Posted by alexandra_k on December 21, 2005, at 2:48:46
In reply to Re: emotional encapsulation » alexandra_k2, posted by Dinah on December 20, 2005, at 21:53:44
> I think what I mean by fear is fear that the object will somehow harm you in some way. My guess is that certain objects can cause unpleasant hyperarousal because of associations,
yeah. that is the thought.
> and if there's fear of anything it's the fear of the hyperarousal. The fear of fear.
well... associated with the different emotions... there are different... what is the term... fixed action patterns... faps. crap. i think that is somehting else... i'll have to look up the proper term... at this point i'll just have to go with 'fap'... a fap is made up of a set of responses. endocrine changes, facial expression changes, physiological changes (ie in level of arousal) etc. i need to read... but i think there might be a distinctive fap associated with each of these...
fear
anger
happiness
sadness
disgust (possibly contempt as a variety of that)
and there is one more that escapes me... shame? not sure...anyways... the fap is supposed to constitute the emotion. emotions just are faps. except... the thought is those are 'basic emotions' which are short lived responses (by definition). but some people say... disgust isn't a proper emotion... and proper emotions involve cognitive appraisal of the stimulus. so then there are meant to be 'more complex emotion episodes' which do involve cognition and are less well understood...
but informational encapsulation might help...
maybe...
possibly...emotions aren't just an interpretation (or explanation) for SGR.
because we can have heightened SGR without being aware of it...
and we can have emotions that do not involve a conscious element of interpretation / explanation...
but emotions are thought to be...
faps.
so for the more complex emotion episodes we extend the fap to include cognitive appraisal. and other cognitive phenomena too like focusing of attention in anger... orienting response... etc.> So then you need to change the association that causes the hyperarousal. Which you can't really do too effectively with rational explanations.
well...
we could tell the rats 'don't be silly of course rats love sugar water' but i don't think that is going to help them!
but of course that is with rats.
how much of human emotions are similar to rat emotions?
perhaps things run differently with humans because our cortex (and higher cognitive functions) are more developed?
maybe it can't be altered that way in rats...
but it can be in humans...maybe...
it depends on whether it involved a conscious appraisal in the first place...
for those that don't...
dunno...
what are the limits?
thats what i wonder about...
> For example, I once had a dog who had an irrational fear of towels. Now it's probably true that there had been someone in that dog's life that had given the dog a reason to fear towels, but by that point it was the towel itself that aroused the dog, even if there was no risk that the towel would hurt the dog.> If I remember correctly, we changed the association of towels to one of treats being given when towels were around. Eventually the dog didn't run away from them, and probably we totally messed with that poor dog's mind by introducing all sorts of ambivilance and contradictory feelings about towels. But we meant well.
was there any evidence of ambivilance e.g., alternating between approach and avoidance response?
if not...
then why postulate ambivalence?
maybe you cured your dog.it is hard to extinguish emotional responses.
and some emotional responses are more easily learned than others...
and some emotional responses are harder to extinguish than others...i would say that to feel disgust / repulsion / avoidance to vomit... is a normal human response.
i think vomit is pretty yuk myself.
but...
it doesn't often occur to me that someone might have vomited where i happen to have placed myself. it is yuk now that you mention it but that thought wouldn't have occured to me all by myself...
> I can't quite figure out how that would work with people. If I had to go past someone throwing up to get my paycheck, I'm pretty sure I'd quit. And grow to hate money.money is considered to be a 'secondary' reinforcer. that means... money only has value to us because it has been paired (by associations) with 'primary' reinforcers such as food and shelter etc...
you would probably have more luck with keeping you at 80% your body weight (so you feel constantly hungry) then offering you your favourite treat where you had to walk through vomit to get it...
thats how the chickens were trained to peck a key for food in the labs over here...
(don't get me started on animal ethics)> And vomit contamination isn't the sort that can be cleaned with disinfectants. It never occurred to me that it could. It's more like vomit spirit.
'vomit spirit'
confabulation?
you postulate 'vomit spirit' in order to EXPLAIN or JUSTIFY your fear / aversion to vomit - right?
thats the point...
you don't *literally* believe in vomit spirit - do you?
i mean... it isn't the sort of thing that will go down in the science text books about a radical new kind of contamination that has no known cure - is it?
would that be missing the point of what you are trying to say?
(how good am i at leading questions?
you are of course free to disagree):-)
poster:alexandra_k
thread:590579
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051216/msgs/590920.html