Communication of Emotions PSYC 380

Abstract
Many people and particularly animals communicate their emotions toward others in some form of postural changes, facial expressions, and nonverbal sounds. Emotions may be seen as subjective, conscious experiences characterized primarily by psycho-physiological expressions, biological reactions, and also mental states. Charles Darwin was said to be one of the first scientists to ever write in reference to the existence and nature of emotions within non-human animals. From this study, various aspects of the communication of emotions will be observed and considered. Is it possible that animals have a type of intelligence whereas they can communicate how their feeling? This question will be answered and what scientists and studies have to say about such a question. In addition to this research, the neural basis of the communication of emotions will also be examined. Various parts of the brain will provide insight as to what causes and gives animals the potential ability to communicate their emotions, not only toward their own species, but also toward humans.

Many people and particularly animals communicate their emotions toward others in some form of postural changes, facial expressions, and nonverbal sounds. Emotions may be seen as subjective, conscious experiences characterized primarily by psycho-physiological expressions, biological reactions, and also mental states. According to general hypotheses, there are correlations between the emotions of animals and emotions of humans. Also, within those same hypotheses, these emotions between the two may very well be derived from the same mechanisms.
Several tests have been performed for such research of the emotions of animals. Such tests include cognitive biases and learned helplessness models have erected. According to cognitive biases, this entails feelings of optimism and pessimism. This has been observed and seen in a very broad spectrum of species, which include: mice/rats; cats and dogs; rhesus macaques; sheep; and pigs.
According to behaviorists, stimulus-response models are the justification of emotions in animals. While other behaviorists question whether animals exemplify and feel emotions. They cling to the fact that emotions are not universal, not even among humans. Also, it is concluded by some behaviorists that definitions of animal emotions lack robustness. What some fail to realize is that among animals, social-bonding and alarm-calls exist (Waal, 2011). Emotions can be broadly defined as psychological phenomena that help in behavioral management and control. Panksepp (1998, p. 47ff) suggests that emotions be defined in terms of their adaptive and integrative functions rather than their general input and output characteristics. It is important to extend our research beyond the underlying physiological mechanisms that mask the richness of the emotional lives of many animals and learn more about how emotions serve them as they go about their daily activities. Followers of Rene Descartes and of B. F. Skinner believe that animals are robots that become conditioned to respond automatically to stimuli to which they are exposed (Bekoff, 2000). Majority of researchers believe that the conscious aspect of an emotion follows the bodily reactions to a stimulus. Primary emotions are seared into the evolutionary old limbic system, the amygdale, which is the emotional part of the brain named by Paul MacLean in 1952. Structures in the limbic system and similar emotional circuits are shared among many different species and provide a neural substrate for primary emotions. In his three-brain-in-one (triune brain) theory, MacLean (1970) suggested that there was the reptilian or primitive brain (possessed by fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals), the limbic or paleomammalian brain (possessed by mammals), and the neocortical or "rational" neomammalian brain (possessed by a few mammals, such as primates), all packaged in the cranium. Each is connected to the other two but each also has its own capacities. While the limbic system seems to be the main area of the brain in which many emotions reside, current research indicates that all emotions are not necessarily packaged into a single system, and there may be more than one emotional system in the brain (Bekoff, 2000). Cognitive ethologists want to know how brains and mental abilities evolved-how they contribute to survival-and what selective forces resulted in the wide variety of brains and mental abilities that are observed in various animal species. In essence, cognitive ethologists want to know what it is like to be another animal. Asking what it is like to be another animal requires humans to try to think as they do, to enter into their worlds. By engaging in these activities much can be learned about animal emotions (Bekoff, 2000). It takes much observation and self-placement to be able to fully understand and conclude that animals feel emotion. Researchers also do not know which species have the capacity to engage in conscious reflection about emotions and which do not. A combination of evolutionary, comparative, and developmental approaches set forth by Tinbergen and Burghardt, combined with comparative studies of the neurobiological and endocrinological bases of emotions in various animals, including humans, carries much promise for future work concerned with relationships between cognition and individuals' experiences of various emotions (Bekoff, 2000). There are many programs that are aired on television nowadays that show animals within their habitat. These programs are detailed enough to actually be able to see how animals respond to threats and various other situations, whereas humans encounter as well. Clearly, an understanding of behavior and neurobiology is necessary to understand how emotions and cognition are linked. It is essential that researchers learn as much as possible about animals' private experiences, feelings, and mental states. The question of whether and how animals' emotions are experienced presents a challenge for future research. Basic and complex emotions are distinctions frequently made among humans. Six emotions have been classified as basic: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise (Handel, 2012). Complex emotions would include contempt, jealousy and sympathy. However, this distinction is difficult to maintain, and non-human animals are often said to express even the complex emotions (Dawkins, 2000). In the present context, emotions are considered to be relatively short-duration intentional states that entrain changes in motor behavior, physiological changes, and cognitions (Hess & Thibault, 2009). When there is a neurological/cognitive change in reference to emotions, they are often times displayed physically in some way. In close observation, some animals have a way of displaying emotion or in a vocalization way. It was when discussing the serviceable habits principle that Darwin most clearly talked about the functionality of emotions and their expression. For example, the raising of the eyebrows in surprise is a useful habit “so that the field of vision may be increased, and the eyeballs moved easily in any direction” (Hess & Thibault, 2009). In the 150 years that followed, Darwin's successors have disagreed about the “voluntary” nature of animal vocalizations but generally accepted his view that the different calls produced by nonhuman creatures are manifestations of emotion and as a result convey information only about the caller's emotional state (Seyfarth & Cheney, 2003). One may ask, what do animals and humans have in common? To better understand, evolutionary theory had highlighted the emotions as the common possession of animals and human beings. Charles Darwin exhaustively catalogued bodily postures and facial poses connected with joy, devotion, hatred, anger, and many other feelings in his book, ‘The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals’ (Rose, 2012).
According to Darwin, he outlined an illustration about the expressions of animals and their behavior. Because of the inward neurological triggers of emotions in animals there is an outward display that follows. For example, dogs position their tales a certain way preceding an emotional trigger. Many people know what emotion is only until asked to define it.
A variety of animals possess similar survival circuitry. The brain regions that tells the animal to run away from a particular threat are the exact same regardless if the animal runs on two or four legs, or takes flight (Welsh, 2012). The amygdale is one of the main sections of the brain that primarily contributes to understanding emotions. The amygdalae are two small, round structures located anterior to the hippocampi near the temporal poles. The amygdalae are involved in detecting and learning what parts of our surroundings are important and have emotional significance.
They are critical for the production of emotion, and may be particularly so for negative emotions, especially fear (Ledoux, 1995). Multiple studies have shown amygdala activation when perceiving a potential threat; various circuits allow the amygdala to use related past memories to better judge the possible threat (Breiter & N. Etcoff, 1996). Another contributing factor towards the structure of brain structures of emotions is the orbitofrontal cortex. This is the major structure involved in decision making and the influence by emotion on that decision (Bechara, 2000).
There are basically two approaches that have been adopted to studying animal emotions—the functional and the mechanistic. The functional approach means examining the role of emotions in human behavior and then asking whether the function is the same in humans and non-humans. In many cases it is possible to apply Darwinian ideas to emotions and ask how emotions (in us an in other species) contribute to an organism's fitness. Fear, for example, is adaptive and functions to increase fitness both through motivating an animal to remove itself from danger and also to avoid similar situations in the future (Dawkins M. S., 2000).
A widely used framework for viewing emotions in a functional context is that described by Oatley and Jenkins (1998) who see emotions as having three stages: (1) appraisal in which there is a conscious or unconscious evaluation of an event as relevant to a particular goal. An emotion is positive when that goal is advanced and negative when it is impeded (2) action readiness where the emotion gives priority to one or a few kinds of action and may give urgency to one so that it can interrupt or compete with others and (3) physiological changes, facial expression and then behavioral action (Dawkins M. S., 2000).
According to studies, the limbic system supports a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, motivation, long-term memory, and olfaction. Emotional life is largely housed in the limbic system (Jasmin, 2012). Humans have experience emotions as well as animals. Humans have their ways of emotions when communicating and animals have their ways of emotions when communicating.
There is a familiar story in the Bible, Numbers 22:21-39, about a man and his donkey taking a journey. While they were walking, there appeared an angel of the Lord. The donkey shied away off course once he saw the angel from afar. The man beat the donkey because he went off course. The man beat the donkey three times because the donkey kept veering off course to get away from the angel. The angel of the Lord gave the donkey the ability to speak. The donkey asked the man why he beat him three times. The animal/donkey showed feelings of emotion because it was beaten by its rider. Animals respond to hurt and this exemplifies emotion.
Many animals are emotionally affected by the distress of another and sometimes show appropriate helping responses. We regard empathy as a general class of behavior that exists across species to different degrees of complexity. Emotional contagion refers to an emotional state in an observer as a direct result of perceiving the emotional state of another, and it is the most basic expression of this emotional linkage or “physiological linkage”. Dyadic relationships are also characterized by an emotional or physiological linkage between individuals (Preston & B. M. De Waal, 2002).
Researchers have conducted many test and experiments to test hypotheses of animals communicating their emotions. Animals have their own world of communicating mechanisms of emotions compared to the world of human communication of emotions. Is it possible that animals have a type of intelligence whereas they can communicate how their feeling? According to researchers and scientists, the answer to the question is yes. As animals communicate their emotions, there is often difficulty understanding because the meaning of the signals lays in the range of possible various responses.
Overall, ethologists and sociobiologists have analyzed animal communication of emotions as more or less automatic responses to stimuli. As aforementioned, amygdale is involved in much of cognitive processes. Attentional and emotional processes originate much of its functions and responses from this segment of the brain. This sheds much insight as to how animals communicate their emotions towards its other species, as well as to human beings.

References
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