Neuroscientist Explores Mixed Emotions in the Brain
Do we really feel conflicting emotions simultaneously or do we flip between them really fast?
Hiya!
In our efforts to simplify as much as possible, our species habitually reduces complex subjects into binaries — things are either good or bad, black or white, right or wrong. However, there are two significant problems with this line of thinking. One is that binaries are two ends of a spectrum, and focusing only on the extremes excludes everything in between. The other is that binaries eliminate the possibility of duality.
Emotions are a fantastic example because they are often labeled as either “negative” or “positive” when the Truth is there are no good or bad emotions. Further, we often feel “mixed emotions” when we experience multiple, and sometimes conflicting, emotions simultaneously — or do we? A neuroscientist recently wondered whether we experience conflicting emotions at the same time or if we flip between them independently. So he decided to find out.
Complexity of Emotions
Emotions are peculiar. We all experience them, yet we have much to learn about them. Modern measuring methods treat emotions as binary ends of a positive or negative spectrum.
As such, scientists describe emotions as evolutionary brain states that motivate us to either engage with or avoid things. For example, fear makes us want to run away, while emotions like joy make us want to stick around.
This avoid-or-approach perspective of emotions helps explain why we evolved emotions and how they influence our decision-making. Scientists have even used it as a guiding principle to understand the biology behind emotions.
The problem with this binary view of emotions is that it excludes the duality of mixed emotions.
When going through change, we experience “positive” and “negative” feelings. We might feel excited about moving to a new city to begin a new chapter in our lives but also feel sad about leaving behind friends or family. Mixed emotions also happen as an ongoing source of distress with a decision, like when we know we should leave an unhealthy relationship but still have positive feelings about the person.
But if the approach-or-avoid view is accurate, then such experiences shouldn’t happen, or if they do, it’s because we’re flipping back and forth between individual emotions, sometimes so quickly that it may feel like we’re experiencing them at the same time. This flipping back and forth is how scientists first conceptualized mixed emotions in their early theories on the biological foundations of emotions.
Previous Research
The experience of mixed emotions is complicated not just because of the potential illusion that we’re feeling multiple at once but also because, as I mentioned before, there are no singularly positive or negative emotions.
You may argue, “No, fear is obviously bad.” But is it? After all, October is an entire month dedicated to fear, where people seek it out in haunted houses and horror movies. The month even has a holiday where people dress up in scary costumes. Fear is scary, but it can also be exciting.
Similarly, nostalgia and awe are other emotions with positive and negative connotations. Even disgust isn’t as singular of an emotion as you might assume.
For a small 2013 study, 43 women watched film clips that elicited amusement, disgust, or mixed emotions as researchers monitored their physiological responses, including subtle facial movements, skin conductance, and heart rate. They discovered the participants showed distinct patterns when they were amused and disgusted. The researchers write in their study:
[M]ixed emotions differed from pure amusement and pure disgust both in intensity and pattern. This suggests a distinct physiological response of the mixed emotional state, as predicted by the emergence account of mixed emotions.
While the study was small, it indicates that emotions, at least amusement and disgust, occur simultaneously and create new brain patterns when combined.
Yet, ten years later, in 2023, another study appeared that seems to contradict the 2013 findings. This time, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to analyze participants’ brain responses to disgusting humor, but they didn’t identify any brain activity distinct from pure disgust. The brain images of people who reported feeling both amused and disgusted only showed them being disgusted — there were no unique patterns indicating a new or blended emotion.
So, which is it? Do we experience emotions simultaneously or is what we feel the result of flipping back and forth between seemingly positive and negative feelings?
Anthony Gianni Vaccaro, a postdoctoral research Associate at the University of Southern California’s NeuroEndocrinology of Social Ties Lab (NEST Lab), identified a missing detail from the previous research on mixed emotions. He believes the answer to whether we fluctuate between emotions or feel multiple at once lies in what the brain does over time.
In an article published in The Conversation, he writes:
It is possible that by looking at the average brain activity across time, scientists end up with a pattern that looks a lot like one emotion – in this case, disgust – but are missing important information about how activity changes or stays the same second-to-second.
So Vaccaro and his colleagues at the University of Southern California decided to find out.
New Research
To investigate this curiosity, Vaccaro and his team set out to determine whether mixed emotions display unique brain states that hold steady over time. They published their study in the journal Cerebral Cortex in April 2024 (a free preprint version from November 2023 is here).
The Study
Using fMRI technology, the researchers analyzed the brains of 27 participants (15 female, 12 male) as they watched what Vaccaro describes in his Conversation article as a “bittersweet animated short film about a young girl’s lifelong pursuit, with her father’s support, to become an astronaut. Spoiler alert: Her dad dies.”
After the scans were complete, the participants rewatched the video and self-reported the moments they felt “positive, negative and mixed emotions.”
The Results
Vaccaro and his team’s observations showed evidence that, once again, Nature isn’t as binary as we like to think. It’s not that we either flip-flop between seemingly negative and positive emotions or experience multiple emotions simultaneously.
We do both. After all, the brain isn’t just a singular entity but comprises several regions that respond to and process emotions differently.
Flipping Between Emotions
The amygdala is a small region in our limbic system and is critical for emotional processing, including forming quick responses to strong emotional events. Yet, despite its emotional importance, the researchers found no unique, consistent patterns indicating the participants felt truly mixed emotions.
Meanwhile, the researchers identified consistent and unique patterns for positive and negative emotions within the insular cortex but not for mixed emotions.
While still a mysterious and poorly understood region, the insular cortex connects deep brain regions with the cerebral cortex and seems to have a diverse range of essential responsibilities, including processing emotional and sensory experiences and linking them to bodily states.
Vaccaro writes in The Conversation:
“We took this finding to mean that regions such as the amygdala and insular cortex were processing positive and negative emotions as mutually exclusive.”
However, both of these regions are part of the oldest, most primitive brain regions — and other, more recently evolved areas of the brain responded differently.
True Mix of Emotions
The researchers observed two brain regions within our cortical areas, which presented consistent patterns suggesting we can experience a true mix of emotions.
One area is the anterior cingulate, located in the cerebral cortex. This region is heavily involved with the limbic system without technically being part of it. It has many vital roles, including emotional processing, vocalizing our emotions, and processing conflict and uncertainty.
The other is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which has many roles, including complex thinking like emotional regulation, decision-making, and moral competency.
Both of these regions are part of the brain that carries out more advanced functions involved with complex thinking, and that ability seems to allow someone to experience a true mixture of emotions. In The Conversation, Vaccaro says,
“Brain regions such as the anterior cingulate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex integrate many sources of information [which is] essential for being able to form a mixed emotion.”
He also points out that the different observations between how the more primitive parts of our brains process our emotions and the newer regions responsible for our complex thinking reflect what scientists know about emotional development.
Children don’t typically begin to understand or report experiencing mixed emotions until later in childhood.
This also matches what researchers understand about how more advanced emotional regulation and understanding progress as these brain regions develop.
Perspective Shift
It makes sense that emotions are usually singular in our oldest brain regions but more complex in the newer, more recently evolved areas of the brain. Maybe that’s the difference between our emotional reactions and emotional responses.
We’ve spent so much time as a species focused on our shared, objective external world that we lose touch with our private, subjective inner world. Granted, our internal world is more challenging to measure empirically, but it also seems like our perspective on emotions has changed. We ignore them, run from them, shove them away, and blame them — when we should instead acknowledge them, decipher them, accept them, and learn more about them.
Thankfully, with technological and scientific advancements occurring these days, researchers like Vaccaro can finally investigate our mysterious internal worlds like never before. Hopefully, a better understanding of mixed emotions can help people decipher them and show them how to utilize their strong feelings to help them grow.
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A most excellent morning read, thank you!
I’m not sure how I feel about this article. 😉