September 30, 1999
By Victor S. Johnston
Chapter 5: “The Omens of Fitness”
“Imagine you are sitting in an auditorium listening to a public lecture. Unexpectedly the person next to you, an attractive young woman you have never seen before, reaches out and gently touches the back of your hand; nothing else. What would it feel like? Undoubtedly, like most human beings, you would experience a sudden surge of emotion. Innumerable questions might flit through your mind, as the topic of the lecture fades into the background. What did that mean? Why did she do that? Some individuals might experience anger, others excitement, but almost no one would be totally indifferent to the event.” (Johnston, 79)
Johnston after this opening passage goes on to explain how it cannot be the sensory touch alone because then we would have emotional reactions to everything that our skin senses. For example, jewelry, watches, or even clothing is sensed by our skin but does not result in an emotion.
“For such a large number of different social circumstances to evoke a much smaller set of universal emotions, there must be some general production rules, or contingencies, that produce the same feelings in most human beings.” (Johnston, 80) If all human beings experience these same emotions, how are they related to the survival of genes and the eventual passing on of genes to the next generation?
Johnston explains that the “fundamental requirements for reproductive success are the ability to survive to reproductive age, to reproduce, and to ensure that any offspring also reach reproductive age.” (Johnston, 83) He then says that are emotions help in fulfilling reproductive success by being “clues” or omens that something is complimentary or threatening to the survival of genes. For example, fear, one of the primary emotions, is important because it may be a result of an event that may be a threat to our survival. Also, sadness, after a death of a child or spouse hinders our reproductive abilities. A death of a child is a “failure” in reproductive success because an offspring never made it to reproductive age, for example. A death of a spouse is a loss of an individual that would have assisted in reproductive success. So, our emotions “foreshadow” growth or weakness in our reproductive success; “while their hedonic tone—pleasantness or unpleasantness—reflects whether such changes represent a net gain or loss.” (Johnston, 83)
Another way to increase reproductive success is through altruism, or helping others. In other words, helping others, which increases their reproductive success also increases your own. “Biologists use a special term, fitness, to refer to this relative reproductive success.”
(Johnston, 84) However, the only way that altruism is helpful is when it is reciprocated. When you receive help one should eventually return it when they have some to spare. Reciprocal altruism requires a few things in order to succeed and benefit individuals. First, long-term memory is needed in order to remember whom you owe or who owes you. Second, quantifying resources, or knowing what you have to give and what you need yourself. Lastly, the capability to judge individuals on whether or not they are worthy of assistance. Therefore, young children who have yet to develop these skills are not capable of reciprocal altruism.
Procreation is the main biological purpose of living for human beings according to evolutionists. If you think about it, we our selected as the best…survival of the fittest! In order to procreate most of us will have sexual intercourse. Natural selection has never resulted in sex feeling bad because it is essential to our reproductive success. In truth, sex decreases our personal survival. So, obviously, our personal survival is NOT as important as procreating. If personal survival was the most essential part of natural selection then we would NOT have sex because it decreases our life span. However, our personal survival is not key…procreation is and that is why sex feels good…people still do it…and genes are passed on to new generations. Johnston says, “we die, but our genes, like diamonds, may go on forever.” (Johnston, 85)
When helping others, relatives are very important. Genes that are in the same pool are naturally going to want to help increase reproduction. “Kin altruism” is when altruism is directed toward a sibling. Helping out your brother or sister would increase reproductive success for both parties. “Personal fitness” or relative reproductive success, “is a product of survival to reproductive age, reproduction, and care of offspring, plus the additional contributions that can result from reciprocal and kin altruism.” (Johnston, 86)
Johnston defines emotions as “qualitatively different conscious states that have evolved to represent the nature, magnitude, and direction of expected threats or benefits to some aspect of our personal fitness.” (Johnston, 86) The intensity and hedonic tone of an emotion points out the consequences of an event. The intensity of some emotions is so different that we have different names for the same emotion. Happiness, contentment, joy, and ecstasy are all the same emotion but given different names because of the change in intensity with each one.
The six primary emotions are: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise. These emotions are listed as primary because they are initially charged by common events that have been consistent through the history of human beings. These emotions all appear during a human’s first two years of living.
In one study, one group of rhesus monkeys is fed by a cloth “mother” and the other group by a wire “mother.” Even though both “mothers” are feeding the monkeys and giving them what they want, the cloth “mother” is preferred over the wire “mother.” This shows that even at a young age, monkeys and humans prefer soft bodily contact. “Studies of children in institutions have shown that even when the physical needs of a child are met, the failure to develop an early emotional bond with a single caretaker leads to slow development, withdrawal, depression, and a variety of later developing social problems, such as an excessive desire for adult attention and difficulty establishing social and affectionate bonds with anyone.” (Johnston, 89)
The six primary emotions are all expressed through facial expressions. “Smiles, frowns, stares, and grimaces are reliable indictors of happiness, sadness, anger, and fear.” (Johnston, 90) Someone might argue that these emotions are not evolutionary but behavioral. They might say that we all have these similar facial expressions because we imitate what we see others doing. However, children who are born deaf and blind show the same facial expressions to express the six primary emotions. This indicates that the feelings and facial expressions associated with these emotions are “like the basic, bodily affects, part of our biological nature.” (Johnston, 90) Johnston explains that fear and anger used as defense mechanisms may stem from a response to predators or other dangerous events that took place in ancestral history. Also, some other specific social situations provoke other emotions, which can be led back to our evolutionary past. “Loud noises, like those produced by ancient predators, will also evoke a specific fear in young children.” (Johnson, 91) All of these emotions will continue to be signs of an increase or decrease in reproductive success.
Shifts in the hedonic tone of feelings can signal rewards or deterrents. A shift in the positive direction can be a result of an increase in positive feelings or removal of something that evokes negative feelings. Psychologists call this positive and negative reinforcers. Reinforcement is defined “as events that increase the probability of behaviors that they follow. A reward is a positive reinforcement; removal of a deterrent is a negative reinforcement.” (Johnston, 96) When behavior is learned through positive and negative reinforcement, it is very likely to occur in the future under the same situation.
There are three secondary emotions that Johnston describes in this chapter. They are: guilt, pride, and envy. These emotions seem to develop after the primary emotions but are apparent in children by three years old. Johnston believes, “whereas primary emotions may be common to many species, these secondary feelings appear to be a consequence of the unique history of human beings as complex social animals living in a small, tightly, knit social groups.” (Johnston, 100) I disagree with Johnston. If anyone has seen a dog with other dogs or a dog with a newborn baby, it is evident when it is envious of attention that is not being shown to him/her. I think that to a small extent other species show some of these secondary emotions as well.
As with altruism, the secondary emotions are strong when dealing with relatives. Children feel proud of themselves at first and can eventually feel proud of their brothers, sisters, and close friends. It seems to start with personal achievement and then move on to individuals whom we are related to or who have been of assistance to us in the past. We want to see our relatives succeed because in turn we are succeeding.
Social emotions stem from history and how our ancestors survived threatening events or enhanced their success. “Individuals who could detect and respond appropriately to these important events would certainly have enjoyed more reproductive success than those who were oblivious to such circumstances, favorable, or threatening.” (Johnston, 102) However, the most important thing for humans in the present is to be able to expand their learning through “the ability to detect and respond to new opportunities or threats that are unique within individual lifetimes.” (Johnston, 102) “Human feelings appear initially to be evoked by a small set of specific events, but as complex animals living in rapidly changing environments, it is the ability to learn and expand this value system that is critical for our survival.” (Johnston, 103) The situations may change from generation to generation but the feelings remain constant. These emotions are the result of evolution.
In conclusion, “evolution has provided humans with a primary value system of pleasant and unpleasant feelings that are elicited by events that remained stable and were repeatedly encountered generation after generation.” (Johnston, 106) However, in order to survive in a changing world, learning is essential for reproductive success.
Chapter Six: The Pathways of Passion
An examination of the neurophysiology of feelings reveals that the activation of a major neural pathway, the medial forebrain bundle, appears to underlie hedonic tone, the common element of all feelings. The neural basis of feelings provides a mechanism whereby emotions can influence what we think about and how we evaluate those thoughts – our ability to reason.
A theory developed by Paul MacLean proposed that emotional processing depends on a region of the brain developed during the evolution of early mammals. The emotional system is located between the old motor region, responsible for unconscious, unfeeling, robotlike motor programs such as walking, and the more recently developed neocortex of the thinking brain, with neural pathways connecting each of the three systems to each other.
The evolution of the emotional brain was ‘nature’s attempt to provide the reptilian brain with a thinking cap and emancipate it from inappropriate stereotypes of behavior (Johnston 110)’. MacLean divided the system into three parts. The first subdivision deals with feelings and behaviors that ensure self-preservation, such as feeding and fighting. The second is concerned with species survival and deals with mating and copulation. These two subdivisions are connected to the motor region by way of the medial forebrain bundle. They also have connections to the cingulate gyrus. A third subdivision, running from the hypothalamus to the cingulate gyrus, is concerned with species survival.
MacLean’s concept of an emotional brain connected to the thinking brain through the cingulate gyrus and linked to the motor brain by the medial forebrain bundle provided a mechanism by which the behaviors of the old motor cortex could be controlled by emotional input from the limbic system. The thinking and emotional brains could communicate through the cingulate gyrus, allowing emotions to influence cognitive processes and vice versa. Also, the connection to the hypothalamus allows emotional processes to influence the physiology of the body. Finally, MacLean showed that all sensory inputs ultimately ran through the hippocampus allowing feelings to be evoked by all the senses.
LeDoux found that not all emotional responses get processed cortically. He discovered an alternative fast pathway that led from the hypothalamus straight to the amygdala. A fear response was evoked even when the thalamus-cortex connections were destroyed. It appears that cortical processing is responsible for selective discriminations.
Ledoux also found that sensory input get processed in separate regions of the brain. Vision, for example, is divided into “where” and “what” information. Information first goes form the eyes to the thalamus and then to the occipital lobe in the back of the brain. Here, “where” information reaches the frontal lobe after passing through the parietal lobe, whereas “what” information dives subcortically into the amygdala and hippocampus before reaching the frontal lobe.
The hippocampus appears to supply important contextual cues to the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for fear. Lesions to the amygdala eliminate all varieties of fear responses, but hippocampal lesions selectively abolish contextual fears. The hippocampus is more involved in processing contextual cues than emotion itself.
All fear involves the amygdala and the activation of a common set of neural pathways. One output projects to the hypothalamus and effects physiological responses of fear. Other outputs connect to the neocortex and modulate cortical excitability. Finally, the amygdala communicates with the old reptilian region through the MFB.
The MFB provides a biological basis for the role of emotions in learning. The MFB underlies hedonic tone by influencing the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. The release of dopamine is responsible for all rewarding feelings. Positive and negative reinforcement largely determine what behaviors are to be repeated and which are not. As in the case of cocaine addiction, positive reinforcement quickly leads to the learned behavior refered to as addiction.
The pleasure pathway’s control of the motor system eliminates automatic, stereotyped behavior and places it under the control of output from the emotional brain: the limbic system. This system may have developed as a mechanism whereby survival needs of an organism could control and guide automatic behaviors of the motor region of the brain. Positive hedonic tone clues us in on which behaviors are effective and should be retained whereas negative hedonic tone does the opposite. Emotions generate different possible ways of avoiding an expected deterrent or obtaining an expected reward. We implement those behaviors that evoke a positive feeling or reduce a negative one. We refer to this process of deciding which course of action to take as thinking, and it is these cognitive processes that dominate our conscious mind. Like evolution, this process conserves past successes and explores new creative modifications.
As we talked about earlier, “what” and “where” information in visual processing takes different routes to the frontal lobe. How can spatially distributed operations bring about a single conscious experience? It is likely that consciousness is not an attribute that is exclusively possessed by any one single region but is a property that exists within many areas of the brain. The different regions in the brain process different information, but the integration of these different regions produces an emergent property, consciousness, that is not confined to a specific location. The autonomous brain regions that process different aspects of stimuli could interact to produce a unitary conscious experience. Which regions are activated and how they interact varies depending on the level of arousal and the inherent organization of reciprocal pathways. Again, this suggests that consciousness is an emergent property with no central organizer and no specific location. Each unique experience depends upon the interactions between many different component parts, with no single part being responsible for the net result. Consciousness allows shape, color, movement, depth, feelings, and so on to be combined into a unified perception such as the setting of the sun.
Conscious experiences developed because they dictated an organization of the nervous system that could prioritize experiences and distinguish between environmental events or circumstances that have had a real influence on biological survival. It is the behavioral consequences of feelings that are significant because this determines who survives and who does not. For an emergent property to persist over generations, it must have immediate and useful consequences, and so is the case with consciousness.
Critical Review
1. Identify up to three points made by the author that the panel found especially interesting or informative.
a) I (Colleen) found it particularly interesting that our emotions are a result of ancestral history. I do not think I would ever think that my happiness or sadness contributes to my reproductive success. It is amazing to think that thousands of years ago people felt happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise just like we do now and people thousands of years from now will probably still be feeling the same emotions.
b) The author's breakdown of the evolution of the human brain was informative. He clearly demonstrated how the motor, emotional, and reasoning systems within the brain integrate to produce human conscious experience as we know it.
2. Identify up to three arguments made by the author that the panel either disagreed with and/or for which you think the author made a weak case. Why?
a) I (Colleen) disagree with Johnston when he says that the six primary emotions are apparent in humans and other species but that the three secondary emotions: pride, envy, and guilt only seem to be in humans. I feel that he did not support this strongly enough, because I am sure we can all think of a time when we saw an animal be jealous of another animal. For example, I know that if I am petting one cat then the other will appear to be envious of the attention. Also, when a newborn baby comes home from the hospital a dog often feels jealous of this new creature that is taking all of the attention.
b) Hedonic tone is built into our neural circuitry and derives from our ancestors avoiding pain. If we are naturally inclined to avoid pain, why do some people get pleasure from pain as in the case of sado-masacism.
3. Identify up to three concepts that, even after reading the material, the panel still had questions about, or that the panel would have liked the author to have explained further.
a) Even after reading about classical conditioning many times before, I still wish that the author had explained further how it related to innate feelings such as happiness and sadness.
b) The author states that our brains developed from more primitive organisms. Does this suggest that we are simply leaders in the evolutionary race with other species close behind. Are other animals evolving the same way we have? Will they eventually develop language and the ability to reason?
Outline: Chapter 5
“The Omens of Fitness”
A. all human beings experience the same emotions.
B. Definition
1. “qualitatively different conscious states that have evolved to represent the nature, magnitude, and direction of expected threats or benefits to some aspect of our personal fitness.” (p. 86)
C. Primary emotions
1. happiness, sad, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise
2. initially charged by common events that have been consistent through the history of human beings.
3. Cloth “mother” vs. wire “mother”
a. Rhesus monkeys preferred soft contact
4. Facial expressions
a. “Smiles, frowns, stares, and grimaces are reliable indicators of happiness, sadness, anger, and fear.” (p. 90)
b. Children who are born deaf and blind show the same facial expressions to express the six primary emotions.
c. Feelings and facial expressions associated with emotions are part of our biological nature.
II. Personal survival vs. procreation
A. “Survival of the fittest” = immortal?
1. one would think that through natural selection we would be immortal by now, but that it is not was it is important
B. personal survival
1. If our individual survival in this world was the main purpose then we would not have sex.
C. sex feels good
1. If we were meant to live on forever, sex would not be encouraged because it decreases a person’s life span. BUT it feels good because our personal survival is not the main purpose
2. sex feels good so that people still continue to have it…and pass on their genes generation after generation
III. Reproductive success
A. definition
1. “Ability to survive to reproductive age, to reproduce, and to ensure that any offspring also reach reproductive age.” (p. 83)
2. Johnston says that our emotions help in achieving reproductive success by being “clues” or omens that an event is either complimentary or threatening to the survival of our genes.
a. Fear is a warning that something may be threatening to our survival, i.e.
3. “Individuals who could detect and respond appropriately to these important events would certainly have enjoyed more reproductive success than those who were oblivious to such circumstances, favorable, or threatening.” (p. 102)
B. Hedonic tone
1. pleasantness or unpleasantness
a. While emotions “foreshadow” growth or weakness in our reproductive success…
b. “Hedonic tone—pleasantness or unpleasantness—reflects whether such changes represent a net gain or loss.” (p. 83)
C. Altruism
1. Helping others by giving of one's self.
2. Reciprocal Altruism
a. receiving help from someone and you eventually return the help when you can
b. When you help someone else, you are increasing his or her chance of reproductive success. At the same time, it decreases your own success. This is why when it is reciprocated it is successful for both parties.
IV. Reinforcement
A. definition
1. “events that increase the probability of behaviors that they
follow.” (p. 96)
B. shifts in the hedonic tone of emotions can signal rewards or punishments.
1. shift in the positive direction can be as a result of a positive or negative reinforcers.
a. “A reward is a positive reinforcement; removal of a deterrent (punishment) is a negative reinforcement.” (p. 96)
C. When behavior is learned through positive and negative reinforcement, it is very likely to occur in the future under similar circumstances.
V. Secondary emotions
A. Guilt, pride, and envy
B. Johnston believes, “whereas primary emotions may be common to many species, these secondary feelings appear to be a consequence of the unique history of human beings as complex social animals living in a small, tightly, knit social groups.” (p. 100)
VI. Learning
A. In order to survive in a changing world, learning is essential for reproductive success.
B. The most important thing for humans in the present is to be able to expand their learning through “the ability to detect and respond to new opportunities or threats that are unique within individual lifetimes.” (p. 102)
C. “Human feelings appear initially to be evoked by a small set of specific events, but as complex animals living in rapidly changing environments, it is the ability to learn and expand this value system that is critical for our survival.” (p. 103)
I. Chapter 6: The Pathways of Passion
1. neurophysiology of feelings
A. provides mechanism by which emotions influence our ability to reason
2. Evolution of the brain
A. reptilian system
1.controls unconscious, unfeeling, robot-like motor programs
B. limbic system
1. nature's way of emancipating lower mammals from stereotyped behavior
2.linked to the thinking brain by way of the cingulate gyrus
a. allows emotions to influence cognition and vice versa
3.linked to motor system through Medial Forebrain Bundle
a. allows motor brain to be controlled by emotional input
4. connected to hypothalamus allowing emotion to produce physiological changes in the body
C."new mammalian" system
1. responsible for thinking and reasoning
3. The relationship between emotions and learning
A. medial forebrain bundle
1.provides biological basis for the role of emotions in learning and reasoning
2.Hedonic tone
a. release of dopamine on nucleus accumbens underlies all pleasure
3. positive and negative reinforcement
a. evoke positive or reduce negative feeling
1. example of drug addiction
C. conserve past successes and explore new creative modifications
1. Feelings evolved as a way of regulating and guiding automatic behaviors of old reptilian system
II. The Nature and Role of Consciousness
A. Consciousness as an emergent property, not as a specific region of the brain
1.Vision: "where" and "what" information
a. travel to different regions of the brain, but create a single conscious experience
b. "what" info dives subcorticaly into the amygdala and hippocampus
2. No single organizer and no unique location
a. Consciousness results from the interactions of different parts with no single part being responsible for the emergent property
1.Different regions of the brain process different aspects of a stimulus and combine them to form a unified perceptual whole, which we call conscious awareness.
2. the conscious experience that neural interactions give rise to will vary depending on the particular regions involved, the degree of arousal, and the inherent organization of the reciprocal pathways.
B. Natural Selection and Consciousness
1. ultimate goal is biological survival
a. favorable behavioral consequences of feelings have been naturally selected and passed on
b.feelings serve an adaptive function allowing animals with feelings to survive, find a mate and reproduce
c. Conscious experiences evolved to prioritize experiences and distinguish between environmental events or circmstances that have had a real influence on biological survival
d. for an emergent property to persist it must have immediate and useful behavioral consequences.