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We continue our series of newsletters dealing with infant and child development and the three keys to this development: Feelings, Language, and Intelligence (Cognition). We are immersed in the topic of feelings—What are our earliest feelings? How might feelings work?
Have fun!
Dr. Paul
In the October 2013 newsletter, we explored the embryology of our emotional life – our earliest feelings. We noted that currently the best data suggest there are about nine innate built-in feelings (“primary affects”): interest, enjoyment, surprise, distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust, and dissmell.
How Might Feelings Work?
What science is really intrigued with is how feelings work. For ages, Tomkins and others grappled with the following question: How—given the bombardment of external and internal stimuli on the infant—are there only a few discrete responses?
Let’s hear how Tomkins frames the question:
“Consider the nature of the problem. The neonate…must respond with innate fear to any difficulty in breathing, but must also be afraid of other objects. Each affect had to be capable of being activated by a variety of unlearned stimuli. The child must be able to cry at hunger or loud sounds as well as at a diaper pin stuck in his flesh. Each affect had, therefore, to be activated by some general characteristic…common to both internal and external stimuli and not too stimulus-specific…” (Tomkins, III, p. 57, emphasis in original).
How does it happen that the baby has so few specific responses—feelings, affects, whatever—to all the stimuli coming at her? How do all these stimuli get transformed into the very few signals—feelings—which allow the baby and parents to communicate? In other words, what are the mechanisms of actions of these affects?
What is Tomkins’ contribution to this dilemma? Tomkins suggested that triggering these feelings (affect activation) involves the following: stimulus increase, stimulus decrease, and stimulus level (quantity).
Let’s take a look at three of these feelings, or primary affects: surprise, fear, and interest.
Surprise, Fear, and Interest
For many of the feelings, the type of feeling (facial expression) seems to depend on the rate of increase (i.e. speed) of the incoming stimulus. What in the world does all this mean?
Let’s take the speed of the stimulus. Any stimulus—sound or light, for example—with a relatively sudden onset will innately trigger the response of surprise-to-startle. If the baby hears a sudden loud noise, she will respond with the characteristic facial expressions: the eyebrows go up, the eyes widen, and the mouth assumes an “O” shape.
Surprise is associated with eyebrows up, eyes wide open and blinking, and the mouth in an “O” shape.
Surprise, fear and interest.
Any stimulus with a relatively sudden onset and a steep increase in the rate of neural firing will innately activate surprise. If the rate of neural firing increases less rapidly, fear is activated. If the rate increases still less rapidly, interest is innately activated.
If the sound comes in a bit less suddenly, the baby will show the response of fear: eyes widen and are frozen open, face and body may tremble, skin may pale.
Fear is signaled by the eyes frozen open; skin pale, cold, and sweating; facial trembling, and hair erect. If the sound comes in even more slowly, the infant will manifest interest: the eyebrows will be slightly up or down, the mouth slightly open, and the baby will be tracking, looking, listening.
Interest is shown with the eyebrows slightly lowered or raised; there is concentrated looking and listening; the mouth may be a little open. This sequence makes sense with respect to the brain as an information-processing organ: the more slowly the stimulus arrives, the better chance the brain has of processing the information, resulting in interest rather than surprise or fear.
I recently observed a nice example of this at a sports arena near an airport. As several very young children were approaching the arena, suddenly there was a tremendously loud noise! An airplane had appeared from just behind the arena as it approached its landing. The youngsters first showed the startle response, then quickly the fear response, and then, as they began to realize what it was, they showed the interest response.
We also have to remember that these feelings—affects, or biological responses to stimuli—are very rapid. These facial expressions occur in split seconds—literally milliseconds. High speed films are used to document these reactions.
High speed films are also used in studies of adults. These films show that even when adults try to suppress certain feelings consciously, the biological reactions can still be briefly seen on the face. Thus, the innate, biologic reactions to stimuli are still visible even in adulthood, when experience and development in cerebral cortex lead to greater conscious control over the expression of feelings.
Summary This, then, begins to address the following questions: What are our earliest feelings? And, how do they work?
We explored three of these feelings in detail this month—surprise, fear, and interest. Next month we will examine distress and anger.
References for Interested Readers:
- Darwin C (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Third Edition, P. Ekman, ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
- Demos EV (1995). Exploring Affect: The Selected Writings of Silvan S. Tomkins. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.
- Izard C (1977). Human Emotions. New York: Plenum Press.
- Nathanson DL (1992). Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self. New York: WW Norton.
- Tomkins SS (1962). Affect Imagery Consciousness (Volume I): The Positive Affects. New York: Springer.
- Tomkins SS (1963). Affect Imagery Consciousness (Volume II): The Negative Affects. New York: Springer.
- Tomkins SS (1991). Affect Imagery Consciousness (Volume III): The Negative Affects: Anger and Fear. New York: Springer.
- Tomkins SS (1992). Affect Imagery Consciousness (Volume IV): Cognition: Duplication and Transformation of Information. New York: Springer.
