Is the Startle Reaction an Emotion?

Ekman, Paul; Friesen, Wallace V.; Simons, Ronald C.

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195179644.003.0002

Cited by 43 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Following the previous work [16,[48][49][50], Table 11 shows a mapping between AU(s) and the hypothetical emotion. Table 12 shows the 27 action unit distributions across the eight tasks.…”

Section: Au Distribution In Spontaneous Expressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

BP4D-Spontaneous: a high-resolution spontaneous 3D dynamic facial expression database

Zhang

Liu

Cohn

et al. 2014

Image and Vision Computing

591

367

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Following the previous work [16,[48][49][50], Table 11 shows a mapping between AU(s) and the hypothetical emotion. Table 12 shows the 27 action unit distributions across the eight tasks.…”

Section: Au Distribution In Spontaneous Expressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

BP4D-Spontaneous: a high-resolution spontaneous 3D dynamic facial expression database

Zhang

Liu

Cohn

et al. 2014

Image and Vision Computing

591

367

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…This stimulus is known to produce a strong, defensive response consisting of: (a) reflexive body movements that serve to protect the torso and head, and (b) emotional facial behaviors including surprise and fear (Ekman, Friesen, & Simons, 1985; Hagemann, Levenson, & Gross, 2006; Keltner & Ekman, 1996; Sturm, Rosen, Allison, Miller, & Levenson, 2006). We and others have used similar startle stimuli in studies of emotional reactivity and regulation (e.g., Ekman et al, 1985; Hagemann et al, 2006; Roberts et al, 2004; Soto, Levenson, & Ebling, 2005). …”

Section: The Present Study: Ef and Emotion Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do tests of executive functioning predict ability to downregulate emotions spontaneously and when instructed to suppress?

Gyurak

Goodkind

Madan

et al. 2009

Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Behavioral regulation is a hallmark feature of executive functioning (EF). The present study investigated whether commonly used neuropsychological test measures of EF (i.e., working memory, Stroop, trail making, and verbal fluency) were related to ability to downregulate emotion both spontaneously and when instructed to suppress emotional expressions. To ensure a wide range of EF, 24 frontotemporal lobar degeneration patients, 7 Alzheimer's patients, and 17 neurologically normal controls participated. Participants were exposed to an acoustic startle stimulus (single aversive noise burst) under three conditions: (1) unwarned, (2) warned with no instructions (to measure spontaneous emotion downregulation), and (3) warned with instructions to suppress (to measure instructed emotion downregulation). Results indicated that higher verbal fluency scores were related to greater emotion regulation (operationalized as reduction in body movement and emotional facial behavior when warned of the impending startle) in both regulation conditions. No relationships were found between emotion regulation in these conditions and the other EF measures. We conclude that, of four commonly used measures of EF, verbal fluency best indexes the complex processes of monitoring, evaluation, and control necessary for successful emotion regulation, both spontaneously and following instructions to suppress.

show abstract

“…The startle response is an evolutionary primitive fear reflexive reaction to the presentation of a sudden and intense sensorial probe, most typically an acoustic burst (Sokolov and Worters, 1963). It primarily consists of a stereotyped action pattern of somatic and facial muscles (Ekman et al, 1985), with the activation of both the autonomic and central nervous systems (Soto et al, 2005). Depending on the intensity, it can generate either a whole-body defensive response (Sokolov and Worters, 1963), an electromyographic (EMG) response associated with eye blinking and an evoked related potential (Probe P3).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective picture modulation: Valence, arousal, attention allocation and motivational significance

Leite

Carvalho

Galdo‐Álvarez

et al. 2012

International Journal of Psychophysiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present study analyses the modulatory effects of affective pictures in the early posterior negativity (EPN), the late positive potential (LPP) and the human startle response on both the peripheral (eye blink EMG) and central neurophysiological levels (Probe P3), during passive affective pictures viewing. The affective pictures categories were balanced in terms of valence (pleasant; unpleasant) and arousal (high; low). The data shows that EPN may be sensitive to specific stimulus characteristics (affective relevant pictures versus neutral pictures) associated with early stages of attentional processing. In later stages, the heightened attentional resource allocation as well as the motivated significance of the affective stimuli was found to elicit enhanced amplitudes of slow wave processes thought to be related to enhanced encoding, namely LPP,. Although pleasant low arousing pictures were effective in engaging the resources involved in the slow wave processes, the highly arousing affective stimuli (pleasant and unpleasant) were found to produce the largest enhancement of the LPP, suggesting that high arousing stimuli may are associated with increased motivational significance. Additionally the response to high arousing stimuli may be suggestive of increased motivational attention, given the heightened attentional allocation, as expressed in the P3 probe, especially for the pleasant pictures. The hedonic valence may then serve as a mediator of the attentional inhibition to the affective priming, potentiating or inhibiting a shift towards defensive activation, as measured by the startle reflex.

show abstract

Is the Startle Reaction an Emotion?

Cited by 43 publications

References 0 publications

BP4D-Spontaneous: a high-resolution spontaneous 3D dynamic facial expression database

BP4D-Spontaneous: a high-resolution spontaneous 3D dynamic facial expression database

Do tests of executive functioning predict ability to downregulate emotions spontaneously and when instructed to suppress?

Affective picture modulation: Valence, arousal, attention allocation and motivational significance

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About