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Ralph Adolphs

@ralph-adolphs · 22 positions · 0 changes of mind

Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Biology at Caltech, where he studies the neuroscience of emotion and social cognition.

Ralph Adolphs did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

  1. Our reading

    Emotions are functional states, to be understood by what they do rather than by how any particular brain or machine happens to implement them.

    Their wordsThe basic answer is that I think of emotions as functional states of a particular type. They should be understood by what they do, their function rather than how they happen to be constituted in the human brain or differently in an octopus nervous system or in an AI which we should talk about.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:04:27 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 1st of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our reading

    Emotions exist because a charging bear demands a response more flexible than a reflex and faster than a plan.

    Their wordsif you have a bear or a tiger, you know, something charging at you, that challenge requires a control of behavior that's intermediate between those two extremes. I can't have a reflex for a bear if it's far away or if it's close or if it's a rattlesnake or or or a tiger or all the different kinds of potential threats out there. Instead, I need something that's more flexible, which emotions are.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:05:21 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 2nd of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our reading

    A feeling outlasts the memory of what caused it: amnesic patients stayed sad long after they had forgotten the sad film they were shown.

    Their wordsSo, I thought this was a really cool study because it showed very clearly that there is temporal persistence in emotions and sadness probably has one of the longest time constants as we know from personal experience. But it's separate from just declarative memory.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:14:57 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our reading

    Functionally defined emotions can be attributed to animals and, to some extent, to AI systems, without any claim about what either of them feels.

    Their wordswell but again these are functionally defined emotions and there's I think there's no problem assigning to AI to some extent and certainly to many animals uh those functional emotions
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:19:18 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 4th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our reading

    Equating an emotion with the conscious feeling of it turns emotion research into consciousness research, which is why the two must be kept apart.

    Their wordsAnd the other question is if you tie emotion to the the conscious experience of emotion, that is you equate you conflate emotions with feelings. Well, then you're not studying emotions, you're studying consciousness.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:20:58 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 5th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  11. Our reading

    Most emotional pathology is not a problem with the emotion itself but with the ability to regulate it.

    Their wordsmost of pathologies and difficulties about emotions are not about the emotion per se. It's about our ability or disability to control them to regulate them.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:25:32 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 6th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  13. Our reading

    Losing your emotions does not leave you a cooler decision-maker; it leaves you unable to organise a life at all.

    Their wordsif you have massive frontal lobe lesions that make it the case that you're no longer emotionally responding to stimuli the consequences are devastating which is that you cannot make decisions complex decisions in your life you can't organize your life you're not motivated to take the right path through life because you don't feel one one way or the other about the different options that are available.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:27:27 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 7th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  15. Our reading

    You do not need a word for an emotion in order to regulate it: a concept you cannot put into language still gives you purchase on it.

    Their wordsso I think as long as you have some kind some concept which need not be put into words some way to think about and differentiate the different emotions that are going on in you that gives you a purchase on your ability to to some extent evaluate them and say this is an emotion I want or this is an emotion that I don't want
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:30:31 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 8th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  17. Our reading

    The most successful emotion-regulation strategy is the earliest one: arrange your situation so that the emotion never starts.

    Their wordsone quick answer to the question of what's the most successful strategy is the earlier you can stop that process, the better. And so, in the first place, don't get yourself into a situation where you're going to be anxious or guilty or sad or whatever emotion you want to avoid.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:32:39 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 9th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  19. Our reading

    Cold exposure trains autonomic regulation that generalises, so that an everyday provocation stops producing an anger response at all.

    Their wordsAnd I'm not claiming this as a published study, but so I think there's a there's a direct autonomic training component as well in terms of the strength and the automaticity, the ease with which you can regulate emotions that they can become kind of automatically regulated.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:35:36 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 10th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  21. Our reading

    Awe is a uniquely human emotion, resting on the metacognitive ability to detach conscious experience from the here and now.

    Their wordsI think it's a uniquely at least as we have it it's uniquely human emotion and it's based on a broad sort of metacognitive ability we have which is to detach our conscious experience from the here and now and do like mental time travel.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:43:12 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 11th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  23. Our reading

    You cannot reliably tell how someone feels from their facial expression, and Ekman's universality claim does not survive a reading of the whole literature.

    Their wordsWe took stock of the whole literature and asked is this really true? Is Ecman's claim really true? Can you tell how someone feels from their facial expression? And the answer is well not nearly as well as you would think and in general not.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:48:59 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 12th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  25. Our reading

    Fear is not one thing: fear of something out in the world and panic at something happening inside you run on distinct brain systems.

    Their wordsAnd once you look at the brain systems, they're distinct brain systems in this instance for fear to something out there in the world versus panic of something happening inside you like having a heart attack or not getting enough air.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:00:01 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 13th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  27. Our reading

    The famous body maps of emotion record where people believe they would feel things, not where anything in the body actually changes.

    Their wordsit's ultimately about people's concepts of how emotions correspond to changes in the body, not the real actual changes in the body.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:03:05 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 14th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  29. Our reading

    Each emotion probably does have a specific bodily signature; the studies that found none measured far too little of the body to have seen it.

    Their wordsWhat you would want to do is have a detailed highdimensional readout of okay your your gallbladder and your liver and your kidney and your heart and changes all over your body and look at that and ask is there is there some kind of association between specific emotion states and changes some kind of complex change in your body and I would bet that there is but we just don't have those data yet
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:09:15 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 15th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  31. Our reading

    An emotion is a fan-in, fan-out architecture: many different signals converge on one central state, out of which many different behaviours can follow.

    Their wordsI can get to the emotion state from seeing a bear or smelling a bear or hearing a bear or hearing a twig snap, hearing somebody yell there's a bear. Zillions of different inputs completely unlike the rigid reflex which only has one input and that's it.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:24:14 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 16th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  33. Our reading

    Emotion regulation is not a private skill: you regulate other people's emotions and they regulate yours.

    Their wordsis it's interpersonal. It's between people. You regulate other people's emotions and you have to pick up on other people's emotions and you influence other people's emotions.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:27:54 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 17th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  35. Our reading

    Emotional skill is not one strategy done well but a repertoire, plus the ability to switch between them according to context.

    Their wordsThe most successful skill is if you don't just have one, but you have variety and you can switch between them and you can use context to switch between those.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:28:38 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 18th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  37. Our reading

    Social competence has to run automatically, because doing it deliberately imposes a cognitive load that becomes an impediment in itself.

    Their wordsyou need to somehow internalize it and it has to be relatively effortless and automatic. It has to become automatic at some level and then you can move through life fairly smoothly in a socially very complex way.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:32:55 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 19th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  39. Our reading

    How much a person looks at faces is a stable personality trait, and looking less at them tracks autistic traits across the whole population.

    Their wordsIf I just take the general population on average it's the case that those people who would have a diagnosis of autism or who score higher on autistic traits even if they don't have a diagnosis look less at faces.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:40:37 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 20th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  41. Our reading

    Switching between tasks carries a real and measurable cost, and switching well is a trainable skill rather than a fixed property of a brain.

    Their wordsSo, as soon as you switch into something, there's a cost carried over from the previous task, and you're much slower and more difficult for the couple of next trials on the new task. So, there's always a switching cost
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:54:49 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 21st of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  43. Our reading

    Death is better understood as you losing the world than as the world losing you, because the world you experience is a construction in your brain.

    Their wordsSo rather than thinking of death as we normally do as the world loses you, the neuroscience perspective is the inverse which is you lose the world.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 2:05:09 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Neuroscience of Emotions & Tools for Improving Emotion Regulation | Dr. Ralph Adolphsyoutube.com 22nd of 22 in this recording

    Interesting