EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR 



'543 



An important recent emphasis upon electroen- 

 cephalographic studies in relation to "affective 

 states' can also be seen to hold considerable promise 

 for a more thorough understanding of neocortical 

 functions in emotional behavior. Only within the 

 past decade have the first systematic treatments of 

 this neurophysiological approach by Lindsley (247) 

 and Darrow (90) begun to appear although, as 

 we have already seen, even earlier explorations of 

 EEG phenomena had suggested their relationship to 

 the 'emotions' (22, 160, 189, 364, 397). Characteris- 

 tically, changes in the EEG pattern "under condi- 

 tions involving some degree of emotional arousal, 

 as in apprehension, unexpected sensory stimulation, 

 and anxiety states," as summarized by Lindsley 

 (247) in his 1948 review, can be reflected in "a 

 reduction or suppression of alpha rhythm and an 

 increase in the amount of beta-like fast activity."' 

 Although the observations which provided the basis 

 for these general conclusions did not focus upon any 

 selective neocortical regions in particular, they can be 

 seen to form at least part of the foundation for 

 Lindsley's 'activation theory' of emotion (248I with 

 its emphasis upon neocortical arousal in affective 

 processes. Subsequent reports by Ulett el a/. (370— 

 372) and others (18, 23, 30, 91, 92, 113, 220), how- 

 ever, have suggested involvement of more specific 

 cortical areas, and Walter (379) has even recently 

 reported that emotional disturbances arising during 

 flicker stimulation experiments can be associated 

 with rather selective EEG changes in the temporal 

 neocortex. Certainly, the close anatomical and func- 

 tional association of the temporal lobes with limbic 

 system structures intimately involved with the elab- 

 oration of emotional behavior would seem to fit 

 well with such a suggested delineation of neocortical 

 participation in affective processes 



SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 



Probably the most striking feature of this long- 

 enduring neurophysiological interest in the problem 

 of emotion has been the slow pace at which ex- 

 perimental analysis of the critical behavioral phe- 

 nomena has proceeded. Needless to say, this failure 

 of psychological science to keep abreast of anatomical 

 and physiological developments is clearly reflected 

 in the obviously primitive, phenomenological and 

 conspicuously prescientific descriptions and defini- 

 tions of emotional behavior which can be seen to 

 characterize most of the research in this area. And 



indeed, one cannot help but wonder about the econ- 

 omy and parsimony of elaborate speculative efforts 

 to develop a comprehensive neurophysiological theory 

 of emotion in the absence of a sound behavioristic 

 account of those presumably affective interaction 

 processes between organism and environment. The 

 analysis of such functional relationships at this de- 

 scriptive behavioristic level must provide the founda- 

 tion for any adequate treatment of neurophysio- 

 logical participation in "emotional' events. 



Within recent years, however, the emerging out- 

 lines of an objective psychological science have begun 

 to provide precise and reliable techniques for con- 

 trolling the behavior of the individual subject as a 

 basis for interdisciplinary neurophysiological analy- 

 sis. For the most part, the dedication of B. F. Skinner, 

 his co-workers and others to the experimental analysis 

 of behavior in its own right has been responsible 

 for the development of these methods in a variety 

 of applications and for their recent extension to the 

 investigation of the problem which provides the 

 subject matter for this chapter (6, 28, 31-44, 47-54, 

 36, 57, 101-103, 114-116, 121, 122, 145, 162, 177, 

 178, 185, 192-195, 209, 240, 252, 268, 269, 289, 290, 

 339-342. 345-348, 359, 373, 374, 388, 398). 



The application of these so-called 'operant con- 

 ditioning' techniques to the experimental analysis 

 of both behavioral and neurophysiological problems 

 can be seen to rest upon a simple principle, namely 

 that the characteristics of an organism's behavior 

 are, to a considerable extent at least, determined 

 by what the environmental consequences of that 

 behavior have been in the past. Thus the term 'oper- 

 ant behavior' has been used to refer to behavior which 

 operates upon the environment in this fashion, and 

 the process of manipulating such behavior as a func- 

 tion of its environmental consequences has been 

 termed 'operant conditioning' (345). The systematic 

 analysis of orderly relations among behavior seg- 

 ments within this framework has been accomplished, 

 first, by selecting for measurement and manipulation 

 a response having a topography congenial to the or- 

 ganism, and one that the organism can perform and 

 immediately be in a position to repeat. Secondlv, 

 this kind of analysis has been enhanced by selecting 

 an environmental consequence, or 'reinforcement,' 

 that is appropriate to the particular individual 

 and by utilizing motivational levels that are strong 

 enough to minimize the effects of many experi- 

 mentally irrelevant variables. Finally, an additional 

 aspect of this approach to behavior science is the 

 systematic limitation of the experimental environ- 



