Physiological Response
The physiological response of surprise falls under the category of the startle response. The main function of surprise or the startle response is to interrupt an ongoing action and reorient attention to a new, possibly significant event. There is an automatic redirection of focus to the new stimuli and, for a brief moment, this causes tenseness in the muscles, especially the neck muscles. Studies show that this response happens extremely fast, with information (in this case a loud noise) reaching the pons within 3 to 8 ms and the full startle reflex occurring in less than two tenths of a second.
Surprise has one core appraisal-appraising something as new and unexpected-but new appraisals can shift the feeling of surprise or shift the emotion of surprise to another emotion. Appraising an event as new predicts surprise, but the appraisal of the coping mechanism predicts the response beyond surprise, such as confusion or interest.
Read more about this topic: Surprise (emotion)
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