Emotion

There are three main arguments against the James-Lange theory: 1. People can experience physiological arousal without experiencing emotion. 2. Physiological reactions happen too slowly to be the cause of experiences of emotion, which occur very rapidly. 3. People can experience very different emotions even when they have the same pattern of physiological arousal.

The information goes first to the thalamus, and from there it moves simultaneously to the amygdala and the cortex of the brain. The amygdala processes the information quickly and sends signals to the hypothalamus, which in turn activates the autonomic nervous system. The cortex, on the other hand, processes the information more slowly, allowing us to appraise or evaluate the event.

The facial-feedback hypothesis is the idea that the brain uses feedback from facial muscles to recognize emotions that are being experienced. Making the facial expression corresponding to a particular emotion can make a person feel that emotion. So a person having a bad day might feel better if he or she put on a happy expression.

Lie detectors are often ineffective for two main reasons: 1. Many people who are not lying feel nervous or anxious when asked questions concerning their guilt or innocence. 2. People who are lying can often trick the polygraph by acting tense when neutral questions are asked so that their baseline responses resemble their responses during the critical period of questioning.

People in many different cultures can identify the six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust. Also, the physiological indicators of emotion are similar in people from different cultures.