BIOL 115 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Spatial Frequency, Amygdala, Facial Feedback Hypothesis
Document Summary
Amygdala important not just in expression of emotion but also in recognizing emotion, particularly fear. We have different pathways that deal with low vs. high frequencies. Seems to serve a protective mechanism we can recognize fear before we even know what we"re looking at. Perceptually blind, parts of visual system are damaged (stroke or accident) and other parts are left intact. But they can still see and react to things in the environment. This pathway exists even if they can"t see anything, they can still. Bilateral amygdala damage: people use different ways to recognize fear from other emotions: eyes. Their gaze is not on the most important part of face that distinguishes fear. People stop using what they normally use to recognize fear. They can be trained, but they lose their normal habits of recognize fear when amygdala is damaged. Obviously capable of producing range of facial expression.
