Njournal Notes 18. Mulling Emotion Waves or Affective Waves?

Recently we have been discussing the advantage of moving from Waves of Emotion to Waves of Affect.

Excerpts from the article below:

 "emotions arise from cognitive interpretations of core physiological experiences . . .  

circumplex model of affect suggest that all affective states arise from two independent neurophysiological systems, which, for the purposes of discussion here, we term the valence and arousal systems  . . . . 

As emotions are experienced and communicated, cognitive interpretations are employed to identify the neurophysiological changes in the valence and arousal systems and conceptually organize these physiological changes in relation to the eliciting stimuli, memories of prior experiences, behavioral responses, and semantic knowledge 

The circumplex model of affect: An integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology
Jonathan Posner,a,b James A. Russell,c and Bradley S. Petersona,b

The circumplex model of affect proposes that all affective states arise from cognitive interpretations of core neural sensations that are the product of two independent neurophysiological systems. This model stands in contrast to theories of basic emotions, which posit that a discrete and independent neural system subserves every emotion.

We propose that basic emotion theories no longer explain adequately the vast number of empirical observations from studies in affective neuroscience, and we suggest that a conceptual shift is needed in the empirical approaches taken to the study of emotion and affective psychopathologies. The circumplex model of affect is more consistent with many recent findings from behavioral, cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, and developmental studies of affect. Moreover, the model offers new theoretical and empirical approaches to studying the development of affective disorders as well as the genetic and cognitive underpinnings of affective processing within the central nervous system. 

Basic emotion theorists have primarily explored the behavioral and expressive manifestations of emotion. Investigations of the subjective, or experiential, components of emotion, rather than supporting a one to one correspondence between a discrete emotion and an underlying neural system, have instead suggested that emotions arise from cognitive interpretations of core physiological experiences (Cacioppo et al., 2000; Russell, 2003). 

Mulling


The reality is that "emotion" are the conscious interpretations of physical states within the body. The physical state within the body are interactions between the material conditions outside the body, cognitive interpretations and affect created by the actions of two neural systems in the body.

So Emotion = affWave + cogWave + mWaves.  According to the paper, emotions are on various spectrums. Bored to calm, depressed to serene, sad to contented, upset to happy, stressed to elated, nervous to excited. 

The circumplex model of affect proposes that all affective states arise from cognitive interpretations of core neural sensations that are the product of two independent neurophysiological systems. This model stands in contrast to theories of basic emotions, which posit that a discrete and independent neural system subserves every emotion. We propose that basic emotion theories no longer explain adequately the vast number of empirical observations from studies in affective neuroscience, and we suggest that a conceptual shift is needed in the empirical approaches taken to the study of emotion and affective psychopathologies. The circumplex model of affect is more consistent with many recent findings from behavioral, cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, and developmental studies of affect. Moreover, the model offers new theoretical and empirical approaches to studying the development of affective disorders as well as the genetic and cognitive underpinnings of affective processing within the central nervous system.