Abstract
Emotion is an essential feature of both animal and human behavior. Film industry has well understood the impact of emotions on human experiences and has applied strategies that induce the viewer to feel strong emotions. The startle effect is the main tool used as “the ultimate form of sensationalism, artlessness, and mindlessness…[it] reaffirm[s] the animalistic, the atavistic, and the irrational expressions”.
Here we would like to show how startle is linked to both human and animal emotions, and how experimental studies can inform us on this relation. We will also give an account on how the animal models are used to characterize the neurobiological features of depression and how startle is impaired depression as shown in experimental studies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Robert Baird, “The Startle Effect,” in Film Quarterly 53, no. 3 (2000): 1–12.
- 2.
J.J. Gross and L. Feldman Barret, “Emotion Generation and Emotion Regulation: One or Two Depends on Your Point of View,” Emotion Review 3, no. 1 (2011): 8–16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/175403910380974
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Michiko Sakaki, Kazuhisa Niki, and Mara Mather. “Beyond Arousal and Valence: The Importance of the Biological versus Social Relevance of Emotional Stimuli.” Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 12, no. 1 (March 1, 2012): 115–39. doi:https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-011-0062-x
- 5.
Gross and Barrett, “Emotion Generation and Emotion Regulation.”
- 6.
Robert Plutchik and Henry Kellerman, Theories of Emotion (Cambridge, MA: Academic Press, 2013).
- 7.
Paul Ekman and Erika L. Rosenberg, What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
- 8.
Aristotle, History of Animals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965).
- 9.
Catherine Belzung and Maël Lemoine, “Criteria of Validity for Animal Models of Psychiatric Disorders: Focus on Anxiety Disorders and Depression,” in Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 1, no. 1 (2011): 9. doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/2045-5380-1-9
- 10.
Catherine Belzung and Pierre Philippot, “Anxiety from a Phylogenetic Perspective: Is There a Qualitative Difference between Human and Animal Anxiety?” Neural Plasticity 2007 (2007): 59676. doi:https://doi.org/10.1155/2007/59676
- 11.
Kent C. Berridge and Piotr Winkielman, “What Is an Unconscious Emotion? (The Case for Unconscious ‘Liking’),” Cognition & Emotion 17, no. 2 (March 2003): 181.
- 12.
Christopher JL. Murray and Alan D Lopez, “Alternative Projections of Mortality and Disability by Cause 1990–2020: Global Burden of Disease Study,” The Lancet 349, no. 9064 (May 24, 1997): 1498–1504. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(96)07492-2
- 13.
Belzung and Philippot, “Anxiety from a Phylogenetic Perspective.”
- 14.
H. Strauss H, “Das zusammenschrecken: Experimentell-Kinematographische Studie zur Physiologie und Pathophysiologie der Reaktivbewegungen,” in J Psychol Neurol 39 (1929): 111–231.
- 15.
C. Landis and Hunt W, The Startle Pattern (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1939).
- 16.
Ekman and Rosenberg, What the Face Reveals.
- 17.
M.M. Bradley and P. J. Lang, “Affective Reactions to Acoustic Stimuli,” in Psychophysiology 37, no. 2 (March 2000): 204–15.
- 18.
Gabriel S. Dichter, Andrew J. Tomarken, and Brian R. Baucom, “Startle Modulation Before, during and after Exposure to Emotional Stimuli,” in International Journal of Psychophysiology 43, no. 2 (2002): 191–96.
- 19.
Ekman and Rosenberg, What the Face Reveals.
- 20.
R. Davis, “Motor effects of strong auditory stimuli,” in J Experimental Psychology 38, no. 3 (1948):257–75. EM del Giudice, G. Coppola, G. Bellini, G. Cirillo, G. Scuccimarra, and A. Pascotto A, “A mutation (V260 M) in the middle of the M2 pore-lining domain of the glycine receptor causes hereditary hyperekplexia,” in Eur J Hum Genet 9, no. 11 (2001): 873–6.
- 21.
P. Gogan, “The startle and orienting reactions in man. A study of their characteristics and habituation,” in Brain Res 18 (1970): 117–35.
- 22.
S. Rossignol, “Startle responses recorded in the leg of man,” in Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 39, no. 4 (1975): 389–97.
- 23.
JE Fox, “Excitatory and inhibitory components of the eyeblink responses to startle evoking stimuli, studied in the human subject,” in Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 44, no. 40 (1978): 490–501.
- 24.
P. Brown, JC Rothwell, PD Thompson, TC Britton, BL Day, and CD Marsden, “New observations on the normal auditory startle reflex in man,” in Brain 114 (1991): 1891–902.
- 25.
Ye. N. Sokolov, Perception and the Conditioned Reflex (Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1963). Also, P. Brown, BL Day, JC Rothwell, PD Thompson, and CD Marsden, “The effect of posture on the normal and pathological auditory startle reflex,” in J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 54 (1991): 892–7.
- 26.
H. Kaviani, J.A. Gray, S.A. Checkley, P.W. Raven, G.D. Wilson, and V. Kumari, “Affective Modulation of the Startle Response in Depression: Influence of the Severity of Depression, Anhedonia, and Anxiety,” Journal of Affective Disorders 83, no. 1 (November 15, 2004): 21–31. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2004.04.007
- 27.
Dichter et al., “Startle Modulation.”
- 28.
Landis and Hunt, The Startle Pattern. Also, Koch, M. “The Neurobiology of Startle.” Progress in Neurobiology 59, no. 2 (October 1999): 107–28. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0301-0082(98)00098-7
- 29.
Christian Grillon and Johanna Baas, “A Review of the Modulation of the Startle Reflex by Affective States and Its Application in Psychiatry,” in Clinical Neurophysiology 114, no. 9 (September 2003): 1557–79. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1388-2457(03)00202-5
- 30.
Mathieu Nollet, Anne-Marie Le Guisquet, and Catherine Belzung, “Models of Depression: Unpredictable Chronic Mild Stress in Mice,” in Current Protocols in Pharmacology (June 2013): Chapter 5, Unit 5.65. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/0471141755.ph0565s61.
- 31.
Yann S. Mineur, Catherine Belzung, and Wim E. Crusio, “Effects of Unpredictable Chronic Mild Stress on Anxiety and Depression-like Behavior in Mice,” in Behavioural Brain Research 175, no. 1 (November 25, 2006): 43–50. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2006.07.029
- 32.
Catherine Belzung, Marc Turiault, and Guy Griebel, “Optogenetics to Study the Circuits of Fear- and Depression-like Behaviors: A Critical Analysis,” in Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 122 (July 2014): 144–57. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbb.2014.04.002
- 33.
Steve Ramirez, Xu Liu, Pei-Ann Lin, Junghyup Suh, Michele Pignatelli, Roger L. Redondo, Tomás J. Ryan, and Susumu Tonegawa, “Creating a False Memory in the Hippocampus,” in Science 341, no. 6144 (July 26, 2013): 387–91. doi:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239073
- 34.
Aldis P. Weible, Christine Liu, Cristopher M. Niell, and Michael Wehr, “Auditory Cortex Is Required for Fear Potentiation of Gap Detection,” in The Journal of Neuroscience 34, no. 46 (November 12, 2014): 15437–45. doi:https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3408-14.2014
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brizard, B. (2018). Animal and Human Models of Startle, Emotion, and Depression. In: Depraz, N., Steinbock, A. (eds) Surprise: An Emotion?. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 97. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98657-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98657-9_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98656-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98657-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)