Visual looming is a primitive for human emotion

Abstract

The neural computations for looming detection are strikingly similar across species. In mammals, information about approaching threats is conveyed from the retina to the midbrain superior colliculus, where approach variables are computed to enable defensive behavior. Although neuroscientific theories posit that midbrain representations contribute to emotion through connectivity with distributed brain systems, it remains unknown whether a computational system for looming detection can predict both defensive behavior and phenomenal experience in humans. Here, we show that a shallow convolutional neural network based on the Drosophila visual system predicts defensive blinking to looming objects in infants and superior colliculus responses to optical expansion in adults. Further, the neural network's responses to naturalistic video clips predict self-reported emotion largely by way of subjective arousal. These findings illustrate how a simple neural network architecture optimized for a species-general task relevant for survival explains motor and experiential components of human emotion.