The graphs show consistent brain activity during positive, negative, and mixed emotions, demonstrating that mixed emotions are distinct from other feelings. Credit: Neuroscience News
Summary: Researchers discovered distinct neural activity in the brain when experiencing mixed emotions like bittersweet. Using MRI scans, they observed unique patterns in the amygdala and nucleus accumbens, distinct from those seen in purely positive or negative emotions.
This study helps resolve debates about how mixed emotions arise and opens the door to further research into human psychology. Future work will explore emotional reactions in groups.
Highlights:
- Mixed emotions elicit unique neural activity in specific areas of the brain.
- This activity differs from purely positive or negative emotions.
- The study used MRI scans while participants watched an emotionally evocative film.
Source: U.S.C.
In Pixar’s latest film, Inside Out 2, complex feelings like envy and embarrassment join the cast of characters. Nostalgia, however, rushes to the door with cries of “too soon!” » when she appears.
If animators want to pay more attention to nostalgia in a future film, new data from researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences could guide them in determining how to animate this type of “mixed emotion”.
What’s new: In a recent study, USC Dornsife neuroscientists found that the brain shows distinct neural activity when experiencing emotions such as bittersweet.
- This breakthrough could help resolve a long-standing scientific debate: whether “mixed emotions” result from unique activity in the brain, or whether we simply flip-flop between positive and negative feelings.
Why is this important: Mixed emotions are a common experience, but they have been little studied scientifically for several reasons.
- We often think that emotions only exist on a spectrum from negative to positive.
- It’s easier to study one feeling at a time.
In his words: “It’s difficult to evoke these complex emotions realistically in the laboratory,” says Jonas Kaplan, associate professor (research) of psychology and co-author of the study published in the journal Cerebral cortex in April.
Main findings:
- Mixed feelings sparked unique neural activity in the amygdala and nucleus accumbens areas of the brain.
- This activity was different from the brain activity observed when a subject reported a purely positive or negative emotion.
What else? Researchers could predict when someone would change their emotions.
- Particular regions of the brain, such as the insular cortex, showed significant changes as subjects reported an emotional transition.
“Not only did we find brain activity correlated with mixed emotions, but we also found that it remained stable over time,” says Anthony Vaccaro, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in the Links Neuroendocrinology Laboratory. USC Dornsife Social Services. Vaccaro recently completed his doctorate in psychology at USC Dornsife.
“You don’t play between the negative and the positive. It’s a very unique and mixed emotion over a long period of time.
How they did it: While study subjects watched a poignant animated short film, researchers monitored their brain activity using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine.·
The researchers chose One small step by TAIKO Studios for its ability to evoke happy and sad feelings simultaneously. ·
After the first viewing, participants rewatched the video without MRI and indicated when they experienced positive, negative, or mixed emotions. The researchers then compared these reports with the MRI imaging results.
Opportunity: The study lays a practical foundation for future scientific research into this little-studied phenomenon, research that Kaplan believes would also be beneficial for understanding human psychology.
- “It takes a certain sophistication to sit with mixed emotion and allow yourself to feel both positive and negative. We think this is worth investigating more closely, exploring the benefits of being able to accept both the positive and the negative within oneself.
And after: Kaplan and Vaccaro will then examine how emotional reactions fluctuate in group settings, such as watching a movie together at the cinema.
About this news from research on emotions and neuroscience
Author: Ileana Wachtel
Source: U.S.C.
Contact: Ileana Wachtel – USC
Picture: Image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Free access.
“Neural patterns associated with mixed-valence feelings differ in consistency and predictability across the brain” by Jonas Kaplan et al. Cerebral cortex
Abstract
Neural patterns associated with mixed-valence feelings differ in consistency and predictability across the brain
Mixed feelings, the simultaneous presence of feelings with positive and negative valence, remain an understudied subject. They pose a specific set of challenges due to individual variations, and their investigation requires analytical approaches focused on individually self-reported states.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan 27 subjects watching a short animated film chosen to provoke mixed, bittersweet feelings. The same subjects indicated when they experienced positive, negative, and mixed feelings.
Using hidden Markov models, we found that various brain regions could predict the onset of new emotional states, determined by self-evaluation.
The models’ ability to identify these transitions suggests that these states may exhibit unique and consistent neural signatures. We then used subjects’ self-ratings to assess the spatiotemporal coherence of the neural patterns for positive, negative, and mixed states.
The insula had unique and consistent neural signatures for univalent states, but not for mixed-valence states. The anterior medial and ventral prefrontal cortex showed consistent neural signatures for both univalent and mixed states.
This study is the first to demonstrate that subjectively reported changes in feelings induced by naturalistic stimuli can be predicted from fMRI and the first to show direct evidence for a coherent neural representation of mixed feelings.