Imagine a situation where a young adult has to approach an attractive person of the opposite sex that he (or increasingly nowadays she) wants to ask out for a date. On one hand intense crush propels him/her forward and on the other hand there is severe nervousness due to fears of getting turned down. For a young person, getting to go out with the person one has a crush on can be gravely important and there are intense autonomic nervous system / bodily reactions such as heart beating faster, voice cracking, and palms sweating. Imagining a situation such as this, one can appreciate the significance of emotions in bringing about motivation to select and pursue goals in life. Indeed, one is constantly being pushed towards certain things and repelled away from certain others due to anticipation/prediction of rewarding and unwanted outcomes, respectively.

Despite the significance of emotions for human cognition, it was still not long ago that cognition was surprisingly widely thought to be separable from emotions. It was also widely held that emotions would be too difficult and elusive a phenomenon to study rigorously in laboratory or neuroimaging settings. As a result of this, the bulk of cognitive neuroscience research has in the past focused on studying cognitive and perceptual processes. Research on emotions and the underlying neural mechanisms has only begun to flourish relatively recently. This surge in interest towards emotions is highly important, given that emotions are the core driving force that builds motivation and influences goal directed behavior; in many ways cognition and perception are never quite separable from emotions. To begin the description of cognitive neuroscience of emotions, different ways that emotions have been defined will be introduced first.

Definitions of emotions

When observing the behavior of lower animals, it becomes obvious that emotions are behaviorally manifested in two types of behavior: the animals are attracted towards certain objects in their environment such as food, sweets, or water, and withdraw or flee away from others, such as threatening predators. In humans, of course, emotions are manifested in a more complex manner than (at least what can be observed) in animals, and there are countless words for different flavors of emotions and feelings, such as angry, longing, sad, depressed, melancholic, happy, overjoyed, in love etc. This has motivated researchers to attempt to define “core” or “basic” emotional states.


Certain well established definitions of emotions go even further in the attempt to reduce dimensionality of emotion definitions, and are not all that different from what is seen in emotional behaviors of animals. In these models, where emotions are placed on two dimensions called valence and arousal, emotions are seen as helping humans to adapt to the environment as optimally as possible, by allowing determination of whether something is good or bad, and how significant it is. To complement these views, there are separate definitions for aesthetic emotions as the definitions of basic/dimensional emotions have failed to capture the breadth of feelings that occur when, for instance, listening to music or watching movies (Zentner et al., 2008). The models of basic emotions and dimensional emotion models are outlined in more detail in the following.


Basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise

In search for human core emotions, researchers have shown sets of photographs displaying faces expressing various emotions to subjects from different cultures. This way, it has been possible to show that there are at least six emotional expressions that are relatively consistent across cultures (Ekman et al., 1969). These emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise . The fact that these “basic” emotional expressions are present across cultures has been taken to suggest that they are based on human biology rather than shaped by culture. The number of basic emotions has been a topic of some debate. There is evidence suggesting that contempt would be a distinct, culturally universal, seventh basic emotion (Ekman and Heider, 1988). On the other hand, it has been sometimes argued that surprise would not be a genuine basic emotion, as it is easily confused with fear. Nonetheless, the theory of basic emotions has been a very influential one in cognitive neuroscience.

Posted Date: 7/7/2012 6:45:08 AM | Location : United States

Ask an Expert

Related Discussions:- Definitions of emotions, Assignment Help, Ask Question on Definitions of emotions, Get Answer, Expert's Help, Definitions of emotions Discussions

Write discussion on Definitions of emotions
Your posts are moderated

Write your message here..

Related Questions

Mr, Mississippi can be broken down into eight geographical regions. Mississippi can be broken down into eight geographical regions.

Fact finding, Explain observation method of fact finding with examples Explain observation method of fact finding with examples

ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOR, A large unit manufacturing electrical goods which ha... A large unit manufacturing electrical goods which has been known for its liberal personnel policies and fringe benefits is facing the problem of low productivity and high absenteei

RN, use of play therapy in nursing process: A prospective randomized contro... use of play therapy in nursing process: A prospective randomized controlled study 20estion #Minimum 100 words accepted#

Critical stage of the policy process, Question 1: "Public Policy gives ... Question 1: "Public Policy gives one a better understanding of what governments do, why they do what they do and what difference public policy makes to the lives and circumstan

Feminist research methodologies:, Feminist Research Methodologies: Feminis... Feminist Research Methodologies: Feminist research is research which is carried out by women who identify as feminists, and which has a particular purpose for knowing (a `why'), p

International business , is there a website to outsource my homework? is there a website to outsource my homework?

Benefits of smart cards, Benefits Smart cards can be used for recogn... Benefits Smart cards can be used for recognition, authentication, and data storage. Smart cards offer a means of implementation business transactions in a flexible, secur

What are the objectives of eia, Question 1 What are the objectives of E... Question 1 What are the objectives of EIA? Explain the benefits of EIA. What parameters must be considered in impact prediction and decision-making? Question 2 Discu

Child and adolescent behavior, reflect on this anecdotal phrase that one mi... reflect on this anecdotal phrase that one might hear, “I did that with my children and it worked fine for them.”