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112Episodic Memory as Re-Experiential Memory: Kantian, Developmental, and Neuroscientific CurrentsReview of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (3): 391-411. 2014.Recent work on the early development of episodic memory in my laboratory has been fuelled by the following assumption: if episodic memory is re-experiential memory then Kant’s analysis of the spatiotemporal nature of experience should constrain and positively influence theories of episodic memory development. The idea is that re-experiential memory will “inherit” these spatiotemporal features. On the basis of this assumption, Russell and Hanna (Mind and Language 27(1):29–54, 2012) proposed that …Read more
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108A Minimalist Approach to the Development of Episodic MemoryMind and Language 27 (1): 29-54. 2012.Episodic memory is usually regarded in a Conceptualist light, in the sense of its being dependent upon the grasp of concepts directly relevant to the act of episodic recollection itself, such as a concept of past times and of the self as an experiencer. Given this view, its development is typically timed as being in the early school-age years. We present a minimalist, Non-Conceptualist approach in opposition to this view, but one that also exists in clear contrast to the kind of minimalism espou…Read more
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97Core affect and the psychological construction of emotionPsychological Review 110 (1): 145-172. 2003.
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81Descriptive and Prescriptive Definitions of EmotionEmotion Review 2 (4): 377-378. 2010.Izard (2010) did not seek a descriptive definition of emotion—one that describes the concept as it is used by ordinary folk. Instead, he surveyed scientists’ prescriptive definitions—ones that prescribe how the concept should be used in theories of emotion. That survey showed a lack of agreement today and thus raised doubts about emotion as a useful scientific concept
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72Emotion, core affect, and psychological constructionCognition and Emotion 23 (7): 1259-1283. 2009.As an alternative to using the concepts of emotion, fear, anger, and the like as scientific tools, this article advocates an approach based on the concepts of core affect and psychological construction, expanding the domain of inquiry beyond “emotion”. Core affect is a neurophysiological state that underlies simply feeling good or bad, drowsy or energised. Psychological construction is not one process but an umbrella term for the various processes that produce: (a) a particular emotional episode…Read more
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42The association between imitation recognition and socio-communicative competencies in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)Frontiers in Psychology 6 125377. 2015.Imitation recognition provides a viable platform from which advanced social cognitive skills may develop. Despite evidence that non-human primates are capable of imitation recognition, how this ability is related to social cognitive skills is unknown. In this study, we compared imitation recognition performance, as indicated by the production of testing behaviors, with performance on a series of tasks that assess social and physical cognition in 49 chimpanzees. In the initial analyses, we found …Read more
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36Universality RevisitedEmotion Review 5 (1): 8-15. 2013.Evidence does not support the claim that observers universally recognize basic emotions from signals on the face. The percentage of observers who matched the face with the predicted emotion (matching score) is not universal, but varies with culture and language. Matching scores are also inflated by the commonly used methods: within-subject design; posed, exaggerated facial expressions (devoid of context); multiple examples of each type of expression; and a response format that funnels a variety …Read more
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34Mixed Emotions Viewed from the Psychological Constructionist PerspectiveEmotion Review 9 (2): 111-117. 2017.Feeling bad is one thing, judging something to be bad another. This hot/cold distinction helps resolve the debate between bipolar and bivariate accounts of affect. A typical affective reaction includes both core affect and judgments of the affective qualities of various aspects of the stimulus situation. Core affect is described by a bipolar valence dimension in which feeling good precludes simultaneously feeling bad and vice versa. Judgments of affective quality of opposite valence can occur si…Read more
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29Do proposed facial expressions of contempt, shame, embarrassment, and compassion communicate the predicted emotion?Cognition and Emotion 25 (5): 898-906. 2011.
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28Children's and adults' understanding of the “disgust face”Cognition and Emotion 22 (8): 1513-1541. 2008.No abstract
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28Shame as a Culture-Specific Emotion ConceptJournal of Cognition and Culture 18 (3-4): 274-292. 2018.On the assumption that shame is a universal emotion, cross-cultural research on shame relies on translations assumed to be equivalent in meaning. Our studies here questioned that assumption. In three studies,shamewas compared to its translations in Spanish and in Malayalam. American English speakers usedshamefor the emotional reaction to moral failures and its use correlated positively withguilt, whereasvergüenzaandnanakeduwere used less for moral stories and their use correlated less with the g…Read more
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25Comments on articles by frijda and by conway and bekerianCognition and Emotion 1 (2): 193-197. 1987.
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24In defense of a psychological constructionist account of emotion: Reply to ZacharJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 28 (2): 423-429. 2008.Comment on an article by Peter Zachar An account of emotion must include categories and dimensions. Categories because humans categorize reality, and a person's categorization of their own state influences aspects of that state. Dimensions because humans are always in some state of Core Affect, which varies by degree along dimensions of valence and activation . In Psychological Construction, Core Affect and a host of other "components" are separate on-going processes, always in some pattern. Occ…Read more
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23Is it disgusting to be reminded that you are an animal?Cognition and Emotion 31 (7): 1318-1332. 2017.Six studies tested the hypothesis that being reminded of our animal nature makes us feel disgust. Participants from three cultural groups indicated the intensity of their disgust reactions to pleasant and unpleasant animal reminder stories and pictures as well as to a statement directly reminding them of their animal nature. Findings did not support the hypothesis: Pleasant animal reminders reminded respondents of their animal nature, but were not disgusting. The direct reminder of our animal na…Read more
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22Facial expressions as performances in mimeCognition and Emotion 32 (3): 494-503. 2017.That facial expressions are universal emotion signals has been supported by observers agreeing on the emotion mimed by actors. We show that actors can mime a diverse range of states: emotions, cognitions, physical states, and actions. English, Hindi, and Malayalam speakers viewed 25 video clips and indicated the state conveyed. Within each language, at least 23 of the 25 clips were recognised above chance and base rate. Facial expressions of emotions are not special in their recognisability, and…Read more
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22The within-subjects design in the study of facial expressionsCognition and Emotion 27 (6): 1062-1072. 2013.
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21Emotions are not modulesIn Luc Faucher & Christine Tappolet (eds.), The modularity of emotions, University of Calgary Press. pp. 53-71. 2008.
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21Cognisance and cognitive science. Part two: Towards an empirical psychology of cognisancePhilosophical Psychology 2 (2): 165-201. 1989.Abstract In the first part of this essay (Russell, 1988a) I argued that ?cognisance? (roughly: a subject's knowledge of his relation to the physical world as an experiencer of it) cannot be explained in terms of a syntactic theory of mind, due to the ?referential? and ?holistic? nature of this knowledge. The syntactic account of the higher mental functions is immediately intelligible to us due to its derivation from computer technology, so this would not appear to be a happy result for scientifi…Read more
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21The Psychological Construction of Emotion (edited book)Guilford Press. 2014.This volume presents cutting-edge theory and research on emotions as constructed events rather than fixed, essential entities. It provides a thorough introduction to the assumptions, hypotheses, and scientific methods that embody psychological constructionist approaches. Leading scholars examine the neurobiological, cognitive/perceptual, and social processes that give rise to the experiences Western cultures call sadness, anger, fear, and so on. The book explores such compelling questions as how…Read more
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20The English word disgust has no exact translation in Hindi or MalayalamCognition and Emotion 31 (6): 1169-1180. 2017.Do different languages have a translation for the English word disgust that labels the same underlying concept? If not, the English word might label a culture-specific concept. Four studies compared disgust to its common translation in Hindi and in Malayalam by examining two components of the concept thought of as a script: causal antecedent and facial expression. The English word was used to refer to reactions to both unclean substances and moral violations; Hindi and Malayalam translations ref…Read more
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20Space and time in episodic memoryIn L. Filipovic & K. M. Jaszczolt (eds.), Space and Time in Languages and Cultures: Language, Culture, and Cognition, John Benjamins. pp. 283. 2012.
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17Four Perspectives on the Psychology of Emotion: An IntroductionEmotion Review 6 (4): 291-291. 2014.
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17On the limits of the relation of disgust to judgments of immoralityFrontiers in Psychology 6. 2015.
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16Emotions Are Not ModulesCanadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (sup1): 53-71. 2006.Jane is calmly strolling through the forest one lovely day. Suddenly, a large spider drops in front of her face. She immediately freezes; her heart races; her hands tremble; her face broadcasts “fear.” She screams and runs away. Both before and after, she concedes that spiders in this forest are harmless.Jane's reaction to the spider contrasts greatly with the way she normally reacts to events. Normally, or so the story goes, Jane weighs her options thoughtfully, choosing a course of action cons…Read more
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16On the Invalidity of Neta and Kim's Argument That Surprise is Always ValencedEmotion Review 16 (1): 64-67. 2024.In a challenge to Basic Emotion theories, Ortony suggested in a recent article that the existence of affect-free surprise means that surprise is not necessarily valenced and therefore arguably not an emotion. In an article in response, Neta and Kim argued that surprise is always valenced and therefore is an emotion, with apparent cases of affect-free surprise actually being cases of the cognitive state of unexpectedness rather than surprise. We view Neta and Kim's position as resting on an idios…Read more
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