Emotion and motivation I: defensive and appetitive reactions in picture processing.

TLDR: The findings suggest that affective responses serve different functions-mobilization for action, attention, and social communication-and reflect the motivational system that is engaged, its intensity of activation, and the specific emotional context.

Abstract: Emotional reactions are organized by underlying motivational states—defensive and appetitive—that have evolved to promote the survival of individuals and species. Affective responses were measured while participants viewed pictures with varied emotional and neutral content. Consistent with the motivational hypothesis, reports of the strongest emotional arousal, largest skin conductance responses, most pronounced cardiac deceleration, and greatest modulation of the startle reflex occurred when participants viewed pictures depicting threat, violent death, and erotica. Moreover, reflex modulation and conductance change varied with arousal, whereas facial patterns were content specific. The findings suggest that affective responses serve different functions—mobilization for action, attention, and social communication—and reflect the motivational system that is engaged, its intensity of activation, and the specific emotional context. Emotion is considered here to be fundamentally organized around two motivational systems, one appetitive and one defensive, that have evolved to mediate transactions in the environment that either promote or threaten physical survival (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1997). The defense system is primarily activated in contexts involving threat, with a basic behavioral repertoire built on withdrawal, escape, and attack. Conversely, the appetitive system is activated in contexts that promote survival, including sustenance, procreation, and nurturance, with a basic behavioral repertoire of ingestion, copulation, and caregiving. These systems are implemented by neural circuits in the brain, presumably with common outputs to structures mediating the somatic and autonomic physiological systems involved in attention and action (see Davis, 2000; Davis & Lang, 2001;