Term
| How are humans and apes different in terms of emotions and consciousness? |
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Definition
| Humans have a definite active consciousness that allow the to be aware of their emotions and have clear, full, complex experiences. |
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Term
| What is the 'functional' definition of emotion? |
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Definition
| A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes. |
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Term
| What is the 'conscious' definition of emotion? |
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Definition
| A feeling state involving thoughts, physiological changes, and an outward expression or behavior. |
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Term
| What has been, and still lingeringly continues to be, the sentiment of animal emotion? |
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Definition
| The last major sentiment on this subject was that animals either do not have emotions, or are restricted to a limited basic array that does not allow for mixed emotions. |
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Term
| What is the importance of studying and understanding animal emotion? |
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Definition
| The importance of this study is that it is directly liked to industries concerned with animal welfare such as psychoactive drugs or food production. |
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Term
| Which of the two definitions of emotion is generally used in regards to animals. Give an example. |
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Definition
| Generally, we use the functional definition in regards to animals. For example, instead of saying angry or loving, we would say aggressive or affiliate/bonded |
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Term
| How does one measure emotion? |
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Definition
| Although it is impossible to directly measure emotion, it is possible to correlate behaviors, neurophysiology, and cognition in animals to similarities in humans that can be expressed verbally. |
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Term
| Give some examples of behaviors used to 'measure' emotion. |
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Definition
Stress responses (common in zoos)
vocalization (as seen in dogs)
facial expressions (global) |
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Term
| Why are facial expressions a good physiological response to associate emotion with in primates? |
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Definition
| This is a good behavior to correlate emotion with in primates because such a large portion of our brain is devoted to facial movement and expression. |
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Term
| What are some of the long-term effects of chronic stress? |
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Definition
Digestive problems
Immune and reproductive system failure/issues
Protein loss
Death of neurons |
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Term
| What function does the amygdala have in terms of emotion? |
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Definition
| This portion of the brain is responsible for the fight or flight reflex... essentially fear. |
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Term
| What does dopamine control? |
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Definition
| This hormone controls feelings of pleasure including food and sex. |
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Term
| What have experiments reviled about the timing of dopamine release? |
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Definition
| Experiments have shown that a lot of the time, this hormone is released in anticipation of an even rather than actually receiving or experiencing something. |
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Term
| What are the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin associated with? |
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Definition
| These hormones are associated with love. However, they come from the same part of the brain that is associated with gut feelings and addiction. |
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Term
| What were the results of the vole experiments with oxytocin and vasopressin? |
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Definition
| When vasopressin and oxytocin was cut off in monogamous voles, 'fleeting affairs' began to occur. However, when hormone receptors were created in promiscuous voles via gene transfer in a virus, they became 'faithful.' |
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Term
| What is the link between baboons and human depression? |
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Definition
| The link between these two species in response to this emotion is that they share very similar brain chemistry. |
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Term
| Do we really need brain chemistry to classify behaviors as emotions? |
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Definition
| Not necessarily, as seen in the case of Flint and Flo. |
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Term
| What is a cognitive approach to emotion? |
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Definition
| This approach to emotion involves a cognitive bias which is when presented with an neutral situation depressed individuals are more like to make a negative judgement than are non-depressed individuals. |
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Term
| What are secondary emotions? |
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Definition
| "self conscious" emotions. For example, embarrassment |
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Term
| Is there convincing evidence of conscious emotions in animals? |
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Definition
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Term
| When do human children start displaying secondary emotions? |
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Definition
| Children will start displaying these types of emotions at roughly 2 years age. |
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Term
| Why do inter-species relationships exist? |
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Definition
| We're not really sure why these relationships exist, but there is evidence that social contact has psychological benefits. |
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Term
| Give some evidence of animal consciousness. |
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Definition
Grieving/mourning:
1. Washoe "where's baby?"
2. Flint and Flo
3. Elephant grave yards/carrying dead youth/remaining near body
4. Bonobos defending body |
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