8: The 'Feeling' Brain Systems
The author reiterates some of the concepts have been discussed in previous chapters:
- There are basic feelings of pain and pleasure that result from our experiences
- In humans, past experience creates memories that bias their reactions to new stimuli
- These memories are organized into crudely-defined gestalt that is applied to similar experiences and similar stimuli
- Our reaction to stimuli, even whether we notice a given stimulus, occurs quickly, before logic is applied.
He also reflects on some of the "memory systems" in the brain.
- Memory - The memory of past experiences influences the brain on the synaptic level, biasing neurons to react to stimuli in the same way they have previously reacted
- Homeostatsis - The condition of the body also biases our reaction: if we are cold, hungry, or thirsty we are prone to react in different ways to a given stimulus
- Mood - The brain maintains a default state which also biases perception, which may influence our reactions
- Reaction - Our minds are primarily geared to motivate us to act in certain ways in response to a stimulus. For survival's sake, our emotions prompt us to act quickly, sometimes without applying conscious thought
- Preference - When we choose an outcome, we are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain, and are predisposed to the same courses of action that have achieved the best outcome in the past.
Damasio uses the terms in a slightly different way. His theory is that emotions come first - they are the immediate reaction - and feelings occur after the reaction has taken place and we evaluate its outcome. He also uses the term "background feelings" to describe the mood or emotional state of the subject.
"Background feelings" or moods are the ones most often considered in evaluating the status of an individual as a means to predicting how they might react to stimuli. When we examine a person's expression, posture, tone of voice, and other emotional portent, what we are really observing is their mood.
There is some distinction in the immediate mood of a person and their general mood. A person may be in a sad "mood" for a long period of time, or they may have sad "feelings" as a reaction to a stimulus that persist for a shorter period of time.
The functions of mood were for many years ignored. Darwin considered mood as a condition that happened to be, but didn't seem to have a function or purpose. Freud considered mood as an obstacle, rather than a means, to responding in the correct and logical manner to stimuli. It was some time before we considered "mood" to be functional, evoked by the brain in recognition that a given reaction or category of reactions would be necessary and bias the organism to undertake specific kinds of actions to achieve specific goals.
(EN: This was a short chapter, and I'm left wondering how it fits into the scheme of things - just seems to be some random observations that didn't quite fit, but the author didn't want to leave out.)