PSYC-1105EL Chapter Notes - Chapter 11.4: Sympathetic Nervous System, Autonomic Nervous System, Microexpression
3 Feb 2017
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An emotional experience consists of: us detecting an emotional item, us having an initial emotional reaction preparing us to respond, and then, after we analyze the situation, we increase or decrease that response. The human brain shows emotion-dependent responses within approximately 150 ms of seeing or hearing a potential threat. Amygdala: a group of nuclei in the medial portion of the temporal lobes in each hemisphere of the brain, the amygdala fires when we perceive stimuli that are emotionally arousing, and is especially sensitive to fear-relevant images and sounds. The amygdala stimulates activity in sensory areas so that they fire more than they would for a non-emotional stimulus, and we end up paying more attention to the potentially emotional stimuli. The autonomic nervous system (ans) specializes in quickly preparing our bodies to physically respond to emotional stimuli, if necessary. More specifically, the sympathetic nervous system, a component of the ans, helps recruit energy to prepare us for a response.
