lecture 8: emotion’s relation to mental processes...

Lecture 8: Emotion’s relation to mental processes (continued)

Affective Computing in the News

Outline

Briefly summarize models from last lecture– Decisions are made by expected affect

– Show consistent w/ appraisal theory view

Show this not the whole story– Framework by Loewenstein and Lerner

Discuss neurophysiology underlying these effects

Recall decision affect theory

RA(C) UA + d(UA - UB) (1 – pA) + r(UA - UC) (1 – pA pC)

Goals Anticipated Events

(outcomes)

Cognitive evaluation

(appraisal)

Affect Decision

Reward

Counterfactual

reasoning

expectation

SurpriseRegret

Disapp.

joy

A & C

(UA)

Appraisal models (review)

Computational models of appraisal propose simple

rules that appraise abstract data structures

Whack BirdCause: self

Intend: yes

Prob.: 50%

SafeUtility: 50Prob: 50%

Intend: True

Past Present Future

Safe

Utility: 50 Prob.: 100%Belief: False

Bird AttackCause: Other

Intend: yes

Prob: 100%

Inhibits

Appraisal models (review)

Computational models of appraisal propose simple

rules that appraise abstract data structures

Once represented as probabilities, utilities and

alternatives, content of the domain irrelevant

Very powerful concept (domain independence)

Do you think it is true?

Counterexamples?

Example (Nisbett and Ross 1980)

Rate intensity of the following events (1-weak; 10-strong)

Jack sustained fatal injuries in a car crash

Jack was killed by a semi trailer that rolled over on his car and

crushed his skull

Jack lost the skin of his

finger in a rugby match

What’s going on here?

Influences of Emotion on decision-making(Loewenstein and Lerner 2003)

Start with decision theoryPeople try to maximize expected pleasure (utility)

Decision/

behavior

Expected

consequences

Expected

emotions

Daniel Bernoulli

PROBLEM: If decision theory argues people trying to maximize

future happiness, there are a couple of big problems here

Adam Smith

First problem with equating expected utility with anticipated emotion

Human estimates of future

happiness violate the axioms of

decision-theory

Expected emotions: Risk

Expected emotions are shaped by uncertainty (risk) in ways

not predicted by utility theory

People overweigh small probabilities

People underestimate large probabilities

Losses Loom larger than gains

Maximize

Expected

Utility

ProbabilityExpected

emotions

Prospect TheoryKahneman & Tversky, 1979

Relaxes the independence assumption

– Distinguishes subjective from objective probability: People overweigh small

probabilities and underestimate large ones

– People assign different utility to losses and gains

Maximize

Expected

Utility

ProbabilityExpected

emotionsS

ub

jecti

ve

pro

ba

bil

ity

Probability

function

Utility

function

Expected emotions: Regret

Expected emotions are shaped by our regret over what might

have happened

Maximize

Expected

Utility

ProbabilityExpected

emotions

Mellers (1997) decision affect theory

Assume play lottery with outcomes A and B. A occurs

RegretA ≈ UtilityA + d(UtilityA – UtilityB) (1 – ProbA)

Where d is a “disappointment function”

Argues people try to minimize regret

Second problem with equating expected utility with anticipated emotion

Humans are bad at forecasting how

they will feel in the future

(estimated happiness ≠ experienced happiness)

It seemed a good idea at the time…

Affective forecasting

People not so good at forecasting

– What: what emotion they will feel following a decision

– How much: the intensity of the experience

– How long: the duration of the emotion

People fail to account for their ability to cope

– Become desensitized to positive circumstances

– Become resigned to negative circumstances

People overweigh outcomes in immediate focus

– E.g., Students in mid-west predicted they would be happier moving to

California; students in California predicted they’d be less happy in mid-

west; yet both equally happy

Affective forecasting

Evidence for 2 distinct mechanisms for forecasting

– Simulation route:

Vividly imagine being in a certain situation

“read” our bodily reactions to that situation (Damasio’s somatic

marker hypothesis)

– Reasoning route:

Reason about emotions: e.g., I expect I would feel this way

Evidence that the “reasoning” approach more suspect to mis-

forecasting effects

– Situational factors bias these mechanisms

E.g. more immediate events more likely to use simulation route

– Some individual differences predict this tendency

Mental imagery ability (White 1978)

Attempts to salvage EUT

Expected emotions are time dependent: care less about

events far in the future (explains procrastination?)

Can be modeled with hyperbolic discounting

Make utility a

function of time

MacInnis. Whan. "Looking through the crystal ball: Affective forecasting and misforecasting in

consumer behavior." Review of Marketing Research 2 (2005): 43-80.

Poor affective forecasting leads to poor decisions

“morning after” effects

Low retirement savings rates

Lack of energy conservation

Risky health choices

Impulsivity

Could affective computing help

Approach: Make the consequences of decisions

immediate and tangible through virtual reality

(Bailenson)

Example 1: environmental conservation

Global warming serious issue

People tend to support conversation policies but

people often wasteful in their individual choices

– Could virtual reality make consequences seem more vivid?

– Would this result in actual pro-environmental behavior?

Study 1: waste

Pre-tested attitudes on conservationPre-tested attitudes on conservation

Told # of trees cut down to make toilet paper Told # of trees cut down to make toilet paper

Virtual RealityVirtual Reality Mental ImageryMental Imagery

Study 1: environmental conservation

Study 1: waste

Pre-tested attitudes on conservationPre-tested attitudes on conservation

Told # of trees cut down to make toilet paper Told # of trees cut down to make toilet paper

Virtual RealityVirtual Reality Mental ImageryMental Imagery

Irrelevant Task (30 minutes)Irrelevant Task (30 minutes)

Cleanup spilt waterCleanup spilt water

VR participants used significantly fewer napkins 30min laterVR participants used significantly fewer napkins 30min later

Example 2: Shower study

Could same idea get people to use less water?

– Read about coal and shower

– Touched physical coal

– Washed hands

– In VR randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions

– 6 minute virtual shower

– Washed hands (main DV)

Experimental Conditions

Experimental Conditions

Vivid conditions yielded significantly quicker hand washingVivid conditions yielded significantly quicker hand washing

Decision/

behavior

Expected

consequences

Expected

emotions

Expected emotions violate axioms of EU

– Prospect theory

– Regret theory

Expected emotion ≠ experienced emotion

– Hyperbolic discounting

Summary of first set of challenges

But that’s not all….

Quick experiment

Me:

1m48s

(brisk pace)

Incidental influences

Maximize

Expected

Utility

Probability Utility

Anticipatory

influences

Unrelated events can influence our immediate

emotions

– Sunny day

– Happy or sad music

– Disgusting room

Incidental

influences

Immediate

emotions

Another example

Use of affective computing technology to demonstrate the

pervasive impact of incidental influences

Another example

Use of affective computing technology to demonstrate the

pervasive impact of incidental influences

Analyzed the sentiment of posts using Linguistic Inquiry Word Count

(LIWC), a widely used and validated word classification system

Results

What happens when facebook poster is in rainy city?

– More negative and less positive posts

– e.g., a rainy day in New York City directly yields an additional 1500 (95% CI

1100 to 2100) negative posts by users in New York City

What happens when a facebook poster has friends in a rainy

city?

– They “catch” their friends emotions

– A rainy day in New York City yields about 700 (95% CI 600 to 800) negative

posts by their friends elsewhere

Immediate influences

Maximize

Expected

Utility

Probability UtilityImmediate

emotions

Current emotions changes the decision procedure

Negative emotions narrow intentional focus (on potential threats) and deeper processing of threats

Question pre-conceptions, second guessing

Slower decision making

Positive emotions broaden attentional focus

Shallow processing, quick decisions

Uncritically accept initial judgments/stereotypes

Immediate influences

Maximize

Expected

Utility

Probability UtilityImmediate

emotions

Low intensity emotions

Inform cognition (Affect as information – Clore)

Easily suppressed/overcome if aware of them

High intensity emotions

Can overwhelm cognition. People report being “out of control”

Eg. Phobicsreport there is nothing to fear but are helpless to act on that

awareness

AngerLerner&Tiedens06:

Portrait of the angry

decision maker

Anticipatory influences

Maximize

Expected

Utility

Probability Utility

Anticipatory

influences

Immediate

emotions

Anticipated emotions change our immediate

emotions (Endogenous Emotion)

How do current emotions change decisions?

Basic vs. dimensional models

Mellers’ Decision Affect Theory– Felt emotions represented as a single dimension (pos or neg)

Appraisal tendency framework– Felt emotions lead to discrete differences in appraisal tendencies

EmotionAction

Tendencies“Affect”

PhysiologicalResponse

EnvironmentGoals/Beliefs/

Intentions

Appraisal Tendencies Framework (Han, Lerner, Keltner 2007.)

Desirability

Controllability

Causal Attribution

Emotion

Withdraw Sadness Lo Arousal


Intentions

UNDESIRABLE

UNCONTROLABLE

BLAMEWORTHY

EmotionAction




Intentions


Desirability

Controllability

Causal Attribution

Emotion

Withdraw Sadness Lo Arousal


Intentions

UNDESIRABLE

CONTROLABLE

BLAMEWORTHY

APPROACH ANGER Hi Arousal

EmotionAction




Intentions


Desirability

Controllability

Causal Attribution

Emotion

APPROACH ANGER Hi ArousalWithdraw Sadness Lo Arousal


Intentions

UNDESIRABLE

CONTROLABLE

BLAMEWORTHY

UNCONTROLABLE

Summary

People don’t follow rational choice theory

Good mathematical models of some departures– E.g. prospect theory; discounting functions

Not so go mathematical models of others– Though appraisal theory (ATF) gives us some insight

Some influences integral to the situation– And therefore probably sensible adaptations

Some incidental– And therefore hard to argue that they are beneficial

summary

EmotionAction




Intentions

Desirability

Controllability

Causal Attribution

Decisions

But why?

What is mechanism?

The Somatic Marker Hypothesis:

Most of us are taught from early on that :-logical, rational calculation forms the basis of sound decisions.-Emotion has no IQ.-Emotion can only cloud the mind and interfere with good judgment.

But what if we were wrong?!What if sound, rational decision making in fact depends on prior accurate emotional processing?

Damasio and Bechara make the case that:

Decision-making is a process critically dependent on neural systems important for the processing of emotions.

Conscious knowledge alone is not sufficient for making advantageous decisions.

Emotion is not always beneficial to decision-making; sometimes it can be disruptive.

A Brief History

Phineas Gage was a dynamite worker, and survived an

explosion that blasted an iron-tamping bar through the front

of his head.

Before the accident, Phineas Gage was a man of normal intelligence, responsible, sociable, and popular among peers and friends.

He survived this accident with normal intelligence, memory, speech, sensation, and movement. However, his behavior changed completely:

He became irresponsible and untrustworthy.Impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicted with his desires.

A Brief History

A Brief History

Patients with Ventral Medial/Orbital

Prefrontal Cortex damaged

Before brain damage: Normal intelligence. After the damage: Normal intelligence.

But

Difficulties making good decisions in real-life. Their choices are no longer advantageous, and are remarkably different from the kinds of choices they are known to make in the pre-morbid period:

Their decisions and actions often lead to losses of diverse order, including:-losses in financial status-bankruptcies.-losses in social standing-involvement with unscrupulous people.-Break-up of family and distancing from friends.



This particular class of patients presented a puzzling defect: difficult to explain their disturbances in terms of defects in knowledge, general intellectual compromise, language comprehension or expression, or in memory or attention.

However, their ability to express emotion and to experience feelings in appropriate social situations becomes compromised.

Along with normal intellect, these patients show: 1. Abnormalities in emotion and feeling. 2. Severe impairments in judgment and decision-making in real-life.



Especially this latter observation was what led Antonio R. Damasio to propose what has become an influential neural theory of decision-making, the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH).

The central feature of this theory is that emotion-related signals (somatic markers) assist cognitive processes in implementing decisions.

A further aspect of this theory is that these somatic markers can be non-conscious: they can bias behavior even when a person is not really aware of them.

Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH)

Definitions:

EMOTION as a collection of physiological changes in body and brain

states triggered in response to an event:

Some changes are non-perceptible to an external observer, e.g., heart

rate, skin conductance, endocrine release.

Some changes are perceptible to an external observer (e.g. skin color,

body posture, facial expression).

The signals generated by these changes towards the brain itself produce

changes perceptible to the individual and are ultimately perceived as a

FEELING .

Emotion= What an outside observer can see, or at least can measure.

Feeling= What the individual senses or subjectively reports.

Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH)

Testing the Somatic Marker Model:

-The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) paradigm for

measuring decision-making.

Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)

DD

Gain per Card

$100

$1250

-$250

$100

$1250

-$250

$ 50

$250

+$250

$ 50

$250

+$250

AA BB CC

“Bad” Decks “Good” Decks

Loss per 10 Cards

Net per 10 Cards

5 sec

Onset of Card Selection

ANTICIPATORY SCR

(Before Choice)

REWARD/ PUNISHMENT SCR

(After Choice)

(a)

(b)

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)

Skin Conductance Response (SCR)

Bechara A, 1994

0 second 10 second 20 second

Card SelectionCard Selection Card Selection

R/P R/P R/PAnticipatory Anticipatory

Do these somatic (emotional) signals have to

be conscious?

No!

1. Somatic signals may bias decisions covertly.

2. Conscious knowledge alone is not sufficient

for making advantageous decisions.

Number of

Choices

From Decks

Anticipatory

SCR Level

Sequence of Card Selection

Controls

Did not Reach

Conceptual

Period

VMPC

Did Reach

Conceptual

Period

Bad Decks

Good Decks

Bad Decks

Good Decks

Knowledge Level

(a)

(b)

(c)

A Diagrammatic Summary of the Results of Bechara et al. (1997) Study

(d)

(e)

Anticipatory SCRs represent unconscious biases

that are linked to prior experiences with reward

and punishment.

Deprived of these biases, conscious knowledge of

what is right and what is wrong may become

available. However, by itself, this conscious

knowledge is not sufficient to ensure an

advantageous behavior.

Therefore, frontal patients may be fully aware of

what is right and what is wrong, but they fail to

act accordingly:

These patients can say “the right thing”, but they

do “the wrong thing”.

The Neuroanatomy of “Emotions” and “Feelings”

Modulating Factors

the VMPC is relatively a large region, and it

has developed through evolution in such a

way that not every part performs the same

function. W

Different “information” are coupled to

somatic states in the VMPC region are based

on hierarchical functional organization of this

region in relation to time, probability,

magnitude, and tangibility of the stimulus

(Bechara, 2005)

1.Time: information conveying immediacy (e.g.

getting a heart disease tomorrow) exerts a

stronger influence on decisions than information

conveying delayed/future outcomes (e.g. getting

a heart disease 20 years from now).

2.Probability: people prefer a sure gain over a

probabilistic one, or they avoid a sure loss and

prefer a probabilistic one instead.

3.Tangibility: people have an easier time

spending money on credit cards as opposed to

spending real money.

-

Reflective

Orbitofrontal /Ventromedial

System

Timeimmediate delayed

Frequencyhigh low

Magnitudehigh low

Relationconcrete abstract

Triggering somatic states

Strong Weak

+-

-+

+-

Summation:

Strong dominates Weak

Feedback:

Net Positive or Negative

Somatic State

Impulsive

Amygdala System

+-

Information conveying immediacy (near future), high probability

(certainty), or tangibility engages more posterior VMPC, whereas

information conveying delay (distant future), low probability, or

abstractness engages more anterior VMPC cortices (Bechara, 2005).

-

Reflective


System


Frequencyhigh low

Magnitudehigh low



Strong Weak

+-

-+

+-

Summation:


Feedback:


Somatic State

Impulsive

Amygdala System

+-

The more posterior areas of the VMPC (e.g. Brodmann area 25)

are directly connected to brain structures involved in triggering or

representing somatic states, while access of more anterior areas is

poly-synaptic and indirect.

-

Reflective


System


Frequencyhigh low

Magnitudehigh low



Strong Weak

+-

-+

+-

Summation:


Feedback:


Somatic State

Impulsive

Amygdala System

+-

It follows that coupling of information to representations of somatic states via posterior VMPC is associated with relatively fast, effortless, and strong somatic signals, while the signaling via more anterior VMPC is relatively slow, effortful, and weak.

Things that are more immediate or they are highly probabilistic or expected or have high

magnitude or they are more concrete, they have stronger emotional responses that’s way

we are bias towards them.

the more delayed, abstract things or things with low probability and magnitude trigger

much weaker response.

-

Reflective


System


Frequencyhigh low

Magnitudehigh low



Strong Weak

+-

-+

+-

Summation:


Feedback:


Somatic State

Impulsive

Amygdala System

+-

Neural correlates of envisioning emotional events in the near

and far future

D’Argembeau D et al, 2008

It explains why people react differently

according to different factors of the events.

This functional organization makes even

normal people irrational and their decisions are

biased towards more immediate, certain or

tangible events,

Damages in the VMPC tends to make this bias

much worse.

Knowledge

Cognition

Decisions

Actions

Affect

Emotion

Feelings

The process of decision-making is not just logical and computational but also emotional.

Summary

Emotions have several paths to influence decisions– Anticipated emotion sort-of treated like utility

Expected disappointment and regret

And several ways to model this (prospect theory, decision affect theory)

– Incidental and Integral emotion changes actual emotion

– Actual emotion changes the decision-making procedure Anger makes reasoning more shallow, Sadness gives us less control

Appraisal tendencies framework can capture some of these biases

– Multiples routes that emotion works Simulation route

Reasoning route

– Neuroanatomy helps explain these factors Time, vividness, etc

lecture 8: emotion’s relation to mental processes...

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