friston, K. J. (1999). Amygdala–hippocampal involvement in human aversive trace conditioning revealed through event–related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Journal of Neuroscience 19, 10869–10876CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buchel, C.; Morris, J.; Dolan, R. J.; & Friston, K. J. (1998). Brain systems mediating aversive conditioning: An event-related fMRI study. Neuron 20, 947–957CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calder, A. J.; Keane, J.; Manes, F.; Antoun, N.; & Young, A. W. (2000).Impaired recognition and experience of disgust following brain injury. Nature Neuroscience 3, 1077–1078CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calder, A. J.; Lawrence, A. D.; & Young, A. W. (2001). Neuropsychology of fear and loathing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2, 352–363CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Critchley, H. D.; Corfield, D. R.; Chandler, M. P.; Mathias, C. J.; & Dolan, R. J. (2000a). Cerebral correlates of autonomic cardiovascular arousal: A functional neuroimaging investigation in humans. Journal of Physiology 523, 259–270CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Critchley, H. D.; Elliott, R.; Mathias, C. J.; & Dolan, R. J. (2000b). Neural activity relating to generation and representation of galvanic skin conductance responses: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Journal of Neuroscience 20, 3033–3040CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Critchley, H. D.; Mathias, C. J.; & Dolan, R. J. (2001a). Neural activity in the human brain relating to uncertainty and arousal during anticipation. Neuron 29, 537–545CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Critchley, H. D.; Mathias, C. J.; & Dolan, R. J. (2001b). Neuroanatomical basis for first- and second-order representations of bodily states. Nature Neuroscience 4, 207–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Critchley, H. D.; Melmed, R. N.; Featherstone, E.; Mathias, C. J.; & Dolan, R. J. (2001c). Brain activity during biofeedback relaxation: A functional neuroimaging investigation. Brain 124, 1003–1012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damasio, A. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New York: Harcourt Brace
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Damasio, A. R. (1998). Emotion in the perspective of an integrated nervous system. Brain Research Reviews 26, 83–86CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damasio, A. R. (2001). Fundamental feelings. Nature 413, 781CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damasio, A. R.; Grabowski, T. J.; Bechara, A.; Damasio, H.; Ponto, L. L.; Parvizi, J.; & Hichwa, R. D. (2000). Subcortical and cortical brain activity during the feeling of self-generated emotions. Nature Neuroscience 3, 1049–1056CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, M. (1992). The amygdala and conditioned fear. In J. P. Aggleton (Ed.), The amygdala: Neurobiological Aspects of Emotion, Memory and Mental Dysfunction, (pp. 225–306). New York: Wiley-Liss
Dolan, R. J.; Morris, J. S.; & Gelder, B. (2001). Crossmodal binding of fear in voice and face. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U S A 98, 10006–10010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1975). Pictures of facial affect. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press
Fine, C., & Blair, R. J. (2000). The cognitive and emotional effects of amygdala damage. Neurocase 6, 435–450CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fredrikson, M.; Furmark, T.; Olsson, M. T.; Fischer, H.; Andersson, J.; & Langstrom, B. (1998). Functional neuroanatomical correlates of electrodermal activity: A positron emission tomographic study. Psychophysiology 35, 179–185CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friston, K. J.; Price, C. J.; Fletcher, P.; Moore, C.; Frackowiak, R. S.; & Dolan, R. J. (1996). The trouble with cognitive subtraction. Neuroimage 4, 97–104CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
George, M. S.; Ketter, T. A.; Parekh, P. I.; Horwitz, B.; Herscovitch, P.; & Post, R. M. (1995). Brain activity during transient sadness and happiness in healthy women. American Journal of Psychiatry 152, 341–351Google ScholarPubMed
Gorno-Tempini, M. L.; Pradelli, S.; Serafini, M.; Pagnoni, G.; Baraldi, P.; Porro, C.; Nicoletti, R.; Umita, C.; & Nichelli, P. (2001). Explicit and incidental facial expression processing: An fMRI study. Neuroimage 14, 465–473CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, J. M.; Young, A. W.; Barker, W. A.; Curtis, A.; & Gibson, D. (1997). Impaired recognition of disgust in Huntington's disease gene carriers. Brain 120, 2029–2038CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hariri, A. R.; Bookheimer, S. Y.; & Mazziotta, J. C. (2000). Modulating emotional responses: Effects of a neocortical network on the limbic system. Neuroreport 11, 43–48CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion?Mind, 9, 188–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LaBar, K. S.; Gatenby, J. C.; Gore, J. C.; LeDoux, J. E.; & Phelps, E. A. (1998). Human amygdala activation during conditioned fear acquisition and extinction: A mixed-trial fMRI study. Neuron 20, 937–945CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
LaBar, K. S.; LeDoux, J. E.; Spencer, D. D.; & Phelps, E. A. (1995). Impaired fear conditioning following unilateral temporal lobectomy in humans. Journal of Neuroscience 15, 6846–6855CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lane, R. D.; Fink, G. R.; Chau, P. M.; & Dolan, R. J. (1997a). Neural activation during selective attention to subjective emotional responses. Neuroreport 8, 3969–3972CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, R. D.; Reiman, E. M.; Ahern, G. L.; Schwartz, G. E.; & Davidson, R. J. (1997b). Neuroanatomical correlates of happiness, sadness, and disgust. American Journal of Psychiatry 154, 926–933Google Scholar
LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain. New York.: Simon and Schuster
LeDoux, J. E. (2000). Emotion circuits in the brain. Annual Reviews in Neuroscience 23, 155–184CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. S.; DeGelder, B.; Weiskrantz, L.; & Dolan, R. J. (2001). Differential extrageniculostriate and amygdala responses to presentation of emotional faces in a cortically blind field. Brain 124, 1241–1252CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. S.; Friston, K. J.; Buchel, C.; Frith, C. D.; Young, A. W.; Calder, A. J.; & Dolan, R. J. (1998a). A neuromodulatory role for the human amygdala in processing emotional facial expressions. Brain 121, 47–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. S.; Frith, C. D.; Perrett, D. I.; Rowland, D.; Young, A. W.; Calder, A. J.; & Dolan, R. J. (1996). A differential neural response in the human amygdala to fearful and happy facial expressions. Nature 383, 812–815CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, J. S.; Ohman, A.; & Dolan, R. J. (1998b). Conscious and unconscious emotional learning in the human amygdala. Nature 393, 467–470CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Doherty, J.; Rolls, E. T.; Francis, S.; Bowtell, R.; & McGlone, F. (2001). Representation of pleasant and aversive taste in the human brain. Journal of Neurophysiology 85, 1315–1321CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Panksepp, J. (1998). The periconscious substrates of consciousness: Affective states and the evolutionary origins of the SELF. Journal of Consciousness Studies 5, 566–582Google Scholar
Phillips, M. L.; Young, A. W.; Scott, S. K.; Calder, A. J.; Andrew, C.; Giampietro, V.; Williams, S. C.; Bullmore, E. T.; Brammer, M.; & Gray, J. A. (1998). Neural responses to facial and vocal expressions of fear and disgust. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences 265, 1809–1817CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Phillips, M. L.; Young, A. W.; Senior, C.; Brammer, M.; Andrew, C.; Calder, A. J.; Bullmore, E. T.; Perrett, D. I.; Rowland, D.; Williams, S. C., et al. (1997). A specific neural substrate for perceiving facial expressions of disgust. Nature 389, 495–498CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rotshtein, P.; Malach, R.; Hadar, U.; Graif, M.; & Hendler, T. (2001). Feeling or features: Different sensitivity to emotion in high-order visual cortex and amygdala. Neuron 32, 747–757CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schmolck, H., & Squire, L. R. (2001). Impaired perception of facial emotions following bilateral damage to the anterior temporal lobe. Neuropsychology 15, 30–38CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sprengelmeyer, R.; Rausch, M.; Eysel, U. T.; & Przuntek, H. (1998). Neural structures associated with recognition of facial expressions of basic emotions. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences 265, 1927–1931CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vuilleumier, P.; Armony, J. L.; Driver, J.; & Dolan, R. J. (2001). Effects of attention and emotion on face processing in the human brain. An event-related fMRI study. Neuron 30, 829–841CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whalen, P. J.; Rauch, S. L.; Etcoff, N. L.; McInerney, S. C.; Lee, M. B.; & Jenike, M. A. (1998). Masked presentations of emotional facial expressions modulate amygdala activity without explicit knowledge. Journal of Neuroscience 18, 411–418CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Young, A. W.; Hellawell, D. J.; Wal, C.; & Johnson, M. (1996). Facial expression processing after amygdalotomy. Neuropsychologia 34, 31–39CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist 35, 151–175CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×