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6002What is a definition of emotion? And are emotions mental-behavioral processes?Social Science Information 7 (3): 26-29. 2007.[I argue that a precise definition of emotions is neither necessary nor possible prior to empirical research on emotions. It is not necessary because all that is needed for for fruitful research and successful communication is a working definition of emotions, a description that allows to roughly demarcate the class of emotions. It is not possible because precise emotion definitions are real definitions, empirical claims about the essence of emotions. These claims about the nature of emotion are…Read more
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1129What is an Emotion in the Belief-Desire Theory of Emotion?In F. Paglieri, M. Tummolini, F. Falcone & M. Miceli (eds.), The goals of cognition: Essays in honor of Cristiano Castelfranchi, College Publications. forthcoming.Let us assume that the basic claim of the belief-desire theory of emotion is true: What, then, is an emotion? According to Castelfranchi and Miceli (2009), emotions are mental compounds that emerge from the gestalt integration of beliefs, desires, and hedonic feelings (pleasure or displeasure). By contrast, I propose that emotions are affective feelings caused by beliefs and desires, without the latter being a part of the emotion. My argumentation for the causal feeling theory proceeds in three …Read more
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573This paper summarizes a theory of emotions as metarepresentational states of mind (for more detail, see Reisenzein, 1998). The basic idea of the theory is that at least a core set of human emotions including surprise are nonconceptual products of hardwired, metarepresentational mechanisms whose main function is to subserve the monitoring and updating of the two basic forms of propositional representations, beliefs and desires.
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311Wundt's three-dimensional theory of emotionIn W. Balzer, J. D. Sneed & C. U. Moulines (eds.), Structuralist Knowledge Representation: Paradigmatic Examples (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 75, 219-250), Rodopi. pp. 75--219. 2000.ABSTRACT. This chapter presents a reconstruction of Wilhelm Wundt's (1896) three-dimensional theory of emotion from the perspective of the structuralist approach to scientific theories. Wundt's theory, a quantitative theory of the structure of emotional experience, is reconstructed as a small theory-net consisting of the basic theory-element TE(WUNDT) and specializations of this element. The main substantive axiom of TE(WUNDT) postulates that human emotions result from the fusion of a characteri…Read more
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148Emotional Experience in the Computational Belief–Desire Theory of EmotionEmotion Review 1 (3): 214-222. 2009.Based on the belief that computational modeling (thinking in terms of representation and computations) can help to clarify controversial issues in emotion theory, this article examines emotional experience from the perspective of the Computational Belief–Desire Theory of Emotion (CBDTE), a computational explication of the belief–desire theory of emotion. It is argued that CBDTE provides plausible answers to central explanatory challenges posed by emotional experience, including: the phenomenal q…Read more
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147Ten Perspectives on Emotional Experience: Introduction to the Special IssueEmotion Review 1 (3): 195-205. 2009.
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57The Cognitive‐Evolutionary Model of Surprise: A Review of the Evidence (review)Topics in Cognitive Science 11 (1): 50-74. 2019.Research on surprise relevant to the cognitive-evolutionary model of surprise proposed by Meyer, Reisenzein, and Schützwohl is reviewed. The majority of the assumptions of the model are found empirically supported. Surprise is evoked by unexpected events and its intensity is determined by the degree if schema-discrepancy, whereas the novelty and the valence of the eliciting events probably do not have an independent effect. Unexpected events cause an automatic interruption of ongoing mental proc…Read more
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55Coherence between Emotion and Facial Expression: Evidence from Laboratory ExperimentsEmotion Review 5 (1): 16-23. 2013.Evidence on the coherence between emotion and facial expression in adults from laboratory experiments is reviewed. High coherence has been found in several studies between amusement and smiling; low to moderate coherence between other positive emotions and smiling. The available evidence for surprise and disgust suggests that these emotions are accompanied by their “traditional” facial expressions, and even components of these expressions, only in a minority of cases. Evidence concerning sadness…Read more
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55Discriminating emotions from appraisal-relevant situational information: Baseline data for structural models of cognitive appraisalsCognition and Emotion 7 (3-4): 271-293. 1993.
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51Cognition and emotion: a plea for theoryCognition and Emotion 33 (1): 109-118. 2019.Research on cognition and emotion during the past 30 years has made reasonable progress in theory, methods and empirical research. New theories of the cognition–emotion relation have been proposed, emotion research has become more interdisciplinary, and improved methods of emotion measurement have been developed. On the empirical side, the main achievement of the past 30 years is seen to consist in the reduction of the set of serious contenders for a theory of emotions. Still, several important …Read more
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50More on James and the Physical Basis of EmotionEmotion Review 6 (1): 35-46. 2014.We first present a reconstruction of James’s theory of emotion (JATE) and then argue for four theses: (a) Despite constructivist elements, James’s views are overall in line with basic emotions theory. (b) JATE does not exclude an influence of emotion on intentional action even in its original formulation; nevertheless, this influence is quite limited. It seems possible, however, to repair this problem of the theory. (c) Cannon’s theory of emotion is a centralized version of JATE that inherits fr…Read more
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50Varieties of Cognition-Arousal TheoryEmotion Review 9 (1): 17-26. 2017.Three main versions of cognition-arousal theory are distinguished depending on how they interpret the theory’s basic postulate, that an emotion is a function of cognition and arousal: objectivist causal theories, attributional theories, and fusion theories. The objectivist causal and attributional theories each comprise a causal-functional and a part-whole version, and the fusion theory subsumes in particular a categorization and a perceptual integration version. In addition, the attributional v…Read more
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43Arnold's theory of emotion in historical perspectiveCognition and Emotion 20 (7): 920-951. 2006.Magda B. Arnold's theory of emotion is examined from three historical viewpoints. First, I look backward from Arnold to precursors of her theory of emotion in 19th century introspectionist psychology and in classical evolutionary psychology. I try to show that Arnold can be regarded as belonging intellectually to the cognitive tradition of emotion theorising that originated in Brentano and his students, and that she was also significantly influenced by McDougall's evolutionary view of emotion. S…Read more
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39Effects of Mood on Evaluative Judgements: Influence of Reduced Processing Capacity and Mood SalienceCognition and Emotion 12 (6): 783-805. 1998.
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27On Literary Works as Simulations that Run on MindsEmotion Review 1 (1): 35-36. 2009.This commentary discusses Oatley's proposal that literary works considered as simulations that run on minds can fulfill similar epistemic functions as computer simulations of mental processes. Whereas in computer simulation, both the input data and the computations to be performed on these data are explicit, only the input is explicitly known in the case of mental simulation. For this reason, literary simulations cannot play exactly the same epistemic role as computer simulations. Still, literar…Read more
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25Exploring the Strength of Association between the Components of Emotion Syndromes: The Case of SurpriseCognition and Emotion 14 (1): 1-38. 2000.A new experimental paradigm involving a computerised quiz was used to examine, on an intra-individual level, the strength of association between four components of the surprise syndrome: cognitive (degree of prospectively estimated unexpectedness), experiential (the feeling of surprise), behavioural (degree of response delay on a parallel task), and expressive (the facial expression of surprise). It is argued that this paradigm, together with associated methods of data analysis, effectively cont…Read more
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24On oatley and johnson-laird's theory of emotion and hierarchical structures in the affective lexiconCognition and Emotion 9 (4): 383-416. 1995.
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23Tasks for a theoretical psychology of emotionCognition and Emotion 36 (2): 171-187. 2022.It is surprising how far one can get by thinking things through. (Alec Fisher [2004], The logic of real arguments, p. 1)In the first part of the article, the central role of theory in emotion psych...
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21Evidence for the Context Dependence of the Side-Effect EffectJournal of Cognition and Culture 16 (3-4): 267-293. 2016.In four experiments involving 565 German speakers we tested several hypotheses about possible determinants of the side-effect effect, which consists of judging foreseen bad, but not good, side-effects of actions as intentionally produced. Experiment 1 failed to find intentionality ascriptions for bad side-effects for the majority of the participants in two different scenarios and obtained no consistent support for two hypothesized social-cognitive determinants of the see, the agent’s attitude an…Read more
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21Indirect scaling methods for testing quantitative emotion theoriesCognition and Emotion 27 (7): 1247-1275. 2013.
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20Emotional Feelings: Evaluative Perceptions or Position-Takings? Introduction to the Special SectionEmotion Review 14 (4): 233-243. 2022.Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 4, Page 233-243, October 2022. This special section of Emotion Review is devoted to the discussion of a recent philosophical emotion theory, the theory of emotions as affective position-takings. The aims of the special section are to provide readers with a spotlight view of recent research in the philosophy of emotion, to advance emotion theory, and support the interdisciplinary dialogue. To increase the accessibility of the special section texts to a nonphilosop…Read more
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17Emotions as Affective Position-Takings and as Nonconceptual Meta-Representations: A ComparisonEmotion Review 14 (4): 273-278. 2022.The theory of emotions as affective position-takings (PT) is investigated from the perspective of a computational model of the belief-desire theory of emotions (CBDTE) proposed by the author. Both theories assume that a core subset of typical emotion episodes are the products of an evaluation process in which cognized states of affairs are evaluated for their congruence with the person's desires; and that emotions are, on the conscious level, feelings of pleasure and displeasure. However, accord…Read more
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14James and the physical basis of emotion: A comment on EllsworthPsychological Review 102 (4): 757-761. 1995.
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12Back to Arnold? Three Problems for the Social Functional Theory of EmotionEvolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture 6 (1): 43-48. 2022.
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8Ruth Leys. The Ascent of Affect: Genealogy and CritiqueEvolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture 4 (2): 155-162. 2020.
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8The Attributional Approach to Emotion and Motivation: Introduction to a Special Section of Emotion ReviewEmotion Review 6 (4): 332-335. 2014.In this introduction to the special section on the attributional approach to emotion and motivation, the character of Weiner’s attributional theory as an appraisal theory is discussed. I argue that the theory, although focusing on appraisal dimensions related to causal attribution, is actually a fairly general appraisal theory of emotion. Distinctive features of the attributional approach are its pioneering role in emotion research, its emphasis on the functional role of emotions, particularly f…Read more
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4Regel, Norm, Gesetz: eine interdisziplinäre Bestandsaufnahme (edited book)Lang. 2010.Die Beitrage dieses Bandes gingen aus der interdisziplinaren Fachtagung -Was sind Regeln und was leisten sie?- hervor, die im Herbst 2009 im Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald stattfand. Ziel der Tagung war es, die Begriffe Regel, Norm und Gesetz und verwandte Konzepte zu klaren und eine Ubersicht uber die unterschiedlichen Rollen und Funktionen dieser Begriffe in den verschiedenen Wissenschaftsdisziplinen zu gewinnen. Die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven der beteiligten Disziplinen auf …Read more
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1Language and emotion from the Perspective of the Computational Belief-Desire Theory of EmotionIn Emiliano Lorini & Andreas Herzig (eds.), Dynamicity in Emotion Concepts, Springer Verlag. 2012.The relationship between language and emotion is discussed from the perspective of CBDTE, a computational (C) explication of the belief-desire theory of emotion (BDTE). Three claims are defended: First, natural language, humans’ main medium of communication, plays a highly important role in the process of emotion generation; second, natural language is of central importance for the communication of emotions and emotion-related information; third, a language of thought (a language-like mental rep…Read more