Lindquist et al. convincingly argue that the brain implements psychological operations that are constitutive of emotion rather than modules subserving discrete emotions. However, the nature of such psychological operations is open to debate. I argue that considering appraisal theories may provide alternative interpretations of the neuroimaging data with respect to the psychological operations involved.

An emotional episode consists of psychological, physiological, motor and expressive components that are tied together. Present theories and previous contributions by gestalt theorists to emotions are discussed. It is shown that the synergetic system theory represents a fruitful model for emotional processes, in which self-organisation plays a central role. Also, a selection of neuropsychological findings in this context is taken into account.

In addition to active wake, emotions are generated and experienced in a variety of functionally different states such as those of sleep, during which external stimulation and cognitive control are lacking. The neural basis of emotions can be specified by regarding the multitude of emotion-related brain states, as well as the distinct neuro- and psychodynamic stages (generation and regulation) of emotional experience.

In this paper, we contrast the different ways in which the representationalist and the attitudinalist in the theory of emotions account for the fact that emotions have evaluative correctness conditions. We argue that the attitudinalist has the resources to defend her view against recent attacks from the representationalist. To this end, we elaborate on the idea that emotional attitudes have a rich profile and explain how it supports the claim that these attitudes generate the wished-for evaluative correctness conditions. Our argument (...) rests on the idea that emotional attitudes manifest a sensitivity to evaluative evidence and that this sensitivity secures the kind of normativity we expect of the emotions. We bring our discussion to a close by assessing whether the psychological underpinnings of this sensitivity to evaluative evidence are such as to threaten the foundation of attitudinalism: the idea that emotions do not represent values. Given the available models of how we might access values prior to emotional experience, we conclude that the attitudinalist is still in the game. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to characterize the knowledge about the joy in children with mild intellectual disability. The premises relating to mental functioning of these children suggest that this knowledge is poorer and less complex than the knowledge of their peers in the intellectual norm. The study used the authoring tool to measure children’s knowledge of emotions including the joy. This tool takes into account the cognitive representation of the basic emotions available in three codes: image, verbal, semantic (...) and interconnection between the codes - perception, symbolization and conceptualization which perform the functions of perception, expression and understanding. The study included children with the intellectual norm and children with mild intellectual disability. The obtained results mainly indicate the differences in how the happiness is understood by particular groups, to the detriment of children with disability. The character of the results is largely determined by the level of organization of knowledge about the joy and accompanying mental operations. The results will be discussed, among others, in the context of the adjustment of the programs of lasting increase of happiness for people with intellectual disability. (shrink)

The main focus of the paper is the role of listeners’ emotion-relevant characteristics and musical expertise in the granularity of affective responses to music. Another objective of the study is to test the consistency of the granularity of affect that is perceived in music and/or experienced in response to it. In Experiment 1, 91 musicians and nonmusicians listened to musical excerpts and grouped them according to the similarity of the affects they experienced while listening. Finer grouping granularity was found in (...) musicians and high rumination scorers. Male musicians with above-median scores in rumination produced a larger number of clusters than the other male participants. Experiment 2 that engaged 23 participants demonstrated moderate consistency with which listeners grouped affects that they perceived in music and affects they experienced while listening to music. The study suggests that affective responses to music are subject to individual differences in musical expertise and rumination. Affects perceived in music and felt in response to it seem to be categorized with reference to the common principles. However, the cues that are used in such instances of categorization seem to be different. The paper encourages further research on the importance of listeners’ personal characteristics for the affective responses to music. (shrink)

Jesse Prinz proposes that attended intermediate-level representations are sufficient for conscious awareness. He extends this claim to emotion, arguing that attention is the mechanism that separates conscious from unconscious emotions. Prior studies call this entailment into question. However, they do not directly address the intermediate-level requirement, and thus cannot decisively refute the AIR theory of consciousness. This thesis tests that theory by manipulating participants’ attention to different features of subliminally processed words while recording both behavioral and electroencephalogram data. Both measures (...) suggest that subliminally processed stimuli are attended according to participants’ conscious intention to complete a task. In addition, the EEG data demonstrate that intermediate-level neural activity was modulated by the subliminal stimuli. Thus, these results suggest that AIRs are not sufficient for conscious emotion. This finding undermines Prinz’s AIR theory, and its account of the distinction between conscious and unconscious emotion. (shrink)