PSYC 1010 Chapter Notes -Facial Muscles, Digestion, Amygdala

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Rebecca Jubis

Document Summary

Historical emotion theories: james-lange theory: arousal comes before emotion, the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli. Ex. we feel sorry because we cry, anger because we strike, afraid: cannon-bard theory: arousal & emotion occur simultaneously: because we tremble. Those with lower-spine injuries, who had lost sensation only in their legs, reported little change in their emotions" intensity. Those with high spinal cord injuries did report changes. Ex. my heart began pounding as i experienced fear: the emotion-triggering stimulus traveled to my sympathetic nervous system, causing my body"s arousal. It was discovered that a stirred-up state can be experienced as one emotion or another, depending on how we interpret and label it: point to remember: arousal fuels emotion; cognition channels it. A stimulus following this path would travel to the brain"s cortex (by way of the thalamus).