In this paper, I articulate Heidegger’s notion of Befindlichkeit and show that his phenomenological account of affective existence can be understood in terms of contemporary work on emotions. By examining Heidegger’s account alongside contemporary accounts of emotions, I not only demonstrate the ways in which key aspects of the former are present in the latter; I also explicate in detail the ways in which our understanding of Befindlichkeit and its relationship to moods and emotions can benefit from an empirically-informed study (...) of emotions. (shrink)

This paper formalizes part of a well-known psychological model of emotions. In particular, the logical structure underlying the conditions that trigger emotions are studied and then hierarchically organized. The insights gained therefrom are used to guide a formalization of emotion triggers, which proceeds in three stages. The first stage captures the conditions that trigger emotions in a semiformal way, i.e., without committing to an underlying formalism and semantics. The second stage captures the main psychological notions used in the emotion model (...) in dynamic doxastic logic. The third stage introduces a BDI-based framework (belief–desire–intention) with achievement goals, which is used to firmly ground the preceding stages. The result is a formalization of emotion triggers for BDI agents with achievement goals. The idea of proceeding in these stages is to provide different levels of commitment to formalisms, so that it remains relatively easy to extend or replace the used formalisms without having to start from scratch. Finally, we show that the formalization renders properties of emotions that are in line with the psychological model on which it is based. (shrink)

In the last 10 years, several authors including Griffiths and Matthen have employed classificatory principles from biology to argue for a radical revision in the way that we individuate psychological traits. Arguing that the fundamental basis for classification of traits in biology is that of ‘homology’ (similarity due to common descent) rather than ‘analogy’, or ‘shared function’, and that psychological traits are a special case of biological traits, they maintain that psychological categories should be individuated primarily by relations of homology (...) rather than in terms of shared function. This poses a direct challenge to the dominant philosophical view of how to define psychological categories, viz., ‘functionalism’. Although the implications of this position extend to all psychological traits, the debate has centered around ‘emotion’ as an example of a psychological category ripe for reinterpretation within this new framework of classification. I address arguments by Griffiths that emotions should be divided into at least two distinct classes, basic emotions and higher cognitive emotions, and that these two classes require radically different theories to explain them. Griffiths argues that while basic emotions in humans are homologous to the corresponding states in other animals, higher cognitive emotions are dependent on mental capacities unique to humans, and are therefore not homologous to basic emotions. Using the example of shame, I argue that (a) many emotions that are commonly classified as being higher cognitive emotions actually correspond to certain basic emotions, and that (b) the “higher cognitive forms” of these emotions are best seen as being homologous to their basic forms. (shrink)

What is art? What is beauty? Why are we driven to create? People have been struggling with the answers to these questions for millenia. In this book Jay Friedenberg examines age old and contemporary responses to the perceptual and performative side of aesthetics. The work is wide-ranging in scope, addressing all forms of art including painting, photography, writing, film, music, theater, dance, and more. Issues are examined from multiple perspectives with separate chapters on history, philosophy, mathematics, physics, psychology, and neuroscience. (...) This beautifully illustrated book can be read by a general audience or used as an undergraduate or graduate textbook for courses in art history, aesthetics, or media studies. (shrink)

Stress-related psychopathology is on the rise, and there is a pressing need for improved prevention strategies. Positive appraisal style, the tendency to appraise potentially threatening situations in a positive way, has been proposed to act as a key resilience mechanism and therefore offers a potential target for preventive approaches. In this article, we review n = 99 studies investigating associations of positive cognitive reappraisal, an important sub-facet of positive appraisal style, with outcome-based resilience and relevant other outcomes, which are considered (...) resilience-related. According to the studies reviewed, positive cognitive reappraisal moderates the relation between stressors and negative outcomes and is positively related to several resilience-related outcomes. It also mediates between other resilience factors and resilience, suggesting it is a proximal resilience factor. (shrink)

Political advertising to recruit the support of voters is an inherent part of politics. Today, ads are distributed via television and online, including social media. This type of advertisement attempts to recruit support by presenting convincing arguments and evoking various emotions about the candidate, opponents, and policy proposals. We discuss recent arguments and evidence that a specific social emotion, namely the concept kama muta, plays a role in political advertisements. In vernacular language, kama muta is typically labeled as being moved (...) or touched. We compare kama muta and anger theoretically and discuss how they can influence voters’ willingness to support a candidate. We then, for the first time, compare kama muta and anger empirically in the same study. Specifically, we showed American participants short political ads during the 2018 United States midterm election campaigns. All participants saw both kama muta- and anger-evoking ads from both Democratic or Republican candidates. In total, everybody watched eight ads. We assessed participants’ degree of being moved and angered by the videos and their motivation for three types of political support: ideational, financial, and personal. The emotional impact of an ad depended on its perceived source: Participants felt especially angry after watching the anger-evoking ads and especially moved by moving ads if they identified with the political party that had produced the video. Both emotions mediated were associated with increased intentions to provide support. Importantly, if one of the two emotions was evoked, its effect on political support was enhanced if participants identified with the party that had produced the ad. We discuss limitations of the method and implications of the results for future research and practice. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider a philosophical model of self-control recently developed by Chandra Sripada and inspired by current dual-process models in both the sciences of the mind and philosophy. Sripada argues that the mind is bifurcated into two motivational systems that correspond to Emotion and Reason and that to exercise self-control is to act in accordance with reason when it comes into conflict with emotion. I argue that Sripada’s model rests on two false assumptions, that emotions are cognitively impenetrable (...) and that self-control is always about taming our emotions. Based on these arguments, I conclude that our capacity for self-control cannot be understood in terms of a divided-mind and consider a structural model of self-control recently developed by Kentaro Fujita. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the inherent temporal orientation of fear, a matter on which philosophers seem to have contrasting opinions. According to some, fear is inherently present-oriented; others instead maintain that it is inherently future-oriented or that it has no inherent temporal orientation at all. Despite the differences, however, all these views seem to understand fear’s temporal orientation as one-dimensional—that is, as uniquely determined by the represented temporal location of the intentional object of fear. By contrast, we present a (...) view that introduces a two-dimensional account of fear’s temporal orientation. On such a view, we can say that fear is inherently future-oriented, independently of its being about something in the present or in the future. (shrink)

Despite the impressive progress that has been made on both the empirical and conceptual fronts of boredom research, there is one facet of boredom that has received remarkably little attention. This is boredom's relationship to morality. The aim of this article is to explore the moral dimensions of boredom and to argue that boredom is a morally relevant personality trait. The presence of trait boredom hinders our capacity to flourish and in doing so hurts our prospects for a moral life. (...) -/- . (shrink)

The physical environment leads to a thermal sensation that is perceived and appraised by occupants. The present study focuses on the relationship between sensation and evaluation. We asked 166 people to recall a thermal event from their recent past. They were then asked how they evaluated this experience in terms of 10 different emotions (frustrated, resigned, dislike, indifferent, angry, anxious, liking, joyful, regretful, proud). We tested whether four psychological factors (appraisal dimensions) could be used to predict the ensuing emotions, as (...) well as comfort, acceptability, and sensation. The four dimensions were: the Conduciveness of the event, who/what caused the event (Causality), who had control (Agency), and whether the event was expected (Expectations). These dimensions, except for Expectations, were good predictors of the reported emotions. Expectations, however, predicted the reported thermal sensation, its acceptability, and ensuing comfort. The more expected an event was, the more uncomfortable a person felt, and the less likely they reported a neutral thermal sensation. Together, these results support an embodied view of how subjective appraisals affect thermal experience. Overall, we show that appraisal dimensions mediate occupants' evaluation of their thermal sensation, which suggests an additional method for understanding psychological adaption. (shrink)

According to psychological emotion theories referred to as appraisal theory, emotions are caused by appraisals (evaluative judgments). Borrowing a term from Jan Smedslund, it is the contention of this article that psychological appraisal theory is “pseudoempirical” (i.e., misleadingly or incorrectly empirical). In the article I outline what makes some scientific psychology “pseudoempirical,” distinguish my view on this from Jan Smedslund’s, and then go on to show why paying heed to the ordinary meanings of emotion terms is relevant to psychology, and (...) how appraisal theory is methodologically off the mark by employing experiments, questionnaires, and the like, to investigate what follows from the ordinary meanings of words. The overarching argument of the article is that the scientific research program of appraisal theory is fundamentally misguided and that a more philosophical approach is needed to address the kinds of questions it seeks to answer. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates to which extent internal working models of relationships and personality characteristics of participants are transferred to computer-generated agents in a virtual social environment. For this purpose a VSE was created that was populated with several autonomous agents which interacted with each other. Participants can control one of the the agents ; one of the other agents is the spouse of the protagonist. Using this setup, a potential projection screen for the dynamics of the real-life relationship, as well (...) as for generalized internal working models was created. Chapter 1 summarizes the research question, gives an overview of the development of the VSE called "Simoland", and provides a general summary and conclusion about the dissertation. Chapters 2 - 4 each are self-contained manuscripts. Chapter 2 is a theoretical article which describes challenges and new possibilities in the implementation of psychological models into autonomous agents. Chapter 3 describes the first empirical study conducted in Simoland. This study demonstrates how intrapersonal changes in interaction behavior can be investigated in VSEs. With a sample of 236 participants I could show that both the relationship satisfaction with the real life partner, and the intimacy motive of the participant had an influence on the behavior towards the virtual spouse. Hence, it could be shown that virtual behavior indeed is connected to conditions of the real world. While the first study investigated unrestricted behavior in an open world, in Chapter 4 specific, theoretically derived scenes were created which were supposed to activate the attachment system. With a sample of 422 participants we could demonstrate interindividual differences in attachment behavior as a reaction to one of three scenes: a separation, a conflict with the virtual spouse, and a threatening situation. Both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance significantly and meaningfully correlated with the behavior in the VSE, the physical distance between protagonist and virtual spouse, and emotional ratings. To summarize, this dissertation for the first time shows that qualities of real-life relationships, as well as internal working models of attachment, are transferred to virtual agents. Thereby new ways are opened to investigate behavior in close relationships and representations of significant others through virtual scenarios. (shrink)

Recent thinking within philosophy of mind about the ways cognition can extend has yet to be integrated with philosophical theories of emotion, which give cognition a central role. We carve out new ground at the intersection of these areas and, in doing so, defend what we call the extended emotion thesis: the claim that some emotions can extend beyond skin and skull to parts of the external world.

According to Bob Solomon, love is a human emotion, with a complex intentional structure, having its own kind of reasons. I will examine this account, which, in certain respects, tends to mask the deep and important differences between love and other emotions.

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 161-163, April 2022. The role emotions play in the dynamics of cultural phenomena has long been neglected. The collection of articles recently published in Emotion Review provides an important first step into this necessary endeavor. In this commentary, we discuss this contribution by emphasizing the role epistemological parsimony should play in the future of this research agenda. The cultural behavior and emotions of chimpanzees is taken as reference.

Testing assumptions proposed by Frenzel’s reciprocal model of teacher emotions (e.g., Frenzel, 2014 ), this study explored relations between teachers’ appraisals concerning the attainment and importance of their teaching goals, and their emotions. Specifically, we addressed teachers’ goals of high student performance, motivation, discipline, and high-quality teacher–student relationship and three key discrete emotions, namely, enjoyment, anger, and anxiety, during teaching. We had 244 secondary school teachers (70.1% female) self-report their goal attainment and importance appraisals and emotional experiences with respect to (...) up to three different classes they currently taught. Results from single- and two-level multivariate multiple regression analyses largely supported the relevance of the goal attainment appraisals for teachers’ emotions both on the between-person and the within-person level. Goal importance appraisals proved to be of secondary relevance. On the between-person level, those teachers who positively appraised the attainment of motivation, discipline, and teacher–student relationship quality proved to report more enjoyment and less anxiety and anger. On the within-person level, teachers reported enjoying teaching those classes more, which they perceived as better performing, more motivated and disciplined, and with whom they had a better relationship. Anger and anxiety were negatively linked to appraisals pertaining to the attainment of discipline and teacher–student relationship quality. Across both analysis perspectives, teacher–student relationship quality attainment showed particularly strong links with all three emotions. Because teachers’ subjective evaluations regarding student behaviors were shown to be highly relevant for their emotions, we conclude that teachers could be supported in modifying their emotional experiences through cognitive reappraisal. Interventions targeting teachers’ relationships with students, and their cognitive judgments thereof, seem particularly promising. (shrink)

RESUMEN: En este artículo se presenta la evaluación eudaimonista como una articulación entre el agente y los objetos del mundo. Sostendremos que, gracias a esta noción, la teoría de las emociones de Nussbaum es adecuada para dar cuenta de la función adaptativa de las emociones, por lo que las teorías no cognitivas no resultarían superiores en este aspecto. Esta noción serviría, asimismo, para no dejar de lado los aspectos cognitivos de la emoción. Veremos cómo las ideas de Nussbaum se basan (...) en las de las teorías evaluativas provenientes de la psicología, para después desplegar su propuesta en detalle. En la exposición, también trataremos otras cuestiones, entre ellas, la racionalidad de las emociones, la relación entre éstas y el florecimiento humano, o la vinculación de las mismas con nuestra condición vulnerable. ABSTRACT: This article presents eudaimonistic evaluation as an articulation between the agent and the objects of the world. We will argue that, thanks to this notion, Nussbaum's theory of emotions is appropriate to accounting for the adaptive function of emotions. This notion is useful for shedding light on the cognitive aspects of emotion. We will see how Nussbaum's ideas are based on evaluative theories from psychology, and we will explain in detail her proposals. In our explanation, we will deal with other questions such as the rationality of emotions, the relationship between emotions and human flourishing, and the link between emotions and our vulnerable nature. (shrink)

In a recent survey of contemporary philosophy of emotion, Ronald de Sousa states that "in recent years … emotions have once again become the focus of vigorous interest in philosophy, as well as in other branches of cognitive science" (de Sousa 2003, 1). He then goes on to make the important observation that "in view of the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researchers of different stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation (...) from the approaches of other disciplines, particularly psychology, neurology and evolutionary biology" (de Sousa 2003, 1). This last remark is particularly apt in the case of a topic like modularity and emotion, which represents an ideal opportunity for reflecting on the emerging alliance between the philosophy of emotion and emotion science. In addition to being interesting in its own right, the topic also illustrates some of the perils associated with the new alliance, as different academic traditions must adapt to interdisciplinary dialogue... (shrink)

Interoception can be broadly defined as the sense of signals originating within the body. As such, interoception is critical for our sense of embodiment, motivation, and well-being. And yet, despite its importance, interoception remains poorly understood within modern science. This paper reviews interdisciplinary perspectives on interoception, with the goal of presenting a unified perspective from diverse fields such as neuroscience, clinical practice, and contemplative studies. It is hoped that this integrative effort will advance our understanding of how interoception determines well-being, (...) and identify the central challenges to such understanding. To this end, we introduce an expanded taxonomy of interoceptive processes, arguing that many of these processes can be understood through an emerging predictive coding model for mind–body integration. The model, which describes the tension between expected and felt body sensation, parallels contemplative theories, and implicates interoception in a variety of affective and psychosomatic disorders. We conclude that maladaptive construal of bodily sensations may lie at the heart of many contemporary maladies, and that contemplative practices may attenuate these interpretative biases, restoring a person’s sense of presence and agency in the world. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a logical formalization of the emotion triggering process and of its relationship with mental attitudes, as described in Ortony, Clore, and Collins’s theory. We argue that modal logics are particularly adapted to represent agents’ mental attitudes and to reason about them, and use a specific modal logic that we call Logic of Emotions in order to provide logical definitions of all but two of their 22 emotions. While these definitions may be subject to debate, we (...) show that they allow to reason about emotions and to draw interesting conclusions from the theory. (shrink)

This paper evaluates four competing psychological explanations for why the jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial reached the verdict they did: explanatory coherence, Bayesian probability theory, wishful thinking, and emotional coherence. It describes computational models that provide detailed simulations of juror reasoning for explanatory coherence, Bayesian networks, and emotional coherence, and argues that the latter account provides the most plausible explanation of the jury's decision.

The recent philosophical literature on emotional action is divided between Humeans, who think that emotional action, for all its peculiarities, can in fact be explained along Humean lines, that is, with belief–desire pairs; and emotionists, who think that emotional actions can only be explained by appealing to emotions and some of their special features. After reviewing this philosophical discussion, I will argue, first, that none of the philosophical accounts of emotional action analysed, whether Humean or emotionist, is satisfactory enough. Second, (...) I will argue that this philosophical debate has reached a stalemate, which does not allow further progress and which has not been able to provide us with a compelling account of such emotional actions where it is not obvious which is the goal involved. Third, I will argue that in order to overcome this stalemate, we need to approach emotional action in a radically different way. Drawing on ideas from some psychologists, I will suggest that the relevant philosophical issue should be whether emotional action is, or is not, goal-directed. Finally, I will suggest how emotional actions, particularly the most puzzling ones, can be accounted for according to this new approach. (shrink)

It has often been found in the literature that guilt motivates reparative behavior and that shame elicits aggressive reactions. However, recent research suggests that it is not the experience of shame, but rather the experience of humiliation that triggers aggressive reactions. The present study focuses on the role of shame, guilt and humiliation appraisals in predicting the motivation to repair and be aggressive in four different countries, namely Argentina, Belgium, Finland and Portugal. Using multi-group structural equation modeling with situational-level assessments (...) of shame, guilt and humiliation appraisals, we found that guilt appraisals were indeed most likely to motivate reparation, although guilt also had a weak, but positive link to aggression via blaming others. Shame defined as negative self-evaluations had weak positive relations with both aggression and reparation. The experience of being humiliated clearly motivated aggression through blaming others and reduced reparation tendencies. These results were largely stable across the four cultural groups. The present study underlines the need to take humiliation into account when studying the links between guilt, shame and aggression. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to explore the role of emotions, promotion-prevention orientation and feedback on cognitive engagement. In the experiment participants had the possibility to engage in a categorization task thrice. After the first categorization all participants were informed that around 75% of their answers were correct. After the second categorization, depending on the experimental condition, participants received feedback either about success or failure. Involvement in the third categorization was depended on participants’ decision whether to take part in (...) it or not. Each time, before and after categorization, the emotional state was assessed. Results showed that promotion orientation predicted experiencing curiosity before the task, which in turn led to a higher cognitive engagement in the first categorization. Promotion and prevention orientation moderated the type of emotional response to positive feedback. Promotion orientation also predicted cognitive engagement after the feedback of success was provided. Generally results confirmed the positive effect of positive emotions as well as promotion orientation on cognitive engagement. (shrink)

In the philosophical literature, self-deception is mainly approached through the analysis of paradoxes. Yet, it is agreed that self-deception is motivated by protection from distress. In this paper, we argue, with the help of findings from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, that self-deception is a type of affective coping. First, we criticize the main solutions to the paradoxes of self-deception. We then present a new approach to self-deception. Self-deception, we argue, involves three appraisals of the distressing evidence: (a) appraisal of the (...) strength of evidence as uncertain, (b) low coping potential and (c) negative anticipation along the lines of Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis. At the same time, desire impacts the treatment of flattering evidence via dopamine. Our main proposal is that self-deception involves emotional mechanisms provoking a preference for immediate reward despite possible long-term negative repercussions. In the last part, we use this emotional model to revisit the philosophical paradoxes. (shrink)

This article explores emotions and their relationship to ‘somatic responses’, i.e., one’s automatic responses to sensations of pain, cold, warmth, sudden intensity. To this end, it undertakes a Husserlian phenomenological analysis of the first-hand experience of eight basic emotions, briefly exploring their essential aspects: their holistic nature, their identifying dynamic transformation of the lived body, their two-layered intentionality, their involuntary initiation and voluntary espousal. The fact that the involuntary tensional shifts initiating emotions are irreplicatable voluntarily, is taken to show that (...) all emotions have an innate core, a conclusion corroborated by their strong similarities to somatic responses in dynamics, hedonic tone, and topology. The fact that emotions may be culturally reworked, is shown to be explicable in terms of their complex nature: their dependence on belief, their voluntary espousal, and their ready social transmittability. Finally, it is argued that emotions may plausibly be deemed the evolutionary descendants of somatic responses. (shrink)

This article interprets emotional change as a transition in a complex dynamical sys- tem. We argue that the appropriate kind of dynamical system is one that extends recent work on how neural networks can perform parallel constraint satisfaction. Parallel processes that integrate both cognitive and affective constraints can give rise to states that we call emotional gestalts, and transitions can be understood as emotional ges- talt shifts. We describe computational models that simulate such phenomena in ways that show how dynamical (...) and gestalt metaphors can be given a concrete realization. (shrink)

This paper proposes a theory of how conscious emotional experience is produced by the brain as the result of many interacting brain areas coordinated in working memory. These brain areas integrate perceptions of bodily states of an organism with cognitive appraisals of its current situation. Emotions are neural processes that represent the overall cognitive and somatic state of the organism. Conscious experience arises when neural representations achieve high activation as part of working memory. This theory explains numerous phenomena concerning emotional (...) consciousness, including differentiation, integration, intensity, valence, and change. Ó 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This study adopted a positive psychology perspective to investigate positive emotion and foreign language enjoyment among Chinese as a second language learners in an emergency remote teaching context amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A set of 90 preparatory Chinese language students was assessed for their level of foreign language enjoyment using the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale. Participles' scores on self-perceived language achievement and actual test scores were adopted as the measurement of their Chinese language proficiency. The results revealed that: CSL learners (...) experienced high level of FL enjoyment in an online learning context, no significant correlation was found between FLE and leaners' actual language achievement nor between FLE and their self-perceived achievement, female learners showed higher FLE than male learners and gender was found to have a significant effect on FLE-Private, participants' geological location, i.e., whether in China or at home countries, significantly influenced their FLE, participants' regional group was not a significant predictor of FLE, and teacher-related variables and learner self-perceptions of achievement were strong predictors of FLE among CSL learners. The findings highlight the importance of teacher's role in an online learning environment and suggest that FLE may not boost performance in the short term for language beginners but is still conducive in the long run. Implications for both teachers and learners, and suggestions for future researches are provided. (shrink)

Happiness is typically reported as an important reason for participating in challenging activities like extreme sport. While in the middle of the activity, however, participants do not seem particularly happy. So where does the happiness come from? The article proposes some answers from a study of facially expressed emotions measured moment-by-moment during a backcountry skiing event. Self-reported emotions were also assessed immediately after the skiing. Participants expressed lower levels of happiness while skiing, compared to when stopping for a break. Moment-to-moment (...) and self-reported measures of emotions were largely unrelated. These findings are explained with reference to the Functional Wellbeing Approach ( Vittersø, 2013 ), which argues that some moment-to-moment feelings are non-evaluative in the sense of being generated directly by the difficulty of an activity. By contrast, retrospective emotional feelings are more complex as they include an evaluation of the overall goals and values associated with the activity as a whole. (shrink)

Placebos are commonly defined as ineffective treatments. They are treatments that lack a known mechanism linking their properties to the properties of the condition on which treatment aims to intervene. Given this, the fact that placebos can have substantial therapeutic effects looks puzzling. The puzzle, we argue, arises from the relationship placebos present between culturally meaningful entities, our intentional relationship to the environment and bodily effects. How can a mere attitude toward a treatment result in appropriate bodily changes? We argue (...) that an ‘enactive’ conception of cognition accommodates and renders intelligible the phenomenon of placebo effects. Enactivism depicts an organism’s adaptive bodily processes, its intentional directedness, and the meaningful properties of its environment as co-emergent aspects of a single dynamic system. In doing so it provides an account of the interrelations between mind, body and world that demystifies placebo effects. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of human–computer interactions when the computer can interpret and express a kind of human-like behavior, offering natural communication. A conceptual framework for incorporating emotions with rationality is proposed. A model of affective social interactions is described. The model utilizes the SAIBA framework, which distinguishes among several stages of processing of information. The SAIBA framework is extended, and a model is realized in human behavior detection, human behavior interpretation, intention planning, attention tracking behavior planning, and behavior (...) realization components. Two models of incorporating emotions with rationality into a virtual artifact are presented. The first one uses an implicit implementation of emotions. The second one has an explicit realization of a three-layered model of emotions, which is highly interconnected with other components of the system. Details of the model with implicit implementation of emotional behavior are shown as well as evaluation methodology and results. Discussions about the extended model of an agent are given in the final part of the paper. (shrink)

Cognitively-oriented theories have dominated the recent history of the study of emotion. However, critics of this perspective suggest the role of the body in the experience of emotion is largely ignored by cognitive theorists. As an alternative to the cognitive perspective, critics are increasingly pointing to William James’ theory, which emphasized somatic aspects of emotions. This emerging emphasis on the embodiment of emotions is shared by those in the field of AI attempting to model human emotions. Behavior-based agents in AI (...) are attempts to model the role the body might play in the experiencing of emotions. Progress in creating such behavior-based models that function in their environments has been slow, suggesting some potential problems with Jamesian alternatives to cognitive perspectives of emotions. Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s conceptions of embodiment are suggested as alternatives to James’ and as means for addressing the shortcomings of the cognitive perspective. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, empirical researchers have become increasingly interested in explaining the formation of “basic” aesthetic judgments, i.e. simple judgments of sensory preferability and the pleasure that seems to accompany them. To that end, Reber et al. have recently defended a “processing-fluency” view, which identifies aesthetic pleasure with one’s ability to easily process an object’s perceptual properties (e.g. Reber 2012 ). While the processing-fluency theory is certainly an improvement over its competitors, it is currently vulnerable to several serious (...) criticisms. In what follows, I aim to provide a more holistic, explanatorily robust, model of the processing-fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure by incorporating what the view neglects: the crucial role of perceptual disfluency, interest, and the underlying values that drive aesthetic appraisal. (shrink)

Social referencing informs and regulates one’s relation with the environment as a function of the perceived appraisals of social partners. Increased emphasis on relational and social contexts in the study of emotion makes this interpersonal process particularly relevant to the field. However, theoretical conceptualizations and empirical operationalizations of social referencing are disjointed across domains and populations of study. This article seeks to unite and refine the study of this construct by providing a clear and comprehensive definition of social referencing. Our (...) perspective presents social referencing and social appraisal as coterminous processes and emphasizes the importance of a relational and interpersonal approach to the study of emotion. We conclude by outlining possible lines of research on this construct. (shrink)

This article discusses work on implementing emotional and cultural models into synthetic graphical characters. An architecture, FAtiMA, implemented first in the antibullying application FearNot! and then extended as FAtiMA-PSI in the cultural-sensitivity application ORIENT, is discussed. We discuss the modelling relationships between culture, social interaction, and cognitive appraisal. Integrating a lower level homeostatically based model is also considered as a means of handling some of the limitations of a purely symbolic approach. Evaluation to date is summarised and future directions discussed.

Understanding the very nature of the smile with an integrative approach and a novel model is a fertile ground for a new theoretical vision and insights. However, from this perspective, I challenge the authors to integrate culture and race in their model, because both factors would impact upon the embodying and decoding of facial expressions.

Emotion is critical for cultural dynamics, that is, for the formation, maintenance, and transformation of culture over time. We outline the component micro- and macro-level processes of cultural dynamics, and argue that emotion not only facilitates the transmission and retention of cultural information, but also is shaped and crafted by cultural dynamics. Central to this argument is our understanding of emotion as a complete information package that signals the adaptive significance of the information that the agent is processing. It captures (...) an agent’s appraisal about the relationship between themself and the object of emotional focus, as well as action orientation and allostasis in context. We discuss implications of this perspective in the context of the changing natural and geopolitical environment, and future cultural dynamics into the 21st century. (shrink)

Philosophical cognitivists have argued for more than four decades that emotions are special types of judgments. Anti-cognitivists have provided a series of counterexamples aiming to show that identifying emotions with judgments overintellectualizes the emotions. I provide a novel counterexample that makes the overintellectualization charge especially vivid. I discuss neurophysiological evidence to the effect that the fear system can be activated by stimuli the subject is unaware of seeing. To emphasize the analogy with blind sight , I call this phenomenon blind (...) fright . Cognitivists may reply that blindfright is nothing but an unconscious judgment subcortically elicited. This reply is in line with the strategy commonly employed by cognitivists against their critics. I call it the Elastic Strategy, because it consists of ‘stretching’ the notion of judgment in order to accommodate counterexamples. This strategy, I argue, turns cognitivism into a theory that is at worst unfalsifiable and at best trivially true. The final portion of my article aims to rescue cognitivism from the damage done by the Elastic Strategy. I distinguish three varieties of cognitivism, one concerned with what emotions essentially are (Constitutive Cognitivism), one concerned with what causes emotions (Etiological Cognitivism) and one concerned with what emotions represent (Representational Cognitivism). I conclude that what cognitivism has to offer to emotion theory are primarily insights concerning the causes and representational content of emotions. The constitutive identification of emotions with judgments, on the other hand, does more harm than good. (shrink)

Appraisal theories of emotion have had a strong impact on the development of theory and experimental research in the domain of the affective sciences. While there is generally a high degree of convergence between theorists in this tradition, some central issues are open to debate. In this contribution three issues have been chosen for discussion: (a) varieties of relevance detection, (b) varieties of valence appraisal, and (c) sequential-cumulative effects of appraisal results. In addressing these issues, new theoretical ideas are suggested (...) and an update of recent research on the sequence of appraisal processes is provided. Special emphasis is placed on nonverbal signatures of appraisal processes. (shrink)