Consciousness & Emotion Agency, conscious choice, and selective perception
Consciousness & Emotion Book Series Consciousness & Emotion Book Series publishes original works on this topic, in philosophy, psychology and the neurosciences. The series emphasizes thoughtful analysis of the implications of both empirical and experiential (e.g., clinical psychological) approaches to emotion. It will include topical works by scientists who are interested in the implications of their empirical findings for an understanding of emotion and consciousness and their interrelations.
Editors Ralph D. Ellis
Natika Newton
Clark Atlanta University
Nassau County Community College, NY
Editorial Board Carl M. Anderson
Maxim I. Stamenov
McLean Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, Cambridge, MA
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Bill Faw Brewton Parker College, Mt. Vernon, GA
Eugene T. Gendlin University of Chicago
Douglas F. Watt Quincy Hospital, Boston, MA
Peter Zachar Auburn University, Montgomery, AL
Jaak Panksepp Bowling Green State University, OH
Advisory Editors Bernard J. Baars
Alfred R. Mele
Wright Institute, Berkeley, CA
Florida State University, Talahassee, FL
Thomas C. Dalton
Martin Peper
California Polytechnic Institute, San Luis Obispo, CA
University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
Nicholas Georgalis
Edward Ragsdale
East Carolina Univeristy, Greenville, NC
New York, NY
George Graham
Howard Shevrin
Wake Forest University, Wake Forest, North Carolina
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Valerie Gray Hardcastle
Lynn Stephens
Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, VA
University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL
Alfred W. Kaszniak
Kathleen Wider
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
University of Michigan, Dearborn, MI
Volume 1 Consciousness & Emotion: Agency, conscious choice, and selective perception Edited by Ralph D. Ellis and Natika Newton
Consciousness & Emotion Agency, conscious choice, and selective perception
Edited by
Ralph D. Ellis Clark Atlanta University
Natika Newton Nassau County Community College, NY
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Consciousness & Emotion : agency, conscious choice, and selective perception / edited by Ralph D. Ellis and Natika Newton p. cm. (Consciousness & Emotion Book Series, v. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Emotions and cognition. 2. Intentionalism. BF311.C64455 152.4-dc22
2005 2004062311
isbn 90 272 3228 8 (Eur.) / 1 58811 596 8 (US) (Hb; alk. paper) © 2005 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
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Table of contents
Introduction ix Ralph D. Ellis and Natika Newton I. Emotional influences on perception and thought Subjective prerequisites for the construction of an objective world 3 Gudmund J. W. Smith and Ingegerd Carlsson Energetic effects of emotions on cognitions: Complementary psychobiological and psychosocial findings 23 Luc Ciompi and Jaak Panksepp Negative affective states’ effects on perception of affective pictures 57 F. Pahlavan and T. Lubart Neural development: Affective and immune system influences 81 George F. R. Ellis and Judith A. Toronchuk Consciousness, emotion and face: An event-related potentials (ERP) study 121 Michela Balconi and Claudio Lucchiari Phenomenal consciousness, sense impressions, and the logic of ‘What it’s like’ 137 David Beisecker II. Agency and choice Exposing the covert agent 157 Anton Lethin Doing it and meaning it: And the relationship between the two 181 Marek McGann and Steve Torrance Anticipatory consciousness, Libet’s veto and a close-enough theory of free will 197 Azim F. Shariff and Jordan B. Peterson Freud’s phenomenology of the emotions 217 Thomas Natsoulas
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Verbal expressions of self and emotions: A taxonomy with implications for Alexithymia and related disorders 243 Louise Sundararajan and Lenhart K. Schubert III. Agency and moral value Apt affect: Moral concept mastery and the phenomenology of emotions 287 Elisa A. Hurley The Varieties of Religious Experience considered from the perspective of James’s account of the stream of consciousness 303 Thomas Natsoulas Index 327
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Author addresses
Michela Balconi Catholic University of Milan Department of Psychology Largo Gemelli 1 I-20123 MILAN Italy
[email protected] David Beisecker Department of Philosophy University of Nevada, Las Vegas 4505 Maryland Pkwy, Box 455028 Las Vegas, NV 89154 USA Ingegerd Carlsson Department of Psychology Lund University, Box 213 SE-221 00 LUND Sweden
Ralph D. Ellis Clark Atlanta University Campus P.O. Box 81 ATLANTA, GA 30314 USA
[email protected] Glenn Geher Department of Psychology JFT 314 State University of New York 75 South Manheim Boulevard New Paltz, NY 12561 USA
[email protected] Elisa Hurley Philosophy Department New North Building, 2nd Floor Georgetown University 37th and O Streets, NW Washington, D.C. 20009 USA
Luc Ciompi Sozialpsychiatrische Universitätsklinik Murtenstrasse 21 CH-3010 BERN Switzerland
Anton Lethin 300 Moncada Way San Francisco, CA 94127 USA
[email protected]
George F. R. Ellis Mathematics Department University of Cape Town Rondebosch 7701 Cape Town South Africa
[email protected]
Todd Lubart Université René Descartes Institut de Psychologie Laboratoire de Psychologie sociale 71 Av. Edouard Vaillant F-92774 BOULOGNE CEDEX France
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Author addresses
Marek McGann Dept. of Psychology DBS School of Arts Balfe St., Dublin 2 Ireland Thomas Natsoulas Department of Psychology University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616 USA
[email protected] Natika Newton Nassau County Comm. College Philosophy Dept. Garden City, NY 11530 USA
[email protected] Farzaneh Pahlavan Université René Descartes Institut de Psychologie Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale 71, Av. Edouard Vaillant 92774 Boulogne cedex France Jaak Panksepp Bowling Green State University JP Scott Center for Neuroscience, Mind and Behavior Department of Psychology Bowling Green, OH 43403-0228 USA
[email protected] Jordan Peterson Psychology Department University of Toronto 100 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario Canada
Lenhart K. Schubert University of Rochester Computer Science Department Rochester NY 14627-0226 USA
[email protected] Azim F. Shariff Psychology Department University of Toronto 100 St. George St. Toronto, Ontario Canada Gudmund J.W. Smith Department of Psychology Lund University, Box 213 SE-221 00 LUND Sweden Dr. Louise Sundararajan 691 French Road Rochester, NY 14618 USA
[email protected] Judith A. Toronchuk Psychology Department Trinity Western University 7600 Glover Road Langley, B.C. V2Y 1Y1 Canada Steve Torrance School of Health & Social Sciences Middlesex University Enfield, EN3 4SF United Kingdom
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Introduction Ralph D. Ellis and Natika Newton
The papers in this volume are organized around the central theme of “Enactivism”, a topic that is very dear to both editors and that has previously been explored in several articles in the journal Consciousness & Emotion. The term “enaction” was coined by Varela et al. (1991), and is related to the “embodiment” (Clark 1997) movement in cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind. The term “embodiment” is often misused to mean little more than the thesis that the subject has a body, or that mental processes have physiological correlates. “Enactive” is more resistant to this misuse. Enactive processes, as the name implies, are enacted rather than merely undergone by their subjects. In the case of emotion, we are not merely the recipients of information or the passive victims of input and learning. The organism first is engaged in an ongoing, complex pattern of self-organizational activity, for the purpose of maintaining a dynamical continuity of pattern across changes of subserving micro-constituents and environmental conditions. This dynamical structure, which allows organisms to seek out, appropriate, replace and reshape their own micro-constituents as well as environmental affordances (within limits) makes use of multiple shunt mechanisms, feedback loops, and other features of complex dynamical systems. This self-organizational structure can be used to distinguish between action (in the most primitive, minimal sense) and mere reaction. Not all of the authors in this volume speak the same theoretical language, but they all contribute to understanding the active rather than passive basis of emotional processes, and the way those in turn are needed to ground other conscious processes, including attention and perception. The papers are focused on three aspects of the emotion-grounded enaction of conscious processes.
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Part I. Emotional influences on perception and thought The notion that emotion influences perception and thought in major ways – not just “coloring” them in an additive way, but actually grounding them and at least partly determining their content and perhaps even their possibility – is an idea that has been gaining favor very recently. It is demonstrated empirically in several of the papers in the current volume. At a theoretical level, Smith and Carlsson explore in a multi-disciplinary way the influence of emotionallydetermined subjective categories on the way we construct the objective world in general. This paper will be especially interesting to phenomenologicallyoriented readers. Ciompi and Panksepp show from two different approaches in what way emotion influences cognition. In an empirical study, Pahlavan and Lubart, focusing on behavioral correlates and using an emotional face-toface recognition paradigm, conclude that perceptual objects selectively enter our emotional awareness depending on their emotional valence. Balconi and Lucchiari, taking a more neurophysiological approach, use event related potentials to reach a conclusion that overlaps significantly with that of Pahlavan and Lubart. The David Beisecker paper is located squarely in the analytic philosophy of mind tradition, and attempts to dispel the notion that the “what it’s like” dimension of consciousness is unexplainable within a physicalist framework; here too, consciousness emerges as something the subject does rather than information that is received by the subject. While it may be mysterious that one person cannot receive the same information that another can, it is not so mysterious that one person cannot literally execute numerically the same actions as another – though the actions of two different people may be similar or even interactive. To complete this section on emotional influences on perception and thought, the paper by Ellis (no relation) and Toronchuk explores two theoretical hypotheses that have already achieved a good bit of empirical grounding, and both of which reflect in different ways the self-organizing processes underlying motivated organisms: Panksepp’s idea that endogenous emotional systems in the brain already motivate highly complex emotional processes that are not based on learning and conditioning by association with simpler emotions; and Edelman’s “neural Darwinism” hypothesis. What both of these theories have in common is that they explain highly complex motivational influences on behavior in terms of endogenous features of the way systems are organized, rather than emphasizing classical and instrumental conditioning as ways for complex valence-directed attitudes (emotions, motivations, feelings, and be-
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Introduction
havioral dispositions) to develop. The authors conclude that both the Panksepp and the Edelman dimensions are needed, in a coherent synthesis.
Part II. Agency and choice Part II explicitly addresses enactive approaches to the as-yet poorly understood phenomenon of agency. In everyday experience, our own goal-directed agency is one of the most commonplace features, yet it is so difficult to find a place for it in the sciences of modernity that many have simply denied the very existence of the phenomenon, concluding that our feeling that we direct our own actions is a mere illusion – as recently argued by Daniel Wegner (2002). The authors of this section all reject that solution, and attempt to develop an understanding of agency that can also meet Wegner’s challenge by being grounded in good science. The two papers by Lethin and by McGann and Torrance are review papers outlining the self-organizational distinction between action and reaction, or between activity and passivity, in specifically enactive terms. Shariff and Peterson directly take up the central argument of Wegner, which is rooted in the Libet (1999) finding that a “readiness potential” precedes the conscious awareness of deciding to act. Shariff and Peterson offer an alternative account of why Libet’s readiness potential precedes conscious awareness yet does not eliminate the phenomenon of agency, based on original empirical findings as well as analysis of other studies. Thomas Natsoulas looks at the phenomenology of unconscious emotional influences on consciousness, comparing the arguments of Freud with the competing claims of James. At issue is the phenomenology of our access to emotional states in general. Does the consciousness of an object also contain consciousness of our own consciousness, or must we, as James argued, go outside and “look back in” to “introspect” our consciousness, thus making it into an object? But paradoxically, Freud, who believed like Husserl that selfconsciousness is built into all of our consciousness, and needs only to be separated out from it, also famously argued that there are unconscious emotional processes that are every bit as complex and sophisticated as our conscious ones. Natsoulas presents an integrated picture of how this is possible. In the last paper of this section, Sundararajan and Schubert approach the problem of unconscious emotional influences on our behavioral and conscious processes from the reverse direction, developing an entire methodology for studying unconscious emotional contents – a psycholinguistic approach, grounded in psychotherapy research. Their focus is the phenomenon of alex-
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ithymia, the inability to access one’s own emotional contents and feeling processes. Using psychotherapy data based on years of research with alexithymics as well as normal subjects, they develop a way to correlate linguistic patterns with unconscious emotional contents. This methodology should be highly useful to those whose work involves either studying unconscious emotional processes, or treating them therapeutically.
Part III. Agency and moral value Finally, we should not overlook the fact that agency, the fact that we act rather than just react to inputs, is an important dimension in all kinds of philosophical problems, including ethical ones. The two papers of this section explore this moral dimension. Elisa Hurley uses a combination of phenomenological and analytic methods to address the problem of moral concept mastery from the standpoint of agency. And Thomas Natsoulas here again explores the thinking of James, this time in The Varieties of Religious Experience, considered in terms of James’s overall thinking about the nature of consciousness, from a critical perspective.
References Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body and world together again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Libet, B. (1999). Do we have free will? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, 47–58. Varela, F., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991/1993). The embodied mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wegner, D. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.
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P I
Emotional influences on perception and thought
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Subjective prerequisites for the construction of an objective world Gudmund J. W. Smith and Ingegerd Carlsson Lund University, Sweden
Starting with the assumption that perception is not merely a reaction to outside stimulation but a process of creation, although mostly brief and inaccessible to conscious retrieval, the present paper attempts to determine the prerequisites of a stable and secure account of reality. The authors’ leading hypothesis is that a dependable end product of adaptive and constructive processes is contingent on open communication with its subjective/emotional origins. A number of experiments offer empirical support for such an assumption. These experiments also address problems associated with creative functioning, anxiety, and defensive strategies. The general conclusion of this survey is that how we conceive of the outside world is determined, not only by the terminal stages of adaptive and constructive processes but by the entire course of these events, including its subjective/emotional origins. Keywords: perceptgenesis, anxiety, psychological defenses, perception, subjectivity, consciousness, emotional adaptivity
This paper argues that the stability of an objective conception of reality depends on the accessibility of its subjective roots. Such a statement presupposes that perception is not just conceived as a sensorial depiction of what happens to exist out there, an on-the-spot imprint of the stimulus context. Instead, perception is envisaged as the outcome of constructive processes, or recurrent pulses, originating in personal experience. This perceptgenetic position, in many respects at odds with more fashionable assumptions in contemporary psychology, will be spelled out more fully in what follows. We will also use material from two previous studies to illustrate that lack of subjective underpinnings threatens the firmness of our perceptual world. In a similar spirit Tomkins (1991) held that without the “cement of affects” the individual’s sense
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of coherence and sameness over time would be jeopardized. Since an open communication between the consensual present and previous non-adapted stages of the perceptgeneses is a requirement for creative functioning, as we understand it, creativity will form a substantial part of the present survey.
Perceptgeneses The notion that percepts are not just reflections of stimulation impinging on sensory surfaces but rather products of constructive processes, however brief and blocked from introspection, was first formulated in the nineteen-twenties. These early phases of what was then termed Aktualgenese (in Germany) and microgenesis (in the US) were revived half a century ago by Werner (1956). Brown (2002) used the same term in a neurophysiological context. The term perceptgenesis was coined in Sweden to account for the fact that most empirical research in the area concerned perception (for a recent account, see Smith 2001). It is important to realize, however, that perception in early continental Aktualgenese was kept separate from other functions, such as memorizing, and particularly the area termed personality with its aura of emotions and irrational dynamics. Indeed, the notion that perception could be an approach to personality did not surface in the US until the middle of last century (Blake & Ramsey 1951). But if we assume that perceptgeneses represent series of subsequent actualizations of the personal world, which are only gradually, in the course of the process, constructed by the actual stimulus situation, the early process stages would necessarily be more stamped by subjectivism than later stages. As noted by Glicksohn (1998), referring to Smith and Westerlundh (1980), when normally preattentive stages are forced, in a microgenetic experiment (see below), to construct percepts as well as feasibly possible, these percepts have a dreamlike quality to them. What happens during the course of a perceptgenesis is thus seen as a release step by step of the objective percept from the embrace of subjectivism. One important question in the present context would thus be how important for the stability and dependability of the final percept a complete release would be, or an abrupt release compared to a gradual one. Since these processes could not very well be studied by way of introspection, special techniques have been invented to extend them in time. One such technique involved fractionization of the stimulus presentations, starting with very brief exposures in a tachistoscope which were subsequently prolonged in a systematic fashion. The subject’s series
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of reports of impressions was assumed to mirror a real perceptgenesis, elevated from its preconscious hiding place to public scrutiny.
Adaptive serials Since perceptgeneses reflect how we construct the world around us within the sensorial givens, they cannot very easily be distinguished from processes reflecting how we adapt to these givens. Consequently, the study of perceptgeneses has been accompanied by studies of adaptation, i.e., processes with more easily observable extension in time. Let the subjects be confronted again and again with an unfamiliar, complex or contradictory situation and record how far on the road to full accomodation they proceed during a fixed time segment, or give them sequential chunks of an adaptive assignment and record the times taken to complete them. When the series of measurements starts to level out, the adaptive process is supposed to have reached a stage comparable to the final stage (C-phase) in a perceptgenesis. While perceptgeneses have proved to reflect important individual characteristics, particularly when disquieting picture material has been administered, adaptive curves have likewise been revealing. What has been of special importance is that the stimulus material be meaningful and unknown to the test person. Threatening pictures can be used to unleash defensive reactions in the viewer (Hentschel et al. 2004). In experiments with adaptive styles, such contradictory situations as the Stroop Color-Word test have proved profitable in diagnostic/clinical work (Smith 2001). This does not mean, however, that perceptgeneses or series of adaptive actions lose their individual distinction under more ordinary circumstances. The examples presented below will support this point.
Self-nonself integration A first illustration is taken from Hansson and Rydén (1987). The overall aim of the study was to map the relation between differentiation and integration of self and nonself, on the one hand, and modes of perceptual adaptation, on the other. The interplay between self and nonself was defined by means of the Spiral Aftereffect Technique (SAT) as developed by Andersson (1972) and described in more detail below. The SAT is constructed to reflect the balance between
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self factors (long aftereffects) and nonself factors (inhibited aftereffects). Of particular importance was that the initial attempts to come to terms with selfand nonself-aspects of perception were kept separate and registered, as were the ensuing, successive stages up to a stabilized final performance. In other words, an adaptive process was studied. The development of the self-nonself balance was supposed to predict how efficiently the individual could differentiate self from nonself in another situation, i.e., the classical Rod-and-Frame Test (RFT). Of the two complementary aspects of perceptual development, differentiation and integration, the latter was particularly emphasized in the study.
The tests The Spiral Aftereffect Technique (SAT) utilizes a rotating spiral, 2½ turns, drawn in black ink on a white background. The aftereffect is projected on a stationary circle. There are two introductory trials performed 20–30 min before the main test, which consists of 10 massed trials. Each induction lasts for 45 sec. The participant is instructed to tell when the effect, i.e. the circle seemingly expanding or coming closer, ceases. The Rod-and-Frame Test (RFT) was performed in a completely darkened room. At a viewing distance of 1.3 m the participant faces a luminous frame with 59.4 cm long sides, with a breadth of 6.5 mm, tilted 20 degrees to the right. A luminous rod within this frame, 50.2 cm long and 16 mm wide, can be moved by means of an electric engine. In two pretrials when only the rod is illuminated the participant is asked to set the rod upright, starting from a position of 20 degrees to the left. This is followed by 20 trials in the main experiment with both rod and frame illuminated, the rod set 20 degrees to the left and the frame 20 degrees to the right. The experimenter switches off the illumination between trials. Deviation from subjective verticality, as obtained in the pretrials, is calculated. Main deviation scores refer to subsequent groups of 4 trials, i.e., 5 groups in all.
Procedure and subjects The participant started with the SAT pretrials, continued with the RFT, and finally took the main SAT trials. Among the 129 subjects participating in the study, 68 were female university students and 21 student nurses and, finally, 40 obese patients (31 women and 9 men), most of them 18 to 30 years old.
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Results SAT curves were classified in terms of polynomials of 1 to 4 degrees (For details of the statistics, cf. Hansson & Rydén 1987). These were the main categories: flat curves, predominantly rising sequences, decreasing, and discontinuous ones. Very low SAT durations in any part of the test correlate with substantial deviations from verticality in the RFT. Decreasing SAT trends go together with low RFT errors and improvement in the last sections of the test. Within flat and rising SAT curves, brief and long durations compared to intermediate ones are associated with considerable RFT deviations. Discontinuous trends also predict either generally large errors and/or continuous deteriorations.
Conclusions Generally “...very low durations of aftereffects, indicating self-aspects to be poorly represented, make integration of self- and nonself-aspects difficult or impossible and differentiation superficial” (Hansson & Rydén 1987: 536). But even rapidly waning SAT durations correspond to abandonment of selfaspects, allowing them to be only cursorily integrated. In a more gradual process of adaptation, self- and nonself-aspects are more actively integrated. The trend has to be continuous or else the RFT deviations will be considerable. As the authors see it, self-nonself relationships with optimal capacity for self-nonself differentiation, in terms of field-dependence/-independence, would be found in SAT trends that decrease gradually and level out at any point that is not extremely low. Still greater capacity for self-nonself differentiation seems to be indicated by more elaborate strategies, where self- and nonselfaspects are more intricately interwoven, as indicated by frequent changes of direction within an overall decreasing trend. This seems to support our general hypothesis that without a close and mutual interaction between subjective and objective factors in the adaptive process, the end-product will be unstable and inconclusive. The best way to make sure of a dependable account of a situation is thus not to abandon subjectivity as quickly and definitely as possible but to gradually disengage the subjective roots of a perceptual process in an ongoing interplay with outside reality.
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P-phase to C-phase interaction Another empirical example derives from a study of creativity in children aged 4 years and upwards to 16 (Smith & Carlsson 1990). The children were subjected to the Creative Functioning Test (CFT). This consists of two parts. In the first part a still-life motif is projected perceptgenetic fashion in a tachistoscope, to begin with at exposure times just below the visual threshold. These are then systematically prolonged until the viewer (if possible) has delivered three correct reports in a row. The experimenter particularly notes (1) the number of mutually different subjective interpretations of the stimulus theme (P-phases); (2) the stability of the final C-phase. In a second part of the test the procedure is turned upside-down with continuously diminishing exposure values. If the subject is willing to retrieve subjective themes, often those already mentioned in the first part of the test, this is seen as a sign of creativity. To begin with, however, we will only deal with the first part.
Participants The first subgroup to concern us here were 47 4–6-year-olds. In order to group them according to cognitive maturity they were tested with Piaget’s three-mountain test. Here three differently shaded mountains are placed on a foursided plate of wood. Four pictures are taken of this doll’s landscape, each from one of the four different perspectives. The experimenter places a doll at the child’s position and subsequently at the three remaining positions and asks the child to pick a photo corresponding to what the doll could be supposed to see. A totally random series of answers (class 1a) corresponds to the lowest level of cognitive maturity. At the next level (1b) the child has comprehended that a problem is involved, without really mastering it, and at 2a it makes at least some correct choice. From 2b over 3a and 3b the child gradually approaches full cognitive maturity with respect to the problem posed by the Piaget test.
Results Among the cognitively least mature children (subgroup 1a) 50% had only 0-1 P-phase themes as against 18% among the remaining children. In subgroups 1a + 1b no child attained a stable C-phase, in the other subgroups 33%. If we divide the entire sample in two halves we get a lower half (1a, 1b, 2a) of 24
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children and an upper half (2b, 3a, 3b) of 23. In the lower half only 17% could stabilize a C-phase; in the upper half 39%. Only 3% of the former reported 7 or more P-phase themes compared to 42% of the latter. Stabilization of a C-phase at the end of the perceptgenesis obviously goes together with an increasing investment in subjective interpretations of the stimulus. In the same study there was another group of 86 children aged 7–8 years and 10–11 years. Most of these children could stabilize a C-phase, all of them among the oldest ones. Simultaneously the number of P-phase themes increased. Among 55 7–8-year-olds 45% had 3.5 or more themes; among 31 10–11-year-olds, 78%. Increasing age and maturity thus does not necessarily imply disqualification of subjective interpretations, but rather the opposite. This subjective expansion goes together with an increased inclination to recover P-phase themes in part two of the test, i.e., the so-called reversed or descending perceptgenesis. In the group of 10–11-year-olds, 29% recovered complete P-phase themes; in the group of 7–8-year-olds, only 9%. As we move up the age ladder to the 12-year-olds, there is a significant (p < .05) reduction of the number of subjects recovering complete P-phase themes in the descending genesis. The number of such themes reported in the first section of the test, however, remains approximately the same. What made the 12-year-olds reluctant to return to the subjective beginnings of their perceptgenesis appeared to be a lowered tolerance of anxiety, evidenced by an increasing dominance of compulsive defenses as spotted in the Meta-Contrast Technique (MCT, to be dealt with in more detail later).
Conclusion In both studies the accessibility of subjective roots seems necessary to guarantee the stability of the final command of the stimulus situation. This conclusion could be turned upside-down, however, at least when it comes to the perceptgenetic experiment. Thus, only a stable C-phase, interpreted as a secure relation to outside reality, appears to guarantee the reconstruction of preliminary, subjective phases. In order to grapple with this problem we have to consider in more depth what happens in the course of an adaptive sequence, or in a perceptgenesis, and also try to unravel the enigma of creativity.
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Perceptgenesis, a closer look One way to describe a perceptgenesis could be to state, as above, that its beginnings are dreamlike but feel gradually closer to reality as the process continues. In other words, a perceptgenesis could be regarded as a continuity of states of consciousness. Switching to adaptive serials we can, in an analogous way, see them as an ongoing interplay between self-factors and nonself-factors. In order for the self-factors to be finally overcome they have to be treated in close interaction with nonself-factors. Looking at proper perceptgeneses once again we find the early stages more emotional, closer to me or more ego-involved, but also more chaotic. An abrupt discharge of these stages would probably jeopardize the feeling of coherence between emotion and perception. Considering the perceptgenetic methodology of continually prolonging exposure times it could seem natural for a traditional psychologist to envision a perceptgenesis as a series of reports differing only in clarity and detail. The quantitative change from one exposure to the next could perhaps look like this. 1. 2. 3. 4.
A vague contour. The contour is more conspicuous, perhaps a nose. More of the face is coming into focus, an eye too. There is some sort of background that I didn’t notice before, etc.
The theme remains the same and appears gradually like a photo developing in a processing laboratory. But a perceptgenesis can just as well proceed in leaps of qualitative change. Let us start with the nose once again. 2. 3. 4. 5.
A nose. No, a whole person standing on a side-walk. Now it looks rather like a landscape, a promontory in a stormy sea. A person again, in a big overcoat. etc.
Since reports in a perceptgenetic experiment are reconstructions, likely to be adapted to a level of intelligible communication, or in other words rationalized, many phases in the genesis, particularly early ones, may seem more ordered, less dreamlike and chaotic, than their non-reclaimed origins. Moreover, when further transcribed and recast by a traditional experimenter, such a genesis is likely to lose even more of its original character. This is wholly in line with a common assumption, hard to eradicate, that preattentive reactions to sublim-
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inal stimuli are nothing but weak copies of supraliminal reactions to the same stimuli. In the same way as a traditional cognitivist may disregard exciting qualities in a perceptgenesis, the participant him/herself may act as a censor and keep back all too open indications of self-involvement in the perceptgenesis (cf. below). But why not advocate a seemingly more reasonable view: that the sooner you cut off the subjective roots the more stable and objective the end-product would be? Such a view is consistent with the belief that subjectivity, disclosed by its emotional coloring, is nothing but a remnant of our primordial past. In order for our adaptation to be as orderly and efficient as possible this remnant should be abandoned quickly and definitely. Admittedly, inability to accept reality, or remaining stuck in one’s own subjectivity, would be counteradaptive. On the other hand, there are many indications that rejections of subjectivity are rather signs of defensive denial than of adaptive efficiency. This can be elucidated by means of various perceptgenetic tests of defensive activity. Here we will choose the Meta-Contrast Technique (MCT, Smith 2001) as an illustration, partly because it was also applied in the study of children above.
Adaptation and defense The MCT is built on the operation of pairs of stimuli. One stimulus in a pair, presented in perceptgenetic fashion at gradually increasing exposure values, is intended to let the viewer construct a stable perceptual frame of reference. Another stimulus induces the viewer to start a perceptual process inconsistent with or even hostile to the frame percept. We shall here dwell on the latter type of stimulation where attempts at warding off the hostile appearance are most easily detectable. The stimulus intended to produce the frame percept (called B hereafter) depicts a young person sitting at a table with a window close by. When the viewer has stabilized his/her perception of B, exposure times are cut back to a standard value where the picture theme can still be comprehended. The other stimulus (called A) is then exposed immediately before B, first at subthreshold values which are gradually prolonged. The viewer sits before a TV screen, size 25×25 cm, where the stimulus pictures appear and is told to report everything he/she has seen. The perceptgenesis leading to the B percept is usually unproblematic. But since stimulus A depicts a hostile, grimacing face projected in the window behind the young person in B (with whom the viewer is supposed to identify) the viewer may react
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defensively. While the hostile A gradually penetrates the window in most normal cases, to be sure in various guises but soon revealed as something disquieting, defensive reactions imply that the threat is either denied or misrepresented as something innocuous. We shall dwell on a number of defensive strategies particularly relevant for the theme of the present topic. Behind the delineation of various strategies and their relations to a broader symptomatology stands a long clinical research tradition, reaching back to the nineteen-sixties and accounted for in a recent manual (Smith, Johnson, Almgren, & Johanson 2002). In classical psychoanalysis defense is regarded as a reaction to anxiety signals portending danger. What has to be warded off by various defensive strategies accessible to the individual is not outside perils but threats coming from within. Among these are unacceptable wishes, clashing with the individual’s self-image. While this may be a true picture of how defense is often activated it is certainly not the whole picture. In the present context we would particularly like to give prominence to dread of chaos or, even, lack of discernible structure as occasion for defensive reactions. That would be sufficient reason for holding back early phases in a perceptgeneses, preventing them from being nakedly reconstructed in a perceptgenetic test situation. In everyday life such defenses would operate on any associations to and reminiscences of these early roots. But how does anxiety manifest itself in the MCT? There is a broad spectrum of signs, from open fear manifested in the experimental situation to reports of broken structures like cracks in the walls of B, reports of so-called zero-phases where nothing meaningful can be distinguished, or of inadequate defenses admitting blackness to leak through, undue emphasis on darkness in B, and mild signs that the structure of B is intermittently becoming more vague or hazy. Emphasis on blackness and other signs of moderate anxiety are common in normal people whereas such signs as total loss of meaning are shown to be pathological. One important type of defense has been termed isolation because of its frequent appearance in patients with obsessive-compulsive disturbances. In some patients isolation manifested itself as covering the window in B (where the threatening A-face is projected) with a screen, often white coated (white being the color of innocence). In others the viewer simply denied that the new object penetrating the window was in any way threatening. The most rigid form of isolation was found among compulsive character neurotics where nothing but the last, correct phase of the A-process was permitted to be recognized. A successful defense apparently implied that emotions were denied access to consciousness, emotions as they are reflected in early, subjective per-
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ceptgenetic phases. It is illuminating to note that when the isolating defense cracked and blackness showed in the crevices the patient was usually ridden by severe anxiety. Depressive patients were often characterized by stereotypy. In these cases A manifested itself as an uninterpreted “something” in the window of B. At this point the perceptual development was halted over a number of phases (at least five according to the manual) and the report of that “something” repeated in a stereotyped manner. The perceptgenesis was obviously narrowed to a kind of tunnel preventing any free mobility of associations to the stimulus theme. The final result was even more obstruction of communication with early stages of the genesis. When the threat is changed to a less threatening object the defense is termed repression, partly because it is associated with histrionic (hysteroid) types of personality. The prototypical sign of repression is the report of a stiffened face, e.g., a statue or a mask, made harmless by its immobility. The category was early on extended to include other objects, like a stone, a house, a tree, a landscape. Geneses with such avoidance reactions are often very lively and colorful, reflecting what appears characteristic of Thespian characters. The ontogenetic origins of repression could, moreover, be traced to the behavioral level in cognitively immature children, who staved off the threat by shutting their eyes or turning away from the projection screen. Repression obviously serves its defensive purpose to avoid direct confrontation with the appalling A-stimulus. At the same time the richness in content of geneses with signs of repression announces that their early, emotional origins are not definitely cut off but can be reached via circuituous routes. This defensive style is reminiscent of the use of metaphor in poetry in order to illuminate but at the same time to keep at a safe distance.. Projection is another interesting defensive strategy. In the MCT it implies transferring subjective influences from the A-geneses to the B-percept. Thus B is reported as changed before A has penetrated the surface of consciousness. Projection serves as a protection against direct confrontation with the meaning of A. But the A-process is not arrested or strangled. The flexibility characterizing the B-percept in these cases indicates susceptibility to preconscious influence. Mild variants of projection, implying change in perspective, distance, etc., are termed sensitivity. More pronounced signs of projection need not be restricted to B-changes but often also concern A. Unconscious identification with the threat may thus lead to descriptions of A as benign, a person of good repute, etc. However, in the more psychotic forms of projection – which can also be exposed in the MCT as total and abrupt transformations
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of the B-percept – the obstacles to open communication with early phases of the perceptgenesis seem to be more formidable. As indicated by these descriptions, some types of defense (isolation and depressive stereotypy) appear to cut off the projection of early perceptgenetic stages in an abrupt and definitive manner while other types (repression and projection) still allow a certain early-to-late communication, even if via detours. As will be elucidated in more detail later, this distinction between groups of defenses is important for our understanding of how some defenses may be unequivocal obstacles to creative functioning and how others may be more permissive. This is also important in view of the fact that defensive operations are more common in everyday life than we have hitherto assumed, and are not just instances of psychopathology.
Creativity The Creative Functioning Test (CFT) was described in connection with the study of creativity in childhood and adolescence above. As said, it consists of two parts, an ascending series of stimulus presentations and a descending one, using the same stimulus in both series. The ascending series where exposure times are systematically prolonged produces an ordinary perceptgenesis. In this series the number and character of P-phase themes constitute the most important variable. The descending series with its systematically abbreviated exposure times starts when the ascending series has attained a stable C-phase. Here the main interest is whether stimulus deviant themes are reported toward the end of the series, or whether the participant sticks to what he/she knows to be correct. In our view, creativity is a generative way of shaping our conception of reality, i.e., to see reality unfettered by contemporary conventions of thinking. In order to do so, we argue, it is necessary to keep the lines of communication with one’s uncultured self open. Or to use Ernt Kris’s (1952) terminology, to make a partial regression in the service of the ego. In reference to the CFT this implies a willingness to go beyond the limits of correctness established by the C-phase of the ascending series and accept deviant interpretations of the stimulus in the descending series. These interpretations are often reminiscent of or even identical with the P-phase reports in the ascending series. The stimuli used in the two existing versions of the CFT are not primarily threatening as they are in the MCT. Thus the constructors have tried to minimize the risk that defensive strategies will completely distort or strangle the
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series. Still, any unknown stimulus can be experienced as a threat until it has been correctly recognized as innocent. We therefore expect that habitual defensive inclinations as revealed in the MCT will also influence the CFT results. In order to give an indication of the possible variety of CFT protocols, we want to present a few excerpts from three protocols given as examples in the test manual. We also refer to the manual for proofs of the validity and reliability of the test (Smith & Carlsson 2001). A CFT protocol judged as highly creative (numbers referring to exposure designations). The protocol contained 3.5 P-phase themes in the ascending series, including human themes. The correct interpretation of the stimulus was abandoned at the end of the descending series and replaced by interpretations reminiscent of the P-phase themes.
Ascending series 8b. 9a. 9b.
Could be illuminated figures in a cave. Odd figures, dressed in something white. Yes, two figures, one light and one dark. Felt it was something threatening there. The dark one attacking the light one. Forms building up. Lighter and darker. Perhaps people close together...in some joint action...if they embraced or fought.
11b. A naked person, like when you are being X-rayed. And then a dark shadow that someone tried to help to an upright position. 12a. Seems more gruesome. There was a dead body, a victim of violence. The claireobscure is frightening in the dark form. 18.
Obviously some kind of container in the background. An oval or a circle in perspective. A figure standing, a human figure.
20a. A relatively vague person and a vessel with a surface. Don’t know if there is water in it. (A bowl and a bottle suggested by the test leader). 20b. In that case the bottle has a very human outline. Because I saw a shoulder. But it could also be a bottle painted that way.
Descending series 19. 18. 13.
I accept the bottle. Yes, it looks like a bottle and a basket. Cezanne.
I’m back with the human being again, the dejected, vulnerable. Looks like one who has been X-rayed, treated in a hospital. 11b. The same person, more simple. Defenseless. And a threat lurking in the darkness closing in on the bright part.
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8a.
If I hadn’t kept the person on my retina I wouldn’t have seen her this time. Recognized the contours.
5.
Indistinct, just a flash.
A CFT protocol judged as median creative. Numerous reports of slight change in the descending series. No P-phases reclaimed. 11. The same bottle and bowl. 10a. I had the impression that the bottle was somewhat taller. 8a.
Now it’s moving towards the edge of the screen, one cannot see the whole bottle any more.
7a.
It covers practically half the screen. More towards the middle. Rounded in my direction, convex.
5b.
It’s beginning to disappear away from me, to diminish.
A CFT protocol judged as low creative. 1.0 P-phase themes in the ascending series, human. No themes reclaimed. Ascending series 6b.
Looks like the shadow of a man, walking in a landscape. Fateful.
11a. The form more like a standing bottle. More straight now. The background more coherent now with the big shapes. 14a. Yes more distinct, a pot and a bottle.
Descending series 14.
No change.
11a. The whole motif is visible now. 9a. The light changes. Some on the bottle and spots on the pot. 5a.
A gleam of light and a faint silhouette of a bottle and in the bend some light.
4a.
Not much. The screen annoys me.
Creativity, defense, and anxiety It is time to return to the study of creativity in children and youngsters. As mentioned, there was a significant reduction among the 12-year-olds of the number of subjects who recovered complete P-phase themes in their descending geneses, like the participant in the first CFT example presented above. At the same
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time, signs of anxiety in the MCT were strikingly thinned out and signs of isolation defense strengthened. While compulsive strategies obviously checked the retrieval of subjective themes in the descending part of the CFT they also, at the same time, subdued the echoes of anxiety in the MCT protocols. Test results from 142 children affirm that isolation and kindred strategies have a restraining influence on creative ideation. It is of particular interest to note the negative association between these strategies and signs of anxiety. If we take anxiety as an indication of open contact between the conscious endstage of a perceptgenesis and its preconscious antecedents, it seems evident that isolation functions as a protective shield against emotional subjectivity, and hence as an obstacle to non-rational, deviant influences on perception and thought. Depressive stereotypy should have a similar effect. These findings from the Smith and Carlsson (1990) study are partly supported by a later investigation (Carlsson 2002). Two extreme groups scoring either high or low on the CFT were selected from a larger cohort of undergraduate students. There were 12 subjects in each of these subgroups who also took the MCT and completed two anxiety inventories. The following MCT categories were tried against the CFT results: anxiety, repression, isolation, projection/sensitivity, regression and depression. Since depressive signs were rare in this group of people that category could not be tested. A special index, the MCT sum of different categories was also calculated. The higher this index the more variable was the battery of defensive strategies. Finally, the number of various P-phase themes in the ascending series was counted. As expected, the high creative subgroup had more P-phase themes in the ascending genesis than the low creative one (t = 5.63, p < .001). If grave anxiety was excluded and counted on a par with no anxiety, the high creative subjects got more markings of (moderate) anxiety than the low creative counterparts (chi square = 8.40, p = .004). There was, however, only one significant correlation for single defensive categories. Projection, including weak signs, was more common among high creatives. If sensitivity was separated as a category of its own no significant association with creativity appeared. What we are here dealing with is most probably signs of moderate projection, grave signs being most unlikely in the present group. There was a significant difference (t = 3.7, p = .035) with respect to defensive variability. The more creative the more blended the defensive arsenal. This can be interpreted as meaning that when, e.g., isolation is mixed with other defensive counter-measures its negative impact on creative ideation is checked. In the same way strategies like repression (in the wide meaning used here) do
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not influence creative functioning positively unless they allow other strategies to operate at the same time. Only then do they attain a permeable nature.
An experiment with flight phobia As an additional support for the main thesis of the present paper we would like to briefly refer to a study of flight phobia using the Spiral Aftereffect Technique (SAT) described previously (Amnér 1997). It was known before that long aftereffects are indicative of manifest anxiety. Surprisingly, however, the flight phobics did not only cluster at the upper end of the SAT scale. They were also found at the lower end, among subjects with very brief effects. Interviewing the participants the experimenter found two distinctive kinds of flight phobia. Subjects with long aftereffects were generally anxious, nonself influences coloring their private universe. Subjects with brief effects did not refer to a general state of anxiety but pinpointed specific causes of concern in the situation at hand. They heard ominous changes in the sound of the engines; they saw the cabin crew exchange meaningful glances. Even if they supressed the subjective end of their experience of the flight, their world revealed its frailty. Only those with medium aftereffects did not care, i.e., the controls.
Discussion In spite of the heterogeneity of experimental situations and test subjects used to highlight the theme of the present study, it would not be too farfetched to conclude that the accessibility of subjective themes in the perceptgenesis is associated with the stability of the perceptual end-product, the C-phase. But as already intimated, this reasoning could also be turned upside-down. Thus only a stable contact with reality makes the subject willing to face the arcane early stages of his/her perceptgeneses. A secure anchorage may increase the tolerance of anxiety. As assumed, anxiety is often a natural reaction to exposure to the chaotic and elusive subjectivity characterizing early process stages. But to turn the reasoning upside-down once again: a stable conception of reality is not the same as a mere reflection of outside stimulation. A convincing support for this way of reasoning was found in the experiment with adaptive serials conducted by Hansson and Rydén (1987) and reviewed in some detail previously in this text. In participants who mastered the differentiation of subjective and objective perspectives in the rod-and-frame
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situation, the serials reflecting performance in the spiral aftereffect test were not characterized by a swift restriction of self influences but by gradual release of the nonself perspective, preferably after a period of intimate integration. We also referred to a study of flight phobia by Amnér (1997) where the spiral aftereffect technique was a central instrument. Subjects who almost completely denied self factors in their adaptive serials did not achieve a safe reality contact. Instead, their experience of the flight situation was filled with ominous signs of impending danger. As regards the genuine perceptgeneses it is more difficult to directly prove that C-phases without antecedent P-phases are less stable than those with subjective beginnings. However, when signs of anxiety decrease in the MCT and signs of defense become more prominent and inflexible, with inhibited reconstruction of P-phases as a consequence, the most straightforward conclusion would be that the person suffers from impaired tolerance of anxiety and hence a less solidly rooted sense of security. This could be easily demonstrated in a group of 4–6-year-olds taking the CFT. The apparent stability of the C-phase in CFT among older children tended to obscure this association. But by using the more menacing picture material of the MCT the brittleness of reality contact in, e.g., compulsive people could be unveiled. These results have implications for how creativity should be understood. As we see it, creative functioning depends on an open interchange between the subjective and objective poles of perceptgenesis or, to employ the vocabulary of the Spiral Aftereffect Technique, between self and nonself factors. Creativity is not synonymous with subjective flooding of consciousness. That would impede the formation to intelligible material of the new, deviant ideas supposedly brewing outside rational control. But it is also difficult to envisage a creative person where contact with the subjective roots of perception has been cut off. Even in the fields of science, the generation of new ideas depends on the availability of nonadapted levels of experiencing. In a similar way, perception is usually taken for granted until a disturbance, perhaps a brain injury, reveals the delicate underlying contrivance. To summarize, a stable and dependable conception of reality depends on an unbroken connection with the preparatory stages of the process of construction, in this context represented by reconstructed perceptgeneses and adaptive serials. This implies that how we conceive of the outside world is determined, not only by the terminal stages of the process but by the entire course of adaptive events. Openness towards the subjective, or pre-perceptual, origins of our depiction of reality implies a double bind: not only is the final stage dependent on the preceding stages but our contact with the early stages is conditioned
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by the stability of the end-stage. Given these contingencies the process of reality construction can continue unhindered by serious defensive distortions, i.e., with a sense of safety – one important prerequisite for creative functioning (cf. also Sandler 1960; Edelman 1989; Migone & Liotti 1999). Trying to be onesidedly objective is to be prisoner of an idée fixe. If you want to break loose you must first of all reestablish contact with your subjective self, with the source of those processes through which your experiential existence is shaped. To thus make contact with your emotional self gives you a sense of consistency, even in the midst of change (Emde 1999). Present adaptive endeavours, particularly those of a pioneering character, are deeply rooted in past experiences as reflected by early sections of a perceptgenesis. True objectivity is not the mirror image of outside stimulation, but is attained by way of processes originating in the self. The former is a soon withering cutting flower; the latter could be a flower rooted in fertile soil and with growth potential. In an analogous way, discussing the psychoanalytic theory of consciousness Brown (2000: 62) contends that “if Cs is caused by or rests on non-conscious activity, the better part of the state of Cs is ignored by excluding the non-conscious portion”. Starting from processes originating in the self, our picture of the world is constantly being transformed by way of the creation of new symbols. An objectified “truth” is not the mark of creation, but instead ongoing efforts to consider both subjective and objective perspectives.
References Amnér, G. (1997). Fear of flying in civil airline passengers: A manifold problem with various motivational roots. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Andersson, A. L. (1972). Personality as reflected in adaptive regulation of visual aftereffect perception: A review of concepts and empirical findings. In A. L. Andersson, A. Nilsson, E. Ruuth, & G. Smith (Eds.), Visual aftereffects and the individual as an adaptive system (pp. 159–171). Lund: Gleerup. Blake, R. R. & Ramsey, G. V. (Eds.). (1951). Perception: an approach to personality. New York: Ronald. Brown, J. W. (2000). Mind and nature. Essays on time and subjectivity. London: Whurr Publishers. Brown, J. W. (2002). The self-embodying mind. New York: Barrytown. Carlsson, I. (2002). Anxiety and flexibility of defense related to high or low creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 14, 341–349. Edelman, G. (1989). The remembered present: A biological theory of consciousness. New York: Basic Books.
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Emde, R. (1999). Moving ahead: Integrating influences of affective processes for development and for psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 80, 317–339. Glicksohn, J. (1998). States of consciousness and symbolic cognition. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 19, 105–118. Hansson, S. B. & Rydén, O. O. (1987). Relationship between differentiation and integration of self and nonself: An investigation in terms of modes of adaptation. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 64, 523–538. Hentschel, U., Smith, G. J. W., Draguns, J. G., & Ehlers, W. (Eds). (2004). Defense mechanisms: Theoretical, research, and clinical perspectives. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Kris, E. (1952). Psychoanalytic explorations in art. New York: International Universities Press. Migone, P. & Liotti, L. (1999). Psychoanalysis and cognitive-evolutionary psychology: An attempt at integration. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 80, 1–27. Sandler, J. (1960). The background of safety. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, 191– 198. Smith, G. J. W. (2001). The process approach to personality. New York: Plenum. Smith, G. J. W. & Carlsson, I. (1990). The creative process. Psychological Issues, Monograph 57. Madison, C: International Universities Press. Smith, G. J. W. & Carlsson, I. (2001). CFT – the Creative Functioning Test. Lund: Department of Psychology. Smith, G. J. W., Johnson, G., Almgren, P.-E., & Johanson, A. (2002). MCT – the MetaContrast Technique. Lund: Department of Psychology. Smith, G. J. W. & Westerlundh, B. (1980). Perceptgenesis: A process perspective on perception-personality. Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 1, 94–124. Tomkins, S. (1991). Affect, imagery, consciousness, Vol. III, The negative affects: Anger and fear. New York: Springer-Verlag. Werner, H. (1956). Microgenesis in aphasia. Journal of abnormal and social Psychology, 52, 347–353.
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Energetic effects of emotions on cognitions Complementary psychobiological and psychosocial findings Luc Ciompi* and Jaak Panksepp** Socio-Psychiatric University Clinic, Switzerland / Bowling Green State University, USA
This paper seeks complementary themes between psychosocial and neuroscientific approaches to understanding interactions between emotions and cognitions, using the “affect-logic” approach of Ciompi and the “affective neuroscience” approach of Panksepp. Both views envision meaningful distinctions between emotional and cognitive processes, with the former being large-scale energetic states of brain and body that reflect evolutionarily adaptive action systems of the internal world, while the latter are more informationally encapsulated perception based processes that distinguish differences in the external world. In the intact organism, they are fully interactive; each can control the other. Emotions establish global, non-linear dynamic control over perceptual processes, memory and learning, and cognitions can trigger and regulate emotional processes. A variety of research strategies and predictions, ranging from the neurobiological to the psychosocial, are entertained. Keywords: emotion, affect,cognition, brain, logic, neurodynamics, chaos theory
During the last two decades, it has become increasingly evident both in neuroscience (Damasio 2000; Davidson 2000; Derryberry & Tucker 1992; Lane & Nadel 2000; LeDoux 1996; Panksepp, 1998) and in psychology (Dalgleish & Power 1999; Lazarus 1999), psychopathology (Ciompi 1988, 1997a, c, 1999; Flack & Laird 1998), social psychology (Forgas 2000a, b; Kowalsky 1999; Lawler & Thye 1999; Parrott 2001) and affect science (Davidson, Scherer & Goldsmith 2003; Manstead, Frijda & Fischer 2004) that emotions and cognitions are continually interacting in almost all mental activities. This, of course, does not
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mean that they cannot be meaningfully distinguished at either psychological and/or neural levels; they most certainly can (Panksepp 2003a). However, the exact nature of these interactions remains far from clear, despite decade-long debates between leading psychologists on the relative primacy of affect over cognition or vice-versa (cf. Clore & Ortony 2000; Lazarus 1999; Zajonc 2000). Certain authors argue that emotions and cognitions are so intimately connected that it makes little sense to hold the classic distinction between passions and reason (e.g., Lane & Nadel 2000). Others maintain that most data speak for bidirectional causality with emotions often activated by cognitive stimuli, and cognitive processes that can be selected and regulated by emotions (Damasio 1994; Derryberry & Tucker 1992; Forgas 2000a, b; Izard 1993; Lazarus 1999; LeDoux 2000; Panksepp 1998a, 2004). The study of affective-cognitive interactions is further hampered by the fact that there exist no generally recognized definitions of the key-concepts of emotion and cognition, nor any consensus on their precise delimitations. The interdisciplinary exchange and comparison of data is therefore difficult, and new insights that might result from multidisciplinary approaches are not fostered. In this paper, we seek to overcome some of these difficulties by comparing selected findings on affective-cognitive interactions from two different perspectives, between which remarkable convergences are gradually emerging: A low-level neuroscientific approach on the one side, and a high-level psychosocial1 approach on the other. In line with our previously developed concepts of “affect-logic” (Ciompi 1988 1997a, c, 2003) and “affective neuroscience” (Panksepp 1982, 1998, 2001, 2003), we will defend the view that the distinction between emotion and cognition is not only possible and meaningful, but essential for understanding how they actually interact. While adhering to the notion of circular causality, we will mainly focus on the largely neglected problem of regulating and energizing influences that emotions, in our view, continually exert on almost all cognitive functions. The overall aim of this interdisciplinary dialog is to identify new working hypotheses for research that might be more evident in a truly bifocal view. In addition, an effort is made to clarify some aspects of the above-mentioned definitional problems on the basis of differential evolutionary roots of emotions and cognitions, and to bring certain nonlinear dynamic perspectives to bear on the cognition-emotion interaction debate (also see Lewis & Granic 2000). Our coverage of the literature must be highly selective, since both fields are expanding remarkably rapidly during the current “affect revolution”. Moreover, our attention will be focused on a few so-called basic emotions like interest/curiosity, fear/panic, anger, joy or sadness (cf. e.g. Ekman 1984; Izard
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1971, 1992) for which the neurobiological substrata have been provisionally identified (Panksepp 1982, 1998a). Concerning countless additional nuances, our position is that many of the more complex emotions reflect epigenetic emergents of cognitive and socio-cultural abilities interacting with basic emotional systems (Ciompi 1997c; Panksepp & Panksepp 2000). Terms like affects, emotions or feelings are provisionally used here according to their largely overlapping meanings in different related fields of research. In the final discussion, we propose, however, a possible partial solution of the definitional issues.
.
Neurobiological Perspectives
Distinctions between affective and cognitive structures From the perspective of affective neuroscience, the core affective/emotional systems of the brain (very largely sub-neocortical, and limbic/paleocortical) can be distinguished from the more recently evolved higher cognitive structures (thalamic-neocortical axis) on the basis of various criteria outlined previously (Panksepp 2003a) and summarized in Table 1. These distinctions force us to consider emotional brain functions in quite different ways than has been traditional (e.g., as just another form of information-processing), and recognize that core emotional systems operate in holistic dynamic ways (i.e., networks of neurons yield energetic brain and bodily field-dynamics) as opposed to discrete information processing algorithms. Such distinctions provide novel ways of looking at those pervasive emotioncognition interactions that are currently of great interest to psychologists and other brain/mind scientists. Let us first briefly discuss the meaning of these six distinctions (derived from Panksepp 2003a), for they are essential for the types of emotion-cognition interaction perspectives we plan to share. At the Table 1. Distinct characteristics of emotional/affective and cognitive/informational systems of the brain Affective processes (Values)
Cognitive processes (Information)
– more subcortical – less computational (analog) – intentions in action – action to perception – neuromodulator codes (e.g., more neuropeptidergic)
more neocortical more computational (digital) intentions to act perception to action neurotransmitter codes (e.g., more glutamatergic, etc.).
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most fundamental level, we view the core of affective/emotional processes to be more deeply organic (i.e., their status cannot be understood without a “network doctrine” and molecular coding approaches to global neurodynamics) while cognitions are more deeply informational (i.e., their status may be dramatically clarified by information-only approaches). Thus, the governance of mind and behavior is a multi-tiered, hierarchical process with several distinct types of mechanisms – some more instinctual and built into the system by evolution, and the other more flexible and deliberative, relaying heavily on learning mechanisms. State functions vs. channel functions. Marcel Mesulam (2000) highlighted that some aspects of the brain operate via discrete information channels (e.g., sensory-perceptual processes) while others operate more globally to control wide swaths of brain activity (e.g., obvious examples are the biogenic amine transmitter, brain-wide “spritzers” such as norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, that regulate neuronal arousability in global ways, but many neuropeptides also operate similarly to organize discrete emotions and motivations). In our estimation, those systems represent the best understood global state controls, but they are rather non-specific in terms of discrete emotions. In line with such a distinction, we envision emotional operating systems to consist of large ensembles of neurons working together, under the “symphonic” control of neuropeptides to produce coherent organic pressures for action, thought and feelings (from such a conception, an “energy” dimension for the core emotional state control systems is apt, and is supported by various affective neuroscience research strategies, especially neuropeptide regulation of such global processes – Panksepp 1998a; Panksepp & Harro 2004). This distinction can help us conceptually differentiate brain processes that produce highly resolved perceptual qualia from those aspects that are less sensorially distinct, holistic-energetic, and in the category of raw feels. The global state-patterns elaborated by such brain networks may generate an essential psychoneural context for perceptual consciousness – establishing a solid organic grounding for specific cognitive mental activities linked to discrete information-processing channels. Computational vs. non-computational forms of consciousness. This view claims that channel-functions, since they are dependent on the coding of neuronal firing patterns in anatomically delimited channels, may be instantiated using symbol-manipulating computational models. On the other hand, the more organically instantiated forms of affective consciousness, although also dependent on neuronal systems, are not computational in the same sense. These
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systems depend on extensive networks in which the patterns of neuronal firings do not convey discreet information, but rather ensembles of neurons develop analog pressures within the brain/mind, creating certain types of holistic feelings and actions. We believe that these global state envelopes, most evident in the instinctual emotional urges of animals, are critically dependent on not only a variety of generalized multi-functional chemistries (e.g., amino acids and biogenic amines) but also emotion and motivation specific neurochemistries that are emerging as promising targets for new psychiatric drug development (Panksepp & Harro 2004). Intentions-in-action vs. intentions-to-act. During mind-brain evolution, the state-control systems of the brain help to establish embodied instinctual behavioral patterns along with internally experienced affective states (Panksepp 1998a, b). These instinctual arousals constitute ancient psycho-behavioral controls allowing fundamental forms of cognitive activity and intentionality to emerge as an intrinsic part of the action apparatus. This, we believe, is what John Searle (1983) was referring to in his classic distinction between intention in action and intentions to act. Only with a more differentiated sensoryperceptual cognitive apparatus, such as that which emerged with higher cortical encephalization, can certain organisms operate in a virtual reality of cognitive-type activities, and thereby select and generate more deliberative behavioral choices (i.e., intentions to act) based upon the nuances of their perceptual fields. Action-to-perception processes vs. perception-to-action processes. This distinction overlaps with the previous one. It assumes that the affective/emotional statecontrol systems help direct and focus specific attentional-perceptual fields. Only with the emergence of cognitive neural mechanisms capable of resolving highly detailed perceptual fields did the possibility emerge of buffering decision-making by higher executive processes (largely through the workingmemory capacities of frontal lobes). Thus, sensorial awareness was transformed into perceptual guidance devices, permitting higher-order cognitive actions by organisms (yielding eventually the widely accepted perception-toaction processes, which are closely related to intentions-to-act processes). If ancient action-to-perception processes are fundamental for affective experience and primary-process intentionality (i.e., intentions-in-action), we may be better able to generate some general principles whereby emotion-cognition interactions transpire in the brain (i.e., certain perceptions and cognitions may be strongly linked to the field dynamics of emotional systems).
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Neurochemical codes vs. general glutamatergic computations. Neuroscientists have long recognized that a distinction needs to be made between the rapidly acting neurotransmitters that directly generate action potentials (with glutamate being the prime example of an excitatory transmitter), and those neuromodulatory influences which bias how effectively the rapidly acting transmitters operate (with the abundant neuropeptides being prime examples of neuromodulators that may regulate emotionally and motivationally specific state-variables in widely-ramifying neural networks). In other words, there are distinct neurochemical codes for the core states of the nervous system, and a better understanding of these codes will allow us to better conceptualize how state functions become dynamic governors of channel functions, with the former weighing more heavily in generating distinct forms of affective consciousness and the latter being more important in resolving cognitive details. For instance, there will be neuropeptides that are able to conduct a neurotransmitter orchestra into new global field-dynamics (Panksepp, Panksepp & Harro 2004). In this view, one can conceptualize how affective and cognitive processes are remarkably interpenetrant, while at the same time recognizing that the conceptual distinction can help guide both neuroscientific and psychosocial inquiries.
Neurobiological aspects of affective-cognitive interactions We will first consider three general ways in which affective-cognitive interactions may emerge: i) How “low energy” cognitive attributions provoke “high energy” emotional responses; ii) How aroused emotional responses may lead to global shifts in attention, perceptual and cognitive encodings; and ii) How aroused emotional systems activate not only emotion-dependent actions but also a rapid retrieval of state-dependent cognitive information, which can become chronically changed because of the use-dependent plasticity of all basic emotional systems. Attributional triggers. The fact that very small cognitive changes are able to precipitate enormous emotional outbursts is one key reason we need cognitionemotion distinctions. An interpretation of a glance, a shift in the tone of the voice, or an ambiguous comment that can be interpreted as an insult, can all provoke high energetic states that we call emotions. The fact that fairly modest changes in the informational content of an incoming cognitive signal can have such large effects provides striking support for the conclusion that there are evolutionarily prepared emotional states of the nervous system. How these
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“trigger spots” emerge as a function of emotional learning has been studied extensively through the use of classical conditioning paradigms in animals, such as the influential fear conditioning studies of LeDoux (1996), although such basic learning studies provide little insight into the evolutionary nature of the core emotional systems. These types of trigger interactions are embedded in another global cognition-emotion interaction: Namely, that high cortical activity generally tends to inhibit subcortical emotional systems, and when individuals become intensely emotionally aroused (i.e., the felt affective intensity of an emotion is high), those states are generally accompanied by decreased cortical processing (for an overview of such brain imaging work, see Liotti & Panksepp 2004). Clearly cortico-cognitive processes can inhibit emotional arousal, as has been demonstrated in fMRI studies where the subcortical arousals that accompany erotic feelings can be actively inhibited by recruiting higher frontal cortical executive functions (Beauregard et al. 2001). It is only during mild emotional states that the cognitive and affective processes may be operating more synergistically, which may suggest that there are quite different forms of affect logic for low and high emotional arousals, following perhaps a classic YerkesDodson inverted-U related functions between arousal and optimal behavioural control. Emotionally induced shifts in attention, perceptual focusing and cognitive encodings. Although it is widely accepted that emotional arousal has such cognitive consequences, including distinct effects on attention, decision-making, judgments and memory (Burke & Mathews 1992; Lowenstein et al. 2001), there is, in fact, only modest neuroscience data highlighting how these interactions operate, for instance in cognition-emotion interactions such as temporal lobe inputs to amygdala (McGaugh & Cahill 2003). The neurobiological mechanisms by which such effects are achieved in humans remain largely unknown. However, in animal research there is quite a large literature on pharmacologically and physiologically induced state-dependent learning (Cameron 2002; Colpaert & Balster 1988), and many of the molecules that have been used are mood modifiers in humans (Panksepp 2004a). Use-dependent plasticities of emotional systems and retrieval of mood-congruent information. In addition to emotion-specific learning capacities, the animal work has indicated that every emotional system can exhibit semi-permanent changes in the vigor of the emotional system itself. This has been most clearly demonstrated for fearfulness and irritability, where the stimulation of subcortical fear and anger systems can chronically shift an animal’s long-term
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temperamental bias (Adamec & Young 2000). These effects should have longterm consequences on cognitive tendencies, as has been most clearly exhibited in the flash-backs and ruminative tendencies of individuals suffering of posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD) (van der Kolk 2004). One of the ongoing challenges is to determine how such long-term neural changes can be reversed. There is also only modest neuroscience data on how mood-congruent information is actually retrieved in the brain. Hence we will simply highlight some of the ways in which such issues can be studied in humans. In general, it is harder to do good cognitive work in animals, just as it is easier to do good basic emotion research on the animal models. An example of the type of work that could be achieved is highlighted by a recent paper by Zack & Poulos (2004), indicating that arousal of brain dopamine systems (which has been conceptualized as a SEEKING-Wanting-Expectancy system) with amphetamine in problem gamblers leads them to have urges to gamble and their semantic networks are primed to generate thoughts related to gambling. As additional emotion-specific chemistries are discovered, it will be most important to carefully study how the dynamics of mental contents shift as a function of affect biasing molecules (Panksepp 1999; Panksepp & Harro 2004).
Basic emotional systems Several basic emotional systems in sub-neocortical regions of the brain have recently been identified. Cognitive interactions with them need to be worked out on a system by system basis, since each one has its own characteristics, as in sadness promoting pessimistic cognition and happiness promoting more optimistic cognitions (e.g., MacLeod & Salaminiou 2001). Here we will briefly summarize the types of cognitive changes that we should expect from three major negative affect systems (FEAR, RAGE and PANIC, or sadness) and three positive affect systems (CARE, PLAY and SEEKING). Although each of these emotional systems remains sparsely studied in cognitive and psychosocial contexts, they all presumably follow the same patterns as the basic motivations such as thirst, hunger, and lust. When one is very thirsty or hungry, it is almost impossible to keep the cognitive apparatus from dwelling on the intensity of the feelings and how one might be able to alleviate the sustained distress. The same goes for various feelings of pain as well the urgent feelings of sexual arousal. It is an especially well demonstrated fact how frequently sexual thoughts emerge in the mind of young males, and presumably this is because there neurochemistries of sexuality can sustain certain types of pressures and biases on the cognitive apparatus (Panksepp 1998a).
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Again, we would emphasize that during intense emotional arousal, much of the cortico-cognitive apparatus becomes less active (Liotti & Panksepp 2003), and probably more obsessive in terms of ideational flexibility, at least for the negative emotions. On the other hand, the positive emotions tend to broaden decision making processes, allowing one to recruit new ideas into an ever widening network of associations (Fredrickson 2002) and increasingly productive social interactions (Isen 2004). Let us briefly consider each of the emotional systems mentioned above. Since it is difficult to access the cognitions and thoughts of other species in which the details of the core emotional circuits have been extensively studied, we must focus here on classically conditioned learning issues and usedependent plasticities. In our estimation the semi-permanent changes in the reactivity of these systems that can emerge through experience (i.e., “usedependent plasticity”) may link up especially well to chronic psychiatric conditions, and we will provide one prominent exemplar of that type of change for each of the following six basic emotional systems. FEAR: Classical conditioning of fear (i.e., the development of unconscious trigger points to the FEAR circuitry) has been extensively studied (Davis 1999; LeDoux 1996), and attempts have been made to envision this type of research within the context of basic emotion theory (for a recent summary, see Panksepp 2004b). These trigger spots may help explain the development of specific phobias, but such classical conditioning models are not as important for understanding the chronic changes that can occur in FEAR systems to provoke chronic anxiety. For this, the kindling models are very useful, whereby one electrically stimulates the FEAR system briefly each day for about a week until an epileptogenic sensitisation has emerged.. Once the system has been thus sensitized, animals (e.g., cats) exhibit chronic changes in fearful reactivity, cowering and being fearful of stimuli (e.g., rats) to which they would normally respond with curiosity and predatory intent (Adamec & Young 2000). Although, no one has found ways to reduce this type of sensitization once it has developed, a few neurochemical manipulations (e.g. choleocystokinin receptor antagonism) have been effective in aborting the emergence of the sensitization (Adamec, Shallow & Budgell 1997). Presumably if such maneuvers were implemented in humans during traumatic experiences, one might be able to abort the emergence of chronic anxieties such as those that characterize post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). RAGE: The study of the details of anger in the brain, and the description of how this system learns has diminished to a trickle during the past 30 years.
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However, we know much about the anatomy and neurochemistry of the system (Siegel, Roeling, Gregg, & Kruk 1999), and it is well established that one of the major environmental triggers of anger is frustrative non-reward. The cognitive consequences of anger are obsessive thoughts of retribution and revenge for perceived slights, offenses or other abuses of one’s freedom and dignity. Presumably there are cortical zones that are especially likely to dwell on such issues (Murphy, Nimmo-Smith, & Lawrence 2003). However, more important for psychiatrically significant irritability are the changes in aggressive temperament that can be achieved by stimulating the RAGE system in a manner similar to that just described for the FEAR system (Adamec & Young 2000). Animals with kindling of such systems exhibit a very “short fuse” and are likely to attack to minimal provocations/attributions. PANIC (separation distress): During grief, the mind obsessionally returns to mental images of the lost loved one, to dwell on how the loss of the attachment bonds might have been averted. The natural mental landscape needs to be better described for this and all the other basic emotional responses. There has been no work on the use-dependent plasticity of this system, but it is likely to be related to panic attacks and variants of PTSD and as pervasive and profound for mental life as the changes in the better studied FEAR system of the brain, which may operate synergistically. Related to this issue, it is reasonably well established that early social loss has long-term consequences which facilitate a depressive outlook on life, and social loss long been considered to be a major factor that contributes to susceptibility to clinically significant depression (Heim & Nemeroff 1999) CARE: When one is sad, the effects of caring social contacts are especially powerful mood facilitators that can lead to rebound from depressive ruminations. Nurturant maternal urges – tender loving care, in the vernacular – can be sensitized by exposure of animals to infants (Panksepp 1998). Rat mothers exhibt a species-typical type of care – ano-genital and other bodily licking – which has recently been shown to have life-long positive effects on the offspring. The positive effects include widespread benefits for the nervous system that can be encapsulated in a phrase – the offspring are more inquisitive, courageous and less likely to be severely influenced by stress (Meaney 2001). These benefits become permanent habits, the benefits of which are then passed on trans-generationally in non-genetic ways. PLAY: The cognitive relationships to rough-and-tumble PLAY systems have been even less well mapped than the other emotions, but it is likely that this type of emotional engagement helps solidify social habits that can promote
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a better understanding of what one can and cannot do in social situations. While captivated by playful energies, one’s mind tends to go quite naturally to new associations that have the potential for sustaining and amplifying the fun. Perhaps these short-term changes can help widen behavioural options that the organisms has in all future types of emotional encounters. Some longer term social-emotional consequences of play have been documented (Panksepp, Burgdorf, Turner & Gordon 2003), and the possibility that play can have long term therapeutic effects for various childhood disorders, especially attentionhyperactivity problems has been addressed (Panksepp, Burgdorf, Gordon & Turner 2002). At present, the overall concept is that play may not only facilitate the programming of social circuits, but also provide tonic effects on neuronal growth factors (Gordon et al. 2003) which may facilitate frontal lobe maturation, and thereby executive psychological functions for promote a more thoughtful engagement with the world and other lives (Panksepp 2001a). SEEKING-Wanting-Expectancy: The pursuit of every resource – from food to romatic love–requires the energetization of this general purpose systems for our desires, or appetitive engagements with the various fruits of the environment. A great deal of work has been conducted on how this system participates in learning (Berridge & Robinson 2003; Ikemoto & Panksepp 1999; Schulz 2002) leading to a variety of terminologies that is often detracting from communicative clarity. However, most ideas are converging on the assumption that the system is essential for appetitive eagerness, regardless of the reward that is being pursued (Panksepp & Moskal 2004). The remarkable fact is that this system readily sensitises when animals are exposed to psychostimulants like amphetamines and cocaine that activate this system, and the sensitised animals then exhibit a general elevation of pursuit strength for a variety of incentives (Nocjar & Panksepp 2002). It is to be expected that a psychostimulant sensitised brain would tend to exhibit different types of thought patterns than “normal,” but there is very little psycho-ethological work on that issue (Panksepp 2003b, c; Panksepp, Nocjar, Burdgorf, Panksepp & Huber 2004). The scientific analysis of how the “mental apparatus” is modified by chronic changes in the arousability of brain emotional systems remains in its infancy. To do this properly, new psychological approaches such as “psychoethology” need to be implemented that permit the analysis of fluctuating psychological contents of the mental apparatus under various conditions. In general, we favor the view that a much greater amount of the overall interactive equation will be solved by focusing on how basic emotional arousals modify the cognitive apparatus than in the way cognitive attributions provoke
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emotions. In other words, once an emotional episode is triggered, then the resulting ruminations are pulled into self-organizing orbits that are substantially broader than the initial attributional instigators of the emotional episodes (see Parkinson 1995 for a fuller development of this interactive cascade). In addition, the three following general neuroscience concepts are of great interest from psychosocial perspectives: 1) Emotion-related and cognition-related circuits are anatomically and functionally very closely linked and intertwined. Emotional, cognitive and behavioural components implied in the above mentioned systems form inborn functional entities that are further differentiated by learning and other mechanisms of neural plasticity. Although the subcortical emotional operating systems are concentrated in primitive brain areas that have not been typically thought of in cognitive terms, they do interact with many higher brain areas, that may be “centers of gravity” for emotion-cognition interactions (Panksepp 1988) many now confirmed with modern brain imaging (Murphy et al. 2003; Phan et al. 2002). The main areas are anterior cingulate, insula, temporal and various frontal cortical zones. Exactly what type of processing occurs in those regions is by no means clear, but from a neurodynamic perspective, we envision that basic emotional systems serve as attractors for various perceptual and cortico-cognitive activities, yielding individual and personality specific attractor landscapes for how different people cope with emotional situations. 2) All incoming cognitive stimuli are linked with a situation-dependent emotional value or “color”. This phenomenon has important consequences for all further information processing, as will be discussed in the psychosocial section. Typically the one way linear-causal approach to this issue is based on systematic studies of classical conditioning, where neutral conditional stimuli become capable of generating specific emotional responses (e.g., conditioned fear, such as freezing) when paired with unconditionally aversive events such a foot shock (LeDoux 1996). There are, however, enormous limits to such simple one-way causal analyzes to model what might actually be happening in the human mind. The dynamic systems perspective provides a compelling metaphor of how non-linear causal processes may operate in higher brain areas such as described above to yield attractor basins, in which ruminating cognitive activities may be trapped, as in fear or rage thoughts that prevail in chronic conflict-situations (Panksepp 2000; Ciompi 1997c). 3) Subcortical circuits for quick emergency reactions have recently been detected that provide a neural substratum for largely sub-conscious emotional regulations of cognition (Davis 1999; LeDoux 1996). These important findings, so far
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mainly restricted to fear-related circuits at the neurobiological level, provide compelling neurobiological models for unconscious cognitive activities, similar to those for long postulated by psychoanalysts. Although these phenomena may appear to be unconscious from the perspective of cognitive consciousness, they may, however, be the very core of the affective energies that should be recognized as a distinct form of affective consciousness (Panksepp 2003a). . Psychosocial perspectives Much of the reported neuroscientific evidence corresponds to well known phenomena on the mental and social level. However, because of linguisticallymediated psychological access, numerous additional emotion-cognition interactions can be observed on this level that might, potentially, lead to new questions and hypotheses. In the following, we firstly point to a number of striking convergences between psychosocial and neurobiological findings, and move on then to psychosocial phenomena for which neurobiological evidence remains scanty.
Converging neurobiological and psychosocial findings First, affective and cognitive emotional phenomena are also clearly distinguishable on the psychosocial level. To reiterate, cognitive phenomena might essentially be understood as sensory distinctions or, on a more differentiated level, as distinctions of distinctions of distinctions, and their further computation (Ciompi 1997c; Spencer-Brown 1979). Emotions are, in contrast, much more comprehensive phenomena with multiple mental and somatic aspects. For instance, at the conclusion of their comprehensive overview on definitional issues, Kleinginna & Kleinginna (1981) describe emotions as “. . . a complex set of interactions among subjective and objective factors, mediated by neural/hormonal systems, which can (a) give rise to affective experiences such as feelings of arousal, pleasure/displeasure; (b) generate cognitive processes such as emotionally relevant perceptual effects, appraisals, labelling processes; (c) activate widespread physiological adjustments to the arousing conditions; and (d) lead to behaviour that is often, but not always, expressive, goal-directed, and adaptive.” Both on the neurobiological and on the psychosocial level, cognitions thus appear as much more specific, discrete, “digital” and “computational” phenomena than emotions which have a definitely more global, holistic, and generally also a longer lasting character. In addition, emotions
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include important energetic and dynamic aspects that are lacking in purely cognitive phenomena (see below). The detection of a few distinct emotional brain systems, too, closely corresponds to a long established psychological view: Namely the notion of a limited number of evolutionary rooted basic emotions whose exact nature and number remains, however, controversial. Thus, Ekman (1984) postulated 6 basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise) on the basis of his extended transcultural studies, while other authors also include feelings like shame, guilt and several other emotions (for details, see Ciompi 1997c; Izard 1971, Ortony & Turner 1990). Hopefully, the ongoing neurobiological research will be able to clarify which emotions should truly be considered as “basic” and evolutionary rooted, and which ones rather represent epigenetic-learning and culture-dependent cognitive modulations. Another essential neurobiological finding – namely the fact that emotionrelated and cognition-related cerebral circuits are closely intertwined and continually interacting in almost all mental activities – corresponds to a great number of psychological observations that all speak for practically ubiquitous affectivecognitive interactions. Already Freud emphasized the omnipresence of emotional influences on thinking, and vice- versa. Piaget’s monumental research on the genesis of cognitive structures in humans lead him to the same conclusion, in spite of the predominantly cognitive focus of his “genetic epistemology” (Piaget 1981). The same is true for the extended psychosocial studies on conditioned reflexes, learning and operant conditioning (e.g. through the systematic application of rewards or punishments), and hence for almost all learning theories from Pavlov to Skinner and Hull, even though their emotional aspects were routinely neglected. Striking convergences exist, furthermore, between the reported obligatory neuronal linking of incoming cognitive stimuli with simultaneously experienced emotions and a wealth of analogue psychosocial phenomena, among them again, especially, conditioned reflexes and learning experiences, and also the afore mentioned posttraumatic stress disorders. It is very likely that the above reported possibilities of neuronal sensitisation of emotional systems (e.g. by the so-called kindling mechanisms) play an important role in the pathogenesis of PTSD and of various other psychiatric conditions (e.g. phobic or obsessional disorders) that are characterized by overanxious or overaggressive reactions at minimal stimulations. Sensitisation by traumatic events may also be implied in the (individual or collective) emergence of a so-called “fear-logic”, “hate-logic”, or “logics of war” whereby predominating affects like fear or rage literally “enslave” all thinking and behaving (Ciompi 1997c). In all these phenom-
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ena, the afore-mentioned attractor-like properties of basic emotions become particularly obvious.
General and specific operator-effects of emotions on cognition We turn now to emotion-cognition interactions that have mainly been observed on the psychosocial-phenomenological level, with few notions concerning the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Among them, a number of so-called operator-effects of emotions on attention, memory and combinatory thought (Ciompi 1997c) are of particular interest. An operator is a variable that acts on another variable and modifies it. A striking example of the immediate modification of form and content of cognition under the influence of emotions like surprise, interest or fear is already provided by the evolutionary rooted attention reaction that can be observed both in newborn and adult humans, as well as in most animals. Attention-shifting effects of emotions, for which some neurobiological evidence is just beginning to appear (Anderson et al. 2004; LeDoux 2000; Matthews & Wells 1999), are since ancient times intuitively used in all kinds of everyday activities like selling, advertising, political or religious rhetoric. They are well known also in clinical psychology, psychopathology and psychoanalysis. Recent systematic psychosocial research confirms a variety of focusing or defocusing, stimulating or inhibiting, hierarchy-creating and organising effects of emotions on attention and perception (Mathews & Wells 1999), on memory (Eich & Macauley 2000; Ellis & Moore 1999), and on comprehensive thought (Berkowitz et al. 2000; Niedenthal & Halberstadt 2000). There are two types of operator-effects of emotions on cognitions: General ones that are basically similar in all kind of emotions, and specific ones that differ from one emotion to another (Ciompi 1997c). General operator-effects include the fact that emotions – – – –
stimulate or, on the contrary, inhibit cognitive activities, that is, that they act on them as energy-regulating “motors” or “brakes” focus the attention on emotion-congruent cognitive objects, thus tending to establish an emotion-dependent hierarchy of perceiving and thinking preferentially store and mobilize emotion-congruent cognitions in memory, and tend to link emotion-congruent cognitive elements and to combine them in larger cognitive entities. A good example is the emergence of global affective-cognitive judgements of the type “a nice person”, “an ugly town”, “a wonderfull country” etc. that are the result of an agglomeration of
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a great number of single affective-cognitive elements of corresponding affective value. Specific operator-effects include the fact that – – –
–
–
interest and curiosity arouse emotional energies and direct them toward specific cognitive objects (Ciompi 1997c; Panksepp 1998a) fear and anxiety increase the distance or induce flight from anxiogenic objects (Le Doux 1996). aggression or rage defend or extend ones own borders. Additional evolutionary rooted functions are defending the offspring, catching preys, concurring against rivals, and reacting at frustrations of all kind (Lorenz 1966; Panksepp 1998a). pleasure, joy and other “positive feelings” decrease the distance and create emotional bonds with cognitive objects such as specific persons, places, situations, theories and ideologies (Bowlby 1973; Ciompi 1997c). sadness, mourning and grief have the vital function of loosening dysfunctional bonds by detaching emotional energies from lost objects and thus permitting to re-establish contact with significant others after a severe loss.
Far from being just “irrational”, both general and specific operator effects of emotions on cognition have highly survival-relevant functions. Their common function is the experience-based simplification of the infinite complexity of the cognitive world, by reducing it to a few behaviour-relevant categories like interesting/indifferent, harmless/dangerous, usefull/useless, etc. through corresponding adaptations of attention, memory and combinatory thought. Such effects are by no means only present in clearly manifest emotional states, but also in numerous apparently unemotional every-day phenomena such as culture-dependent prejudices and mentalities, fashions, value systems, political or religious ideologies, etc., where regulating and integrating effects of initially intense feelings gradually become automatic and almost unconscious by habituation. Emotion-regulated patterns are progressively consolidated by the fact that once established, pleasant and easy going ways of thinking and behaving are continually repeated, whilst unpleasant (conflicting, tension-creating) ways are as much as possible avoided. Similar mechanisms are covertly at work, even in seemingly neutral scientific and other rational thinking, given that abstract contradictions and conflicts, too, are emotionally unpleasant and uneconomic, whereas good solutions are pleasant and economic, and therefore attractive (Ciompi 1988, 1997b).
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The energetic dimension of emotions Another particularly important aspect of emotions in our view, namely their energetic dimension remains astonishingly neglected in both neurobiological and psychosocial research, in spite of having for a long time been integrated in several comprehensive models of mental functioning: Already the psychoanalytic approach located the energy for all thinking and behaving in innate drives and corresponding basic emotions, and Piaget’s systematic studies on the genesis of mind and thought in children also identified emotional energies as the essential “motors” or energizers of all cognitive activity (Piaget 1981). In the theory of affect-logic, too, basic affects are understood as directed energetic states selected by evolution, each basic affect being characterized by a specific pattern of energy consumption (Ciompi 1988, 1997b). It must be emphasised that the notion of energy is not used just as a metaphor in this context, but in the sense of measurable patterns of goal-directed conventional biological energy consumption, as already well-known in stressful sympathetic arousal states that are related to fear, rage and tension (especially in flight or fight), in contrast to the relaxed parasympathetic states that are related to “positive feelings” like pleasure, joy or lust which characterise activities like food-intake, rest, socialisation, sexuality, etc. (Selye 1946). To our knowledge, only one study has, so far, attempted a precise quantification of a diversity of emotion-energetic patterns as reflected in expressive movements (Clynes 1987). However, different emotion-specific patterns of energy distribution both in brain and body could nowadays be localized and quantified (e.g. by current imaging and/or bioelectric techniques). That emotions have an energetic dimension has also been repeatedly revealed in the preceding section on biological aspects, so for instance, when emotional states exert an “organic pressure” on cognition, when they energize the context-relevant neuronal networks, or act as dynamic governors for different modes of thinking and behaving. This dimension appears, however, with particular clarity on various psychosocial levels. Activating or inhibiting energetic effects of emotions on speed, form and content of cognition are already frequently observed in normal everyday mood fluctuations. Under exceptional circumstances such as sudden joys or griefs, traumatic events etc., they become, however, much more obvious, especially when individual emotions spread out on various collective levels, thanks to the mechanisms of “emotional contagion”, as described by Hatfield et al. (1994). The potentially devastating effects of mass-phenomena like mass-panic, mass-aggression
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or mass-enthusiasm, too, are primarily related to the huge polarized emotional energies that collective emotions may liberate. Spectacular effects of the activating or, on the contrary inhibiting power of emotions are also observed in psychopathological conditions like mania or melancholia: In elated manic states, the acceleration of all cognitive functions may reach the degree of a so-called logorrhea (relentless high-speed thinking and speaking activity, with continually changing associations and progressive destructuring of syntax, approaching incoherence). Simultaneously, all psychomotor functions are accelerated, while the need for sleep and food intake is dramatically diminished. In pathological depression or melancholia, on the contrary, ideation, speech and all other cognition-guided activities are severely inhibited and impoverished, with a general slowing down that may reach the degree of complete mutism and immobility (cf. Ciompi 1997a, c; DSM III-R 1987; Flack & Laird 1998). Simultaneously, attention, memory and thought are narrowly focused on sad contents, thanks to the described operator-effects of melancholic feelings. Facial expression, voice, bodily posture and practically all other psychomotor and vegetative functions are equally inhibited. In states of fear, panic or rage, too, speed and energetic pressure of cognitive functions are generally increased, with, however, the possibility of a sudden shift to the evolutionary-based phenomenon of freezing at a critical point of emotional tension. In the normally relaxed or mildly emotional state, cognitive activity is, in contrast, characterized by a modally flexible, quick and economic mode of thinking and feeling, without major fluctuations to affective extremes. Fully acknowledging the energetic dimension of emotions has important theoretical and practical implications: It clearly identifies the relevant dynamic forces at work both behind individual and collective affective-cognitive dynamics, it explains their direction and the organising effects of emotion on cognition, and it also opens new ways of understanding the dynamics of sudden non-linear shifts of the prevailing affective-cognitive patterns of functioning that are addressed in the next paragraph. In psychopathology, psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, too, a full conceptual integration of the energetic aspects of emotions leads to numerous practical and theoretical consequences (Ciompi 1997c).
Non-linear aspects of emotion-cognition interactions Mental and social systems are certainly among the most complex systems we know. It is therefore not at all surprising that they show non-linear dynamics under certain conditions. Preliminary neurobiological studies have already
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revealed that so-called ”chaotic” brain-dynamics can appear in the dopaminemetabolism (King & Barchas 1983), and in the EEG of epileptics (Babloyantz & Destenxhe 1986; Kovalik & Elbers 1994) or of psychotics (Koukkou et al. 1993). Here again, more extended information is, however, only available in the domain of psychosocial phenomena. Of particular interest is the observation that increasing emotional tensions are capable of provoking, at a critical breaking point, a sudden global reorganization of the prevailing feeling-thinkingbehaving patterns (Ciompi 1997b, c, 1999; Freeman 2004; Kelso 1995; Mechsner et al. 2001; Paulus 2003; Gottschalk et al. 1995; Tschacher & Dauwalder 1999). Such nonlinear bifurcations occur, for instance, when a conflict suddenly escalates from verbal to physical violence, or when a generally prevailing “logic of peace” turns into a “logic of war”. Similar mechanisms are at work in religious conversions or political revolutions (Ciompi 1988; Sargant 1957). Critically increasing emotional tensions often also play a crucial role in the outbreak of schizophrenic psychosis, as confirmed by numerous empirical studies on the impact of so-called “expressed emotions” (see Ciompi 1997c; Kavanagh 1992; Leff & Vaugh 1985). In addition, so-called butterfly-effects (small causes having enormous effects) can occur in unstable mental and social systems, such as, e.g., sudden outbursts of disproportioned rage and aggression after minimal provocation. If we assume that emotions correspond to goal-directed biologic energies, and that emotional energies play an analogue role in psychosocial systems as conventional energy plays in physical or chemical systems, all these observations are consistent with a dynamical systems approach, and in particular with the observation that in all kind of open dynamic systems, the input of energy operates as a critical control parameter capable of provoking, at a critical level, a sudden nonlinear bifurcation from one overall mode of functioning to another (Haken 1990; Prigogine & Stengers 1983; Schuster 1989). Another interesting aspect of non-linear psychosocial dynamics is the already noticed emergence of attractor-like effects of emotions on both individual and collective thought and behaviour processes. In chronic family conflicts, for instance, or in obsessive, depressive or manic states, all thinking and feeling may endlessly circle along the same inescapable trajectories, under the influence of the described operator-effects of emotions on attention, memory and thought. Typically attractor-like affective-cognitive dynamics (e.g. in the sense of the mentioned “logic of fear” or “logic of hate”), that may be propagated by emotional contagion, can also be observed on various macro- or microsocial levels – the former for instance in the endless Israel-Palestine conflict, where for decades huge parts of both individual and collective feeling and thinking has
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been trapped in escalating circles of mutual hate and violence. All these observations suggest that affective-cognitive processes may have a so-called fractal structure (Mandelbrot 1983), that is that they show self-similar dynamics on any mental or social scale, in terms of dynamic systems theory. The main mechanism that leads to these scale-independent self-similarities is very probably the omnipresence of the described operator-effects of emotions on cognitions on all psychosocial (and possibly also neurobiological) levels (Ciompi 1997b, d; Ciompi & Baatz, in press).
. Discussion and resulting working hypotheses A comprehensive picture of affective-cognitive interactions in humans and higher mammalians is gradually emerging from the reported puzzle of neurobiological and psychosocial findings. It can be summarized as follows: It is very likely that emotions and cognitions are circularly interacting in most mental activities. On the one hand, specific cognitions activate specific emotions on the basis of a limited number of affective-cognitive-behavioral systems selected by evolution that are further differentiated by experience. On the other hand, specific emotions mobilize and regulate specific cognitions by their inborn operator-effects on perception, attention, memory and thought. All incoming cognitions get an experience-based emotional value or “colour” that greatly influences all subsequent information processing. Cognitions with similar emotional values tend to become agglomerated. Thanks to its operator effects and attractor-like properties, each basic emotion is related to its particular mode of regulating perception, its distinct memory banks, and its own way of combining both in the complex emotion-cognition activating and/or inhibiting processes that we call “thinking”. Affects thus function as the essential “switchers” from one type of thinking to another. Rapidly increasing emotional tensions are, in addition, capable of provoking sudden non-linear modifications of the prevailing thinking and behaving patterns. All these interactions appear to be self-similar (or “fractal”) on any individual and social level. All this speaks for our central assumption that basic emotions correspond to evolution-selected patterns of energy flow and consumption both on the brain/mind and on the brain/body level. Directed emotional energies orient all thinking and behavior by preferentially focusing conscious attention on new, important, potentially dangerous, difficult or otherwise particularly “exciting” cognitions. By habituation and differentiation, such initially high energetic modes of processing are, however, gradually transformed into the more eco-
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nomic modes of semi-automatic everyday functioning in which low emotional energies operate on largely subconscious levels, without, however, loosing their regulating operator-effects on both thought and behavior. In sum, affects appear as elementary forces with Janus-like properties: Comparable to natural physical forces like fire, water or wind, on the one hand their energies are capable, when adequately channelled and modulated, of promoting subtle individual or socio-cultural performances. But when out of control, the same energies can, on the other hand, have disruptive effects on all possible levels of cognitive information processing and behaviour. This integrative view of emotions expands on the traditional understanding of emotions as rather short, conscious and typically reactive events accompanied by a cluster of expressive and neuro-vegetative processes. This is, of course, essentially a question of definition. Without going into a lengthy discussion of definitional issues that are tangled, as mentioned, by widely variable meanings given to terms like feeling, affect/affectivity, emotion and mood, we wish, however, to emphasize our conviction that a superordinate concept reflecting the underlying deep functional and phenomenological unity of all these emotion-like phenomena (subjective and objective, mental and somatic, energetic and phenomenological, conscious and unconscious, short-term and long-term) is desperately needed. On such a base, which also recognizes the energetic dimension and the self-similar effects of emotions on various hierarchical levels, substantial progress in the study of affective-cognitive interactions might be possible. It is precisely on such an interdisciplinary basis that we propose to include all phenomena commonly called feelings, emotions, affects or moods under the general definition of specifically directed psycho-somatic energetic states of variable quality, intensity, duration and degree of consciousness. Cognitions, in contrast, may be defined as the capacity of perceiving and further processing sensory differences (Ciompi 1988, 1997c, 2004). Both definitions are deeply evolution-rooted: In fact, already unicellular organisms function by sensory distinctions (e.g. between basic or acid, warm or cold, bright or dark milieus) that interact with global organismic states (e.g. relaxed or tense, or parasympathetic and sympathetic states) in which we might see the first glimmers of systemic changes that are eventually experienced and expressed as conscious “emotions” or “affects”. Simultaneously, the proposed definitions have the advantage of being mutually exclusive. The clear separation of two different but constantly interacting classes of phenomena should greatly facilitate the study of their interactions. They also integrate all known aspects of both emotions and cognitions without major contradictions to existing semantic
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traditions, and should thus promote interdisciplinary communication and collaboration. Furthermore, the proposed definitions put emotion-like phenomena appropriately close to psychosomatic states like hunger, thirst, lust or pain, whereas cognitive phenomena remain close to digital information-processing and computer-like cybernetics. Last but not least, the proposed inclusion of the energetic aspect of emotions brings a powerful dynamic element, commonly neglected, to the forefront in the currently prevailing cognition-based understandings of both mental and social processes. This is not to deny that in most “civilized” social interactions, a common aim is to keep the emotional energies at a sufficiently low lever that they not impair the flow of well-monitored cognitive information flow. A major problem is that there probably exists no generally acceptable term for such an enlarged notion of emotion-like phenomena, given that the two best candidates – namely “emotion” or “affect” – are already used, but in opposite senses, as supraordinate notions by different authors who have recently been reflecting on definitional problems: Ciompi (1988, 1997c), Clore & Ortony (2000), Damasio (2000), Ellis & Moore (1999) and Forgas (2000a), for instance, propose the term affect (or affectivity) as an “umbrella notion”, whereas Kleinginna & Kleinginna (1981), Panksepp (1998a, 2000a, b, 2001a, b) and others understand emotion as the supraordinate term, tending to restrict the notion of affect to the conscious subjective experience of an emotion (see Solms & Nersessian 1999 for discussion) and to distinguish, on this basis, between the supra-ordinate category of emotional processes, of which “affective feelings” are a subcomponent. Standard sources like the “Oxford English Dictionary” or the “Webster” are of no help, because they truly mirror the mentioned scientific ambiguities. A third possible solution, namely “thymic phenomena” (from the greek thymos that means both “feeling” and “the forces of life”) that is already used in this sense in “thymoleptics” (= emotion-normalizing antidepressive drugs) is probably too remote from current semantic practice for having a chance of being accepted. In the hope that some terminological consensus will eventually emerge by sheer necessity, we leave this question open and move on to finally proposing eight tentative working hypotheses as result of our reflections and possible guidelines for further research. Some of them are already well supported, but others are not. Again, we focus essentially on emotions for which the neurobiological bases are already partly known. Methodological issues will not be addressed in any detail.
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1. Different basic emotional states correspond to different pattern of energy consumption in both body and brain. As discussed above, this hypothesis and its numerous practical and theoretical implications is the central – and probably most innovative – aspect of our understanding of emotions. It could primarily be tested by modern measures of local and global bio-energetic flows, and secondarily by additional psychosocial and neuro-vegetative measures. If adequately confirmed, it should put the whole field of emotion-research on more precise quantitative grounds. Last but not least, it would eventually permit investigators to use both basic and differentiated energetic patterns as indicators for different emotions that, so far, are mostly assessed by indirect conventional research methods. This could be advanced by development of approaches such as those pioneered by Clynes (1987), as well as metabolic and neurophysiological brain imaging procedures such as PET and fMRI (Liotti & Panksepp 2004). 2. Mild to modest emotional arousal generally increases the overall amount of cognitive processing, while intense arousal tends to inhibit it. This hypothesis appears as a consequence of the preceding one. Both neurobiological and psychosocial evidence suggest, however, that it must be further differentiated, because different emotions and different emotional intensities apparently activate (or sometimes, as in panic, rage or depressive states, slow down or even block) cognition in quite different ways (Liotti & Panksepp 2004). An additional difficulty is the fact that adequate methods for quantifying cognitions are still widely lacking on the neurobiological level, and methods for following the flow of thought in humans, such as the study of psychoanalytic transcripts under different emotional states, remains poorly developed, but should be capable of being implemented with automated voice recording and data analysis approaches (Panksepp 1999). 3. Incoming cognitive stimuli associated with emotional arousal are automatically linked and stored with the accompanying emotional quality or value. This hypothesis, too, is, as reported, already partly confirmed both in neurobiology and on the mental and social level, especially by studies on classical conditioning. We further believe that once established affective-cognitive connections have wide-ranging consequences for all further information processing (see hypotheses 4–6). More research on all levels is consequently needed in order to identify how affective-cognitive connections are neurobiologically established, and how they are further processed.
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4. In different basic emotional states, different sets of cognitions are preferentially stored and/or reactivated in memory. This hypothesis summarizes an essential aspect of the described operatoreffects of emotion on cognition. Although closely related to the empirically well known phenomenon of state-dependent learning, it needs more psychosocial and especially neurobiological empirical consolidation, too. As we begin to understand some of the unique chemistries of specific emotional systems (e.g., neuropeptides, as discussed by Panksepp & Harro 2004), it will be probably possible to determine the extent to which various emotion-related memories and cognitive patterns can be reactivated by specific neurochemical brain conditions. The number of neuropeptides that have emotion specific effects should allow robust evaluation of such connections. 5. Cognitions with a similar emotional value are preferentially assembled into higher-order affective-cognitive-behavioral units. This assumption represents another important aspect of the reported operatoreffects of emotion on cognition. It is at the basis of the attractor-like emergence of comprehensive affect-specific logics (e.g. “fear-logic”, “hate-logic” etc.) and of specifically “coloured” personal or cultural value-systems, belief-systems, prejudices and ideologies. This phenomenon is also sustained by the activity of one or more of the above described emotion-dominated brain systems that integrate extended cognitive, affective, hormonal-neurovegetative and behavioral patterns into higher-order functional units. Over time, such patterns might be stabilized and become chronic by various neuronal plasticity and kindling mechanisms. 6. Sudden non-linear shifts from one prevailing global affective-cognitive pattern to another can occur, when the degree of emotional tension reaches a critical level. This hypothesis is derived, as explained above, from a dynamical systems interpretation of a great variety of unexpected psychological and psychopathological phenomena (e.g. the shift from a “logic of peace” to a “logic of war”, or from normal to psychotic modes of thinking and behaving). Already Pavlov’s experiences with dogs, which were confirmed by numerous empirical studies both on the animal and the human level, have revealed sudden overall behavioural changes provoked by increasingly difficult and stressful cognitive tasks. Given the frequency of non-linear mental and social processes, this approach seems quite promising, especially when combined with the proposed energetic under-
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standing of emotions. Here, too, much additional research is, however, needed. One additional experimental possibility would be to study mental reactions in response to artistic stimuli (music, film, dance, etc.) where there are sudden shifts of prevailing emotional moods and dynamics (Panksepp & Bernatzky 2002). Likewise, in studying humour, one could try to capture such global shifts before and after people “get” a joke. Increasing social tensions could, for instance, be quantified by classifying, counting and comparing emotion-loaded titles in newspapers and other media. 7. At least for the basic emotions, the described affective-cognitive interactions are self-similar in both small-scale and large-scale psychosocial processes. This assumption, too, stems from dynamic systems theory. It is suggested by numerous psychosocial observations which speak for analogue operatoreffects of emotions on cognition – and consequently for analogue reactions, for instance, to frightening or, on the contrary, to pleasant stimuli – on any individual and collective level. This issue has not yet been explored by formal research, to our knowledge. Several methods could be used for assessing self-similar individual and collective emotion-cognition interactions, among them the reported measurement of expressive movements (Clynes 1987) and other emotion-specific features (e.g. vocalization or body-posture) in real life emotional situations such as sports, artistic, or mob movement patterns. 8. A similar specific “affective imprint” is necessary not only for the generation and maturation, but also for the eventual reactivation of functional affectivecognitive circuits. This “imprint-hypothesis”, first formulated by Ciompi (1988) on the base of mainly psychosocial observations, is now also supported by the above mentioned neurobiological findings in animals that speak for beneficial effects of body-care and play on the maturation of certain crucially important limboprefrontal circuits. Numerous empirical data on early parent-infant relations and pro-social behaviour in humans point in the same direction (Bowlby 1973; Fivaz-Depeursinge 1999; Stern 1995). The assumption that the same affective tuning that initially facilitates the neuronal maturation of specific affectivecognitive circuits could eventually stimulate the reactivation (and possible further differentiation) of these very circuits in similar situations is providing a very parsimonious explanation for most of the previously reported “operator” effects of emotions: Coherent electrodynamic/neurochemical mechanisms, such as certain brain activity rhythms, may be responsible not only for the establishment of specific affective-cognitive-behavioural links, but also
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for the preferential focusing of attention on affect-congruent cognitions, for the preferential storage and remobilization of affect-congruent cognition from memory, and for the tendency of assembling cognitions with similar affective colour into larger cognitive entities (cf. hypotheses 3–5). This last integrative hypothesis, albeit conceptually reasonable, presently has no clear neurobiological evidence.
. Conclusions Comparing recent neurobiological and psychosocial findings on interactions between emotion and cognition from the perspective of two largely complementary models – namely “affective neuroscience” on the one hand, and “affect-logic” on the other – seems to lead, as hoped, to some innovative ideas and predictions capable of stimulating further research. However, some inherent difficulties of such interdisciplinary efforts also became evident, even if they are not fully discussed here. They range from “soft” and often subtle differences in the use of concepts, theoretical orientations and value systems, to hard-core questions of specific methodologies on how to best pursue research efforts. We hope, however, to have at least partly succeeded in overcoming such difficulties, thanks to a common commitment to empirical research as base for all scientific progress, especially in the complex field of emotion and cognition. Obviously, the neurobiological basis of a great number of conceptually well recognized mental and social phenomena remain to be empirically elucidated. Psychosocial phenomenology is, therefore, an ongoing challenge for neuroscience – and vice-versa. One of the more important outcomes of this interdisciplinary comparison is, in fact, the recognition that each approach has different strengths to add to an eventual synthesis. For instance, despite advances in imaging brain correlates (e.g., Liotti & Panksepp 2004; Mayberg 2004), it will be hard to specify how the detailed flow of cognitive activity (e.g., the progression of thoughts) could ever be quantified or causally manipulated at the basic neuroscience level, and it will clearly continue to be easier and more germane from a “mental apparatus” perspective to evaluate these issues at the human psychological level, especially with causal manipulations such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Schutter, Van Honk, & Panksepp 2004). Phenomena like subjectivity and consciousness can hardly be explored on other but the mental level in humans, even though credible approaches to the study of affective feelings are emerging in the neuroscience community (Knutson, Burgdorf & Panksepp 2002; Panksepp 1998a). This is important
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because basic emotional systems and their evolutionary roots and effects can only be studied in great neuronal detail in animal models. Neuroscience also provides powerful new tools, such as neurochemical ones to modify specific brain systems, some of which can be employed in humans to see what consequences there are for the intensity and flow of psychological output. Because of the abundance of new causal manipulations, such as neuropharmaceuticals that can modulate specific neuropeptides systems, there is a real possibility of bridging such seemingly distant approaches (Panksepp & Harro 2004). Such hard-core methods for testing new hypotheses should be interfaced with the uniquely rich field of psychosocial observation. Thus, in our estimation, there is much to be gained scientifically by allowing such very different paradigms to work synergistically toward a mutually desired and desirable synthesis.
Notes * Former medical director of the Socio-Psychiatric University Clinic, Faculty of Medicine, Berne/Switzerland ** Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA . We use the term “psychosocial” as a supraordinate notion including several overlapping fields like psychology, social psychology, psychopathology and sociology
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Negative affective states’ effects on perception of affective pictures F. Pahlavan and T. Lubart Université Paris V
A preliminary study of the International Affective Photo System (IAPS) with a French population was conducted. Ten photos from three different valence-based categories (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant) were selected (total = 30 photos). It was hypothesized that participants’ emotional judgments could be modulated by immediate subjective experience of specific affective states (Congratulation, Insult) in an affectively congruent manner. Specifically, it was predicted that individuals under emotional states should show greater affective valence judgments for affective stimuli of the same valence and faster reaction times for affect-congruent stimuli. Each photo was evaluated, under negative, neutral and positive feedback conditions, on valence, arousal, and dominance dimensions using the Self-Assessment Manikin scale (SAM; Lang 1980). Participants were 36 university-level psychology students. The results showed, first, an affect congruency effect in terms of more processing time when the valence of the emotional state and the information presented in the stimulus were the same. Second, men compared with women were more affected by the information presented in the stimuli under emotional conditions, particularly under the insult condition, whereas women were more influenced by this information under the neutral condition. Third, for the memory-related measures for life events, the highest scores were found for pleasant pictures. These results are discussed in relation to modulation of the effects of specific affective states by socialization style and self-regulatory motivations. Keywords: Insult, positive approbation, feedback, emotional context, evaluation, perception, affective stimuli.
Numerous studies have demonstrated an impact of moods on evaluative judgments. We seek to determine whether specific negative emotional states could
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influence differently evaluative judgments about affective stimuli. After a brief review of recent explanations of affect-congruent effects on cognitive contents and cognitive processing, we expose positions concerning affect-incongruent effects. Then the results of a study are reported.
Affect-congruent effects Early affect-cognition research was concerned with the influence of affective states on the content of cognition, especially for explaining affect-congruent effects in an automatic, bottom-up manner (Bower 1981). Taking two major orientations, one based on the memory approach (Forgas, Bower, & Krantz 1984), and the other inferential approach (Schwarz & Clore 1983), recent theoretical conceptions are rather integrative and propose implications for both processes. The Affect Infusion Model (AIM; Forgas 1995), as an integrative affectcognition theory, claims that incorporation of affective information into thinking occurs whenever individuals engage in heuristic (affect-as-information, Schwarz & Clore 1983), or substantive strategies (affect-priming, Bower 1981) as opposed to direct access or motivational strategies (Forgas 1999, 2000). According to Forgas (2000), affect infusion under heuristic processing occurs because of the affect-as-information mechanism (Schwarz & Clore 1983). Thus, affect infusion due to current mood could provide a shortcut to infer how the individuals feel about a particular issue or result from a priming effect for affective congruent thoughts (Forgas 2000: 357). Affect-incongruent effects Affect-congruent effects on memory, evaluation and judgment are not always seen, in particular with negative affect (Berkowitz & Troccoli 1990; Bless, Bohner, Schwarz, & Strack 1990; Martin 1999; McFarland & Buehler 1997; Parrot & Sabini 1990). Some researchers explain this lack of affect-congruency in terms of individuals’ consciousness about implications of their feelings (Martin et al. 1993) and/or awareness that their feelings might bias their judgment, resulting in an over-correction of their judgmental process and their performance (see Berkowitz &Troccoli 1990; Da Gloria, Pahlavan, Duda, & Bonnet 1994; Pahlavan, Duda, & Bonnet 2000b). Berkowitz (1999) suggests that this over-correction can occur when people are (a) aware of their affective state, (b) want to arrive at an accurate evaluation, and (c) are mentally active. Another possible explanation of diverse affect-incongruent effects is that specific emotional states that are typically grouped together may have very different effects, especially in motivational terms.
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Affect congruent effects and motivational implications Because there are motivational implications of affective states, some affectcognition research focused on the influence of affects with a specific valence on information processing strategies. There is evidence for important and asymmetrical effects of positive and negative affective states on cognition (Isen 2000). It has been found that people in positive moods tend to think more rapidly, more superficially, reach a decision more quickly, use less information, avoid demanding systematic processing, and are more confident about their decisions; whereas negative mood has been shown to generate more systematic, analytic, and vigilant processing strategies (Forgas 1989, 1991, 1998; Isen 1984, 1987; Schwarz 1990; Schwarz & Bless 1992; Sinclair & Mark 1992). These differential information processes are also assumed to have different motivational implications. Accordingly, positive affects should be related to approach or appetitive processes, whereas negative affects are rather supposed to imply avoidance or aversive processes. Although research has demonstrated differential implications of the affective processes in behavioral activation, the exact nature of this involvement is unclear. Some researchers assumed that these differential implications are due to the valence of the affective states, but others suggest implication of motivational direction of the affect. Affect- or motivation-congruent effects? Past research is unable to address whether affective behavioral activation is associated with emotional valence or motivational orientation, because they examined the effect of mood states rather than specific emotional states confounding affective valence and motivational direction. Additionally, the valence of affective states and the direction of the motivation are supposed to be directly related. It means that all positive affects are supposed to be related to approach and all negative affects to avoidance strategies. Nevertheless, these qualities could be differentiable. Higgins (1987) distinguished between “agitated” and “dejected” negative emotions. Accordingly a threat of negative outcomes results in an agitated negative state (fear, threat, anger, or edginess) and motivation to avoid negative outcomes. But a lack of positive outcomes induces a dejected negative state (sadness or disappointment) inducing motivation to approach positive outcomes. Thus, resulting strategies and tactical decisions for resolving life tasks are strongly influenced by individuals’ expectancies. For Schwarz (1990), approach and avoidance situations are characterized by a basic asymmetry in the amount of analytic reasoning that they require. To attain a positive goal, it is usually sufficient to pursue one of the many pos-
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sible ways of obtaining the positive outcome. But to avoid a certain outcome all possible causal links that may produce this outcome must be taken into account. Thus, according to Schwarz (1990), agitated negative affect states associated with avoidance motivation should trigger a more elaborate analytic processing style than dejected negative affective states which are associated with approach motivations. Moreover, agitated negative states could focus individuals’ attention on information relevant to avoidance motivation, whereas dejected negative states focus attention on information that is relevant to an approach motivation. Therefore, perception of causality to explain discrepancies between performance and outcomes could induce, in individuals high in achievement motivation, negative emotional states (agitated/dejected) and orient their judgments and behaviors (approach/avoidance tendencies). However, as mentioned by Weiner (1982), although individuals high in achievement motivation attribute failure to a lack of effort and success to personal control (Weiner & Kukla 1970), when experiencing a discrepancy between their performance and outcomes due to the others’ behavior they could feel anger. Generally, anger is considered to be a negatively-valenced emotion because the situations in which anger is evoked are viewed as unfavorable or incongruent with one’s goals (Lazarus 1991). Considered as an agitated negative state, anger is not necessary related to avoidance tendencies. In fact, anger is an emotion that is supposed to evoke approach behavioral tendencies (Ekman & Friesen 1975; Levenson 1994), because it is often associated with attack in the absence of a defensive motivation (Berkowitz 1993). Research on learned helplessness phenomena showed increased performance on an unrelated second task in individuals who responded with anger to failure at a first task (Worthman & Brehm 1975), and decreased performance whenever individuals responded with depression to failure (Mikulincer 1988). In the same vein, some studies found that infants expressing anger to the extinction of a reinforcement displayed the highest levels of pulling movements (associated with approach motivation; Lewis, Alessandri, & Sullivan 1990). Other studies showed gender-based modulation of these behavioral tendencies due to the failure or other kinds of aversive stimulation in adults (Da Gloria et al. 1994; Pahlavan et al. 2000b). Additionally, some researchers found that the angry people displayed the same pattern of judgments as those of happy people, showing some preference for heuristic strategies. Sad people, in contrast, tended to be detail-oriented and more thorough in their processing (Bodenhausen, Kramer, & Süsser 1994; Bodenhausen, Sheppard, & Kramer 1994).
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These suggestions indicate an influence of affective states on information processing style, and inferential processes in motivational terms. Affective implication induces a self-evaluation or self-appraisal process, which in turn could have motivational implications dependent on individuals’ inferences about the purpose of the situation. Consequently, individuals’ strategies and tactical decisions to cope with affective situations could also be mediated by their motivational tendencies. The present study was designed to examine how a positive or negative feedback (insult vs positive approbation) could influence information processing in individuals high in achievement motivation. Past research showed that arbitrary frustration and provocation influenced affective state and induced anger (see Berkowitz 1993). Verbal provocation has frequently served as an important elicitor of negative affects and aggressive actions. Insulting statements, even mild ones, could lead to initiation of aggressive behaviors and retaliation. The physical discomfort experienced by a person may be subordinate to the symbolic elements that are incorporated in the attack (Greenwell & Dengernick, 1973). And what makes it possible for intelligent systems to behave correctly as a function of what they represent (beliefs, goals, . . .) is that the representations are encoded in a system of physically instantiated symbolic codes (Pylyshyn 1999: 5). Therefore, cutting comments and sarcastic remarks often hurt as much as, and sometimes more than, physical attacks, particularly when they cause one to “lose face” in front of another person (Richardson, Leonard, Taylor, & Hammock 1985). Thus, retaliation against an insulting offender could be motivated by an individual’s desire to restore his or her public image (Tedeschi & Felson 1994). Being motivated to have a positive rather than negative self-image, individuals should seek to reduce any discrepancy from a valued self-image produced by their or others’ behavior. Thus, their attention could be selectively oriented toward the positive rather than negative aspect of the situation. These preferentially tuned processes could produce a better retrieval of positive rather than negative events and biased self-knowledge (Higgins & Krulanski 2000). Therefore, their strategic decision to maintain or restore public image could be influenced by these tuned processes. It is possible to maintain or restore one’s public image in several ways, such as by ignoring the fact that one has been hurt. If a person cannot deny being hurt, he or she may try to restore a positive image by retaliation to justify his/her positive image, but the victim’s response is affected by the attacker’s awareness of success or failure of the intended attack (Ohbuchi &Kambara 1985). If a victim thinks that the attacker is aware of the success of the in-
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tended attack, the victim should show a higher level of retaliation in order not to lose face. The present studies examine how specific emotional states induced by experimental manipulation (Congratulation versus Insult) could influence affective evaluations made by participants high in achievement motivation (university students). We propose that emotions can affect evaluation in a relatively passive and automatic manner (see Berkowitz 2000). These primed affects could modify judgment through connections between the affective system and the motor response system (Winkielman, Zajonc, & Schwarz 1997: 437). Our past research has shown these affective priming effects on motor decisions (Da Gloria, Duda, Pahlavan, & Bonnet 1989; Da Gloria et al. 1994; Pahlavan, Bonnet, & Duda 2000a; Pahlavan et al. 2000b). Accessibility of specific cognitive procedures (related to avoidance or approach strategies) increased through affective manipulation (Congratulation vs. insult) should facilitate their application and their transfer to a subsequent task of evaluation (Smith & Branscombe 1987; Zillmann 1983). Focusing on conscious affective evaluation of stimuli, the emotions induced by an experimental emotional manipulation can influence the judgments of to-be-evaluated stimuli. In this optic, we used a picture perception methodology designed by Lang and his colleagues. We took advantage of the properties of photos of reallife scenes from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the established reliability of the Self Assessment Manikin (SAM) scales (Valence, Arousal, Dominance) to obtain and measure affective judgments and judgmental behaviors (see Bradley et al. 1992; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert 1997: 106; Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993). Specific configuration of latency and judgments of perceived feeling should reveal specific motivational inclinations induced by experimental manipulations. Thus, in the case of the current studies, measures of affective valence or arousal are considered to be indicators of action tendencies. Ratings of pleasure could be considered as reflecting one’s tendency to approach a stimulus, whereas displeasure reflects a tendency to escape. Similarly, judgments of arousal could represent the amount of vigor associated with a given behavior. Dominance ratings may reflect individuals’ feeling of control in the situation and index the interactive relationship that exists between individuals and stimuli to be judged (with high dominance associated with the one having maximum control in the situation). The aim of the present experiment was, by means of the picture perception task, to examine the organization and modification of emotional perception
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and its motivational consequences when individuals have experienced a specific emotional state. In the case of the present study, valence and arousal are considered to represent primitive motivational parameters (strategic frame, Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert 1997) that define both a general disposition to approach (appetitive disposition) or avoidance (aversive disposition) stimulation and the vigor of the directional tendency. Measures on these dimensions could also be helpful for understanding the processes involved in retrieval of past life events (Higgins & Krulanski 2000; Leventhal 1993).
Specific Hypotheses: A relationship between subjects’ judgments and their immediate experiences of emotion was postulated. It was hypothesized that the latency and judgments of perceived level of pleasure, arousal, and dominance of the stimuli materials as well as recall of relevant life events could be modulated by the emotional context of their presentation in an affectively congruent manner. Specifically, we predicted that individuals under the insult condition should show greater negative valence judgments for negative stimuli and faster reaction times for these affect-congruent stimuli.
Method Overview Male and female volunteers participated in a study of emotion and its relationship to perception. During an initial phase of study, subjects completed a questionnaire measure of personal experiences of traumatic life events. The participants were then instructed that a series of pictures would be displayed and that they should attend to each picture the entire time it was exposed on the screen because they would have to rate their feelings about the picture on three scales. After a practice phase, a female experimenter introduced the experimental treatment (either insults, neutral remarks, or encouragement). Then the participants rated 30 pictures extracted from International Affective Photo System (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert 1995) using the Self-Assessment Manikin scales (Lang 1980 as cited in Bradley & Lang 1994). Participants Thirty-six right-handed University of René Descartes introductory psychology students (18 females, and 18 males) aged between 18 and 29 years (M = 22.44 years, SD = 2.95) were recruited by a poster in the university’s building.
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Left-handed subjects and those who had experienced a recent traumatic event were excluded.
Stimuli Thirty color images, extracted from the International Affective Photo System (IAPS; Lang, Bradley & Cuthbert 1995) were used. There were three categories (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant) of 10 photos selected based on intra-and inter-categorical matching. The intra-categorical matching was based on valence ratings obtained from a previous group validation study reported by Lang and his colleagues (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert 1995, average of mean valence and standard deviation (see Annex 1) for each category were: for pleasant: M = 7.18; SD = 1.88, for neutral: M = 4.44; SD = 1.52; and for unpleasant : M = 2.02; SD = 1.36). The inter-categorical matching was based on the type of the central elements of the pictures (object, animal, human beings), and their number. The human photos were matched on the age and gender of the person in the picture. Apparatus and response measurement The presentation of a digitized version of the photographs, image duration (6 s), collection of ratings, and latency of the ratings were controlled and recorded by a 486 IBM-compatible computer. Valence, arousal, and dominance ratings for each photo were obtained using a digitized version of the Self-Assessment Manikins (SAM; Lang 1980 as cited in Bradley et al. 1994). The time between removal of the picture and the rating response by subjects as well as rating time for each SAM dimension were recorded. Experimental conditions There were three conditions: Positive Approbation, Insult, and Neutral treatment. In each condition, participants completed a block of three trials designed to aid habituation to the materials and the experimental procedure. The computer was programmed to break down after the practice trials, to let one of the experimenters introduce the experimental treatment, which was either indirect congratulating (“It’s really excellent, you understood everything! We will continue.”), indirect insulting (“It’s really bad, you understood nothing! We will continue.”), or being neutral (“I have the results, I’m going to register it. We will continue.).
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Experimental task After the three practice trials and the introduction of experimental conditions, all the participants received 30 trials. A fixed random order of presentation of the photos was used (see annex 1). For each experimental trial, the participants had to evaluate their affective reactions (valence, arousal, and dominance dimensions) while looking at a picture. For the life events question, participants replied by using one of three response keys corresponding to the following propositions: (A) the photo leads you to recall a specific personal life event that you can date, (B) the photo leads you to recall some non-specific personal life event that you cannot date, and (C) the photo does not lead you to recall any personal life event. Then there was a final presentation of 10 trials with only pleasant pictures, which was hypothesized to induce, in all participants, a positive mood. Each trial consisted of four specific events: (a) a 5-second presentation of a screen bearing the caption “Attention, next picture”, (b) the to-be-rated picture was displayed by the computer, for 6 seconds, (c) the three SAM scales were presented to participants, one at a time in a fixed order randomized across photos (see Annex 1), (d) the computer displayed the question about memory of one’s life events. The participants used the computer’s mouse to respond to the SAM scale to rate the displayed picture on each scale. For the life events question, participants replied by using one of three response keys (A, B, and C). Procedure Participants in all conditions were told that the purpose of the experiment was to assess their opinions and reactions to different pictures. After entering a sound-attenuated, dimly-lit room, the participants were invited, by one of the two female experimenters, to sit on a chair facing a computer monitor on which a uniformly gray image was presented and to complete a questionnaire measuring life events. The other female experimenter evaluated the questionnaire for traumatic events. If no recent traumatic events were reported, then the participant was invited to fill out a consent form and read instructions displayed on the computer. The first experimenter told participants that a series of pictures would be presented by the computer and they should pay attention to each picture the entire time it was shown on the screen because they would have to rate their feelings about them on a series of three scales, and to answer some questions about memory for the pictures. Participants were instructed to view each picture for the entire time that it was on the screen and to refrain from making their rating until presentation of the scales. They were then instructed how to use the computerized SAM display to make ratings of
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valence, arousal, and dominance. Participants were also instructed that an initial block of three trials was designed to aid habituation to the experimental task. The computer was programmed to stop after the practice trials, and to let the first experimenter introduce the experimental treatment. Then the experimenter restarted the program and the experiment continued. Immediately after the presentation and ratings of all pictures, participants completed a questionnaire evaluating their impression of the experimenter, and a questionnaire evaluating their irritability as a personality trait (Caprara & Renzi 1981). Finally, they were thoroughly debriefed. Probed for suspicion and skepticism, no subjects reported knowledge of the study’s purpose.
Data analyses A 2 × 3 × 3 × 3 (Sex of the subjects × Failure condition × Scale type × Picture valence) factorial ANOVA was used in which the latter two factors were treated as repeated measures. Analysis of participants’ scores on the irritability scale showed a significant main effect for feedback conditions, (F (2, 30) = 3,95, p < .03), corresponding to a significant difference between positive and negative feedback (F (1, 20)= 10,89, p < .004; M Congratulation = 93,67 vs M Neutral = 107,25 vs M Insult = 110,92). Therefore, for all analyses, irritability scores were integrated as a co-variable.
Results Manipulation check for affect-induction In line with Berkowitz and Troccoli (1990), the participants evaluated the experimenter as significantly more quick-tempered, F(2, 29) = 4.22, p < .03; M = 1.73 vs M = 1.58 vs M = 2.58), more offhanded, F(2, 29) = 5,52, p < .00; M = 3.30 vs M = 1.75 vs M = 2.50) and more obstinate, F(2, 29) = 2.58, p < .09; M = 1.45 vs M = 1.33 vs M = 2.25) under the insult condition compared to the other conditions. Reliability of affective ratings Correlations were computed between the normative American-based pleasure, arousal, and dominance mean ratings of the photos (Lang et al. 1995) and the mean ratings obtained in the current study with subjects under a neutral experimental condition. Affective ratings across the two samples were highly related, which validates in part the selection of photos based on American norms (Valence, r = .97; Arousal, r = .87; Dominance, r = .89).
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Affective ratings Table 1, shows mean valence, arousal and dominance ratings for each of the three series of pictures in function of experimental conditions and sex of the participants.1 Analysis for statistical power of these data yielded a medium effect size (fvalence = 0.15, fArousal = 0.12, fDominance = 0.21). Significant main effects of picture valence (F (2, 60) = 61,79, p < .000) and scale type (F (2, 60) = 2,11, p < .005) were found. The participants’ global affective evaluations were lowest when they were exposed to unpleasant pictures and highest in the case of the pleasant ones (MPleasant = 5,81 vs MNeutral = 4,94 vs MUnpleasant = 4,28). Indeed, they felt rather aroused and dominant but Table 1. Affective Rating as a function of Sex of the subjects, Experimental condition, Picture Valence, and Scale type Sex of the subjects/ Experimental Conditions
Picture valence/ Scale type
Unpleasant Pleasant Neutral Valence Arousal Dominance Valence Arousal Dominance Valence Arousal Dominance Male subjects Positive approbation M 2.90a 6.25 a SD 1.74 1.90 Neutral M 2.22 a 7.05 a SD 1.06 1.55 Insult M 2.85 a 6.75 a SD 1.28 1.87 Female subjects Positive approbation M 1.92 a 7.23 a SD 0.90 1.20 Neutral M 2.08 a 7.20 a SD 1.27 2.04 Insult M 2.28 a 6.50 a SD 2.29 1.85
4.42 b 2.01
6.77 a 1.84
5.00 b 2.31
5.85 a 1.87
5.22 a 1.88
4.07 a 2.24
5.57 a 1.90
3.17 a 1.67
6.92 a 1.46
5.08 a 2.68
5.97 a 1.64
5.02 a 1.43
3.82 a 1.74
5.17 a 1.42
4.17 a 2.04
6.70 a 1.59
5.02 a 2.10
6.45 a 1.99
4.77 a 0.97
4.45 a 2.39
5.78 a 1.53
3.25 b 1.63
5.27 a 1.83
4.77 a 2.00
5.37 a 1.34
4.95 a 1.57
3.90 a 1.73
5.40 a 1.46
3.28 c 1.75
6.40 a 2.10
5.43 a 2.55
6.33 a 2.36
5.32 a 1.87
4.92 a 2.48
6.35 a 1.74
3.43 a 1.47
6.12 a 1.83
3.75 c 2.00
6.42 a 1.85
4.67 a 1.43
3.95 a 1.99
5.63 a 1.82
Note: Means in the same column that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 in the LSD tests post-hoc.
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less pleased independently of the valence of the pictures (MValence = 4,63 vs MArousal = 5,28 vs MDominance = 5,11). Analyses showed a significant interaction involving pictures’ valence and scale type, which supported the reliability of the selection of the picture based on valence and arousal evaluations, F (4, 120) = 109,08, p < .000. Judgments of unpleasant photographs indicated the most negative (M Unpleasant = 2,38 vs M Pleasant = 6,83 vs M Neutral = 3,62), and the most aroused feelings compared with the other categories of the pictures (M Unpleasant = 6,53 vs M Pleasant = 4,84 vs M Neutral = 6,06), but their dominance evaluation was the lower (M Unpleasant = 4,99 vs M Pleasant = 4,18 vs M Neutral = 5,65). A marginal significant interaction effect involving experimental conditions was found in association with sex of the subjects, F(2, 30) = 2.83, p < .08; male subjects compared to female subjects rated their feelings as more intense under emotional conditions, especially under the insult condition (Men: M Congratulation = 5,12; M Insult = 5,21 vs Women: M Congratulation = 4,78; M Insult = 4,75). The opposite trend was found under the neutral condition (Men: M Neutral = 4,93 vs Women: M Neutral = 5,26). A similar significant interaction effect was found when comparing the insult condition to the neutral condition, F (1, 19) = 4,85, p < .04, indicating that men and women did not evaluate their feelings for affective pictures in the same manner after being insulted. Men seem to be more emotionally influenced by emotional experiences, particularly by an insult, than women for whom more affective reactions were rather found in the absence of emotional experience.
Decision Time Table 2 shows Rating Times in each condition for male and female subjects for each of the 3 sets of pictures rated on the three dimensions of valence, arousal and dominance. The results concerning the response time for making affective judgments about the photos on the different scales showed significant main effects corresponding to picture valence (F(2, 60) = 5,35, p < .007) and scale type (F(2, 60) = 5,92, p < .005). These significant main effects indicated faster decision times for neutral compared with negative or positive photographs (M Neutral = 3189 msec vs M Unpleasant = 3448 msec vs M Pleasant = 3377 msec), and for valence compared with arousal or dominance ratings (M Valence = 3161 msec vs M Arousal = 3290 msec vs M Dominance = 3564 msec). An interaction effect revealed modulation of the effect of the scale type by the valence of the pictures for affective rating times (F (4, 120) = 7,55, p < .000); judgments of feelings to pleasant photographs indicated the slowest decision
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Table 2. Rating Time as a function of Sex of the subjects. Experimental condition. Picture valence. and Scale type Sex of the subjects/ Experimental Conditions
Picture valence/ Scale type
Unpleasant Pleasant Neutral Valence Arousal Dominance Valence Arousal Dominance Valence Arousal Dominance Male subjects Positive approbation M 3530b 3482b SD 2003 446 Neutral M 3512a 3738a SD 2006 1556 Insult M 3424a 3105a SD 1835 1889 Female subjects Positive approbation M 3043a 3490a SD 1660 2045 Neutral M 2954a 2995a SD 1515 1847 Insult M 2580c 2685c SD 1157 1439
4051b 1772
3156b 3665b 3844b 1708 1653 1551
3448b 3517b 3904b 2122 2147 1988
3964a 1928
3258a 1820
3817a 1908
3607a 1880
3332a 2127
3161a 2190
3940a 2022
4120a 1718
2997a 1560
3781a 2228
2981c 1461
2976a 2032
2580c 1776
2855c 1777
4068c 1737
3815c 2149
4086a 2072
3376a 2051
3355a 1994
3479a 1878
3661a 2290
3980a 1498
3130a 1654
3297a 2039
3368a 1507
2809c 1987
3182a 2069
3541a 1875
3348d 1329
2963a 1445
2915c 1282
2737d 1013
2618d 2243d 2802d 1482 1749 1191
Note: Rating Times are expressed in milliseconds. Means in the same column that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 in the LSD tests post-hoc.
times on valence (M Unpleasant = 3174 msec vs M Pleasant = 3220 msec vs M Neutral = 33090 msec), and arousal (M Unpleasant = 3249 msec vs M Pleasant = 3594 msec vs M Neutral = 3027 msec), dimensions. However, the evaluations of dominant feelings to unpleasant compared to other pictures were particularly slower (M Unpleasant = 3922 msec vs M Pleasant = 3319 msec vs M Neutral = 3450 msec). Analyses of the effect of success or failure feedback compared to neutral feedback showed the same significant main and interaction effects. Additionally, the analyses showed that the effect of Congratulation compared to insult feedback on affective rating times depends on both emotional conditions and the valence of the pictures, F(2,40) = 3,40; p < .05. In spite of gener-
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ally increased rating times under the Congratulation condition, compared to insult condition, the participants under the Congratulation condition took less time to process unpleasant pictures, but more to process pleasant pictures (M Unpleasant = 3610 msec vs M Pleasant = 3657 msec), whereas the reverse tendencies occurred under the insult condition (M Unpleasant = 3210 msec vs M Pleasant = 3063 msec). The fastest rating times were found for neutral pictures under the insult condition (M Insult = 3561 msec VS M Neutral = 2679 msec). With regard to these results, it seems that positive approbation increased, whereas an experience of insult decreased processing of the pictorial information, particularly when the valence of pictorial information was the same as the valence of the emotional experience. In the neutral condition, the affective rating times reflected general tendencies and increased affective rating times for emotional information, especially negative ones.
Retrieval of life events Table 3 presents, by condition, gender, and valence of the pictures, the mean Retrieval of life events. The retrieval responses were coded as follows: 3 points for a specific life event, 2 points for a non-specific life event, and 1 point for a non-recalled life event. A 2 × 3 × 3 factorial plan (Gender × Emotional conditions × Picture valence) with repeated measures on the last factor was used to analyze the means of these scores. Analyses of the data concerning the retrieval of life events evoked by the photos revealed a significant main effect for photo valence. The configuration of the data indicated the highest retrieval scores in response to positive photos, whereas exposure to negative pictures tended to induce lowest retrieval scores (F(2, 60) = 16.82, p < .00; M Unpleasant = 10,17 vs M Pleasant = 20,47 vs M Neutral = 18,33). No effects relating to the experimental manipulations were found. These results provide evidence in favor of the notion that people are motivated to have positive rather than negative thoughts, and orient selectively their attention to positive versus negative acts during performance. Consequently, a better retrieval of positive versus negative acts after performance results from these preferentially tuned processes (Isen 1984; Higgins et al. 2000). Analyses of the affective and time ratings by valence and content of the picture Analyses of the affective and time ratings by valence and content of the picture confirmed principal effects found in the case of the global analyses. Additionally, these analyses revealed diverse effects of processing of the affective information related to social life by social agent under specific emotional states.
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Table 3. Retrieval of Life Events as a function of Sex of the subjects. Experimental condition. Picture valence Sex of the subjects/ Experimental Conditions
Male subjects Positive approbation M SD Neutral M SD Insult M SD Female subjects Positive approbation M SD Neutral M SD Insult M SD
Picture valence/ Scale type Unpleasant
Pleasant
Neutral
12.00 7.3
19.83 4.53
18.17 4.6
11.17 9.39
21.00 3.79
17.67 2.80
9.50 4.46
21.50 5.32
18.33 4.55
7.67 2.73
20.00 3.29
17.33 1.89
11.17 6.71
21.33 3.20
19.67 3.88
9.50 2.88
19.17 3.71
18.83 2.64
Note: Values represent rate mean of score of retrieval. Means in the same column that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 in the LSD tests post-hoc.
In fact, when analyses by pictures were conducted, we observed an effect of the experimental manipulation for some specific pictures. For example, an interaction associating failure and sex of the subjects, in the case of the overall exploratory analyses, was found to be also significant for certain of categories of pictures. Therefore, it may be important to systematically analyze the presence of effects across the different stimuli used in emotion-centered research because the presence or absence of trends may be due more to the specific selection of stimuli used than to a truly generalized phenomenon.
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Discussion The major results of this experiment show an effect of affect manipulation on judgments and decision times conditioned by sex of subjects, dimensions of the judgments, and the specific content of the pictures. Typically, research has used a large set of pictures (at least 60 pictures) for resolving the problem of heterogeneity of picture content, averaging across individual pictures. However, because our primary objective was to study effects of a specific emotion on perception and memory, the use of a large set of pictures would dissipate the effect of the experimental manipulation of emotion. For this reason, a more limited set of the pictures (30 pictures) was chosen as a function of their valence ratings, and precautions were taken to balance other information concerning these pictures. Nevertheless, in the case of this study, analyses by pictures2 confirmed the major effects observed for overall exploratory analyses for the experimental manipulation. Overall, our results reveal that men and women process affective information differently whenever they experience a specific emotional state. More precisely, it seems that men are more affected than women are by emotional experiences, particularly when an offender insulted them in presence of a third person. Women expressed more intense affective reactions in the absence of emotional experience. Considering the rating times for these effects, we can notice that the rating times to express the observed differential affective ratings were, for men and women, the fastest under the insult condition and the slowest under the congratulation condition (Men: M Insult = 3202msec vs M Congratulation = 3622 msec vs M Neutral = 3592 msec; Women: M Insult = 2766 msec vs M Congratulation = 3597 msec vs M Neutral = 3251 msec). Therefore, in spite of faster global processing times under the insult condition, affective reactions differed. Faster processing for men results in the most intense reactions, whereas for women it results in the least intense ones. More interesting, to process information present in the stimuli under the neutral condition, men took more time than women to express the least emotional reactions. Under the neutral condition women expressed their most affective reactions. The faster rating times under emotional experiences support our hypothesis about the relation between anger and approach tendencies. Experience of an insult induced, even in individuals high in achievement motivation, a state of anger and approach tendencies. However, this acceleration of processing affected affective reactions differently in men and women. For men, recorded affective ratings reflect accumulation of the effects of emotional states and affective reactions induced by information presented in the stimuli. For women,
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affective ratings seem to be a function of a relative comparison between their existing emotional state and affective reactions induced by the information present in the stimuli. Under the emotional conditions, they felt less affected by information present in the stimuli. By a process of self-awareness or overcorrection, and following the instructions of the experimenter, women seemed to evaluate their feelings to the pictures without taking into account their existing emotional states. Research on men’s and women’s socialization and their differential development of mental models of the social world explain, in part, these differences (Eagly & Stefen 1986; Österman, Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, Kaukianen, Landau, Fraczek, & Caprara 1998). A growing body of research suggests that, because parents discuss emotions more with their daughters than with their sons, girls are socialized to be more attuned to emotions, particularly in interpersonal terms. For Higgins (1991), one consequence of this differential socialization would be the development of stronger self-other contingencies. It suggests that women tend to have an interdependent view of the self, and men construct the self in terms of independent self-guides (Moretti & Higgins 1999). According to Roberts (1991), women attach more informational value to the evaluative feedback. Thus, men may rather tend to use objective, external criteria to evaluate themselves, whereas women could try to accomplish their assignment and seek congruency with others’ standards. Consequently, their expression of emotions may differ because different self-construals imply the pursuit of diverse social goals. Concerning affective rating times, we found that the effect of congratulation feedback compared to insult feedback on affective rating times depends on the valence of the pictures. In spite of general increased rating times under the congratulation condition, processing times for unpleasant pictures decreased more in the congratulation condition than the insult condition; whereas to process pleasant pictures under the same condition, participants required to more time. The fastest rating times were found for neutral pictures under the insult condition. As a matter of fact, processing of the neutral pictures under emotional conditions could be considered as corresponding to the effect of the experimental conditions, whereas processing of the affective pictures under the neutral condition reflect rather processing times due to the affective reactions induced by the pictures. Thus, with regard to our results, it seems that an experience of positive approbation increases, whereas an experience of insult decreases processing of the pictorial information, except when the valence of pictorial information is the same as the valence of the emotional experience.
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For the neutral condition, the affective rating times reflect general tendencies, with increased affective rating times for emotional information, especially negative ones. This slower processing could correspond to systematic and analytic processing due to activation of the negative knowledge by negatively valenced emotional information presented in the stimuli. Affective ratings in this case reflect rather standard evaluations (M Unpleasant = 4,17 vs M Pleasant = 6,02 vs M Neutral = 5,10). Therefore, affect congruency in the case of this experience is observed in terms of an increase in processing times. In fact, this slower processing corresponds to the most intense affective reactions to pleasant pictures under the congratulation conditions, and the least under the insult condition (Congratulation: M Unpleasant = 4,33 vs M Pleasant = 5,67 vs M Neutral = 4,85; Insult: M Unpleasant = 4,33 vs M Pleasant = 5,75 vs M Neutral = 4,88). For nonemotional information presented in the stimuli, experience of insult decreased processing times. For retrieval of life events, we found classical evidence in favor of the notion that people are motivated to have positive rather than negative thoughts, and selectively orient their attention to positive versus negative acts during performance. Consequently, a better retrieval of positive versus negative acts after performance results from these preferentially tuned processes (Isen 1984; Higgins et al. 2000). The general conclusion about this experiment is that the affect congruency effects in the case of the specific emotional states vary considerably and depend on affective context, individual developmental history, self-implication, and the nature of emotional states. The multidimensional imagery approach used in the current research shows the complexity of affect-congruent effects, and suggests the necessity of a theoretical model in which all the levels of behavioral regulations are integrated for explaining these effects. Further research on this topic needs to focus on a better comprehension of these self-regulatory motivation effects, especially when under the specific emotional states where individuals are exposed to ambiguous targets.
Acknowledgements We thank Pierre Taranne for his assistance in the development of the computer version of materials used in the experiment.
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The experiments reported in this paper were performed by Nathalie CUPIC, Sophie GIFFARD, and Elise VERNET during preparation of their Master’s degree. We thank Leonard BERKOWITZ for helpful comments.
Notes . Given the small size of the samples, the scores were tested for heterogeneity of variance. The values of analyses of variance tests of homogeneity for affective ratings were inferior to the significant values with n = 6 and k = 6, except for Levene F in the case of the valence rating for negative photos. So, in spite of the small size of the samples, we can conclude, with some reserve concerning the valence rating of negative photos, that the data do not provide evidence that the assumption of homogeneity of variance has been violated. . Additional analyses by valence and content of the pictures involving emotional conditions are available upon request.
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Higgins, E. T. & Tykocinski, O. (1992). Self-discrepancies and biographical memory: Personality and cognition at the level of psychological situation. Personality and Psychology Bulletin, 18, 527–535. Higgins, E. T. (1991). Development of self-regulatory and self-evaluative processes: Costs, benefits, and tradeoffs. In M. R. Gunner & L. A. Sroufe (Eds.), Self processes and development: The Minnesota Symposia on child development, Vol. 23 (pp. 125–165). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Higgins, E.T., and Krulanski, H. (2000). Motivational Science: The nature and functions of wanting. In E. T. Higgins & H. Krulanski, H. (Eds), Motivational Science: Social and personality perspectives (pp. 1–20). Philadelphia: Psychology Press. Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy theory: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–340. Higgins, E. T. (1996). Ideal, ought, and regulatory focus: Effect and motivation from distinct pains and pleasures. In P. M. Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The Psychology of Action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 91–114). New York: The Guilford Press. Higgins, E. T., Strauman, T., & Klein, R. (1986). Standards and the process of self-evaluation: Multiple affects from multiple stage. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior, Vol. 1 (pp. 23–63). New York: Guilford Press. Isen, A. M. (1984). Towards understanding the role of affect in cognition. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition, Vol. 3 (pp. 179–236). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Isen, A. M. (1987). Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 20 (pp. 203–253). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Isen, A. M. (2000). Positive affect and decision making. In M. Lewis & J. M. Hoviland-Jones (Eds.), A handbook of emotions (2nd ed.) (pp. 417–4351). New York: The Guilford Press. Isen, A. M., Means, B., Patrick, R. & Nowichi, G. (1982). Some factors influencing decisionmaking strategy and risk-taking. In M. S. Clark & S. T. Fiske (Eds.), Affect and cognition: The 17th annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition (pp. 243–261). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Lang, J. P., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1990). Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex. Psychological Review, 97, 377–395. Lang, J. P., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1995). International affective picture systems (IAPS): Instruction manual and affective ratings. Technical Report A-4, The center for Research in Psychophysiology, University of Florida. Lang, J. P., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1997). Motivated attention: Affect, activation, and action. In J. P. Lang, R. F. Simons, M. T. Balaban (Eds.), Attention and orientating sensory and motivational processes (pp. 97–135). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lang, P. J., Greenwald, M. K., Bradley, M. M., & Hamm (1993). Looking at the pictures: Affective, facial, visceral and behavioral reactions. Psychophysiology, 30, 261–273. Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. London: Oxford University Press.
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Levenson, R. L. (1994). The search for autonomic specificity. In P. Ekman & R. J. Davidson (Eds.), The nature of emotion: Fundamental questions (pp. 252–257). New York: Oxford University Press. Lewis, M., Alessandri, S. M., & Sullivan, M. W. (1990). Violation of expectancy, loss of control, and anger expression in young enfants. Development Psychology, 26, 745–751. Leventhal, H. (1993). A componential, self-regulative systems view of Berkowitz’s cognitive neoassociationistic model of anger. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Advances in Social Cognition, Vol. VI (pp. 135–146). Martin, L. L. (1999). Moods do not convey information: Moods in context do. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Feeling and Thinking: The role of affect in social cognition (pp. 153–177). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, L. L., Seta, J. J., & Crelia, R. A. (1990). Assimilation and contrast as a function of people’s willingness and ability to expend effort in forming an impression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 27–37. Martin, L. L., Achee, J. W., Ward, D. W., & Harlow, T. F. (1993). The role of cognition and effort in the use of emotions to guide behavior. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Advances in Social Cognition, Vol. VI (pp. 147–157). McFarland, C. & Buehler, R. (1997). Negative affective states and the motivated retrieval of positive life events: The role of affect acknowledgement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 200–214. Mikulincer, M. (1988). Reactance and helplessness following exposure to unsolvable problems: The effect of attributional style. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 679–686. Moretti, M. M. & Higgins, E. T. (1999). Internal representations of others in self-regulation: A new look at a classic issue. Social Cognition, 17, 186–208. Österman, Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, Kaukianen, Landau, Fraçzek, & Caprara (1998). CrossCultural evidence of female indirect aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 24, 1–8; Pahlavan, F., Bonnet, P. & Duda, D. (2000). Human motor responses to simultaneous aversive stimulation and failure on a valued task. Psychological Reports, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 86, 232–242. Pahlavan, F., Duda, D., & Bonnet, P. (2000). Direction of human motor responses by men and women to aversive stimulation. Psychological Reports, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 90, 415–422. Parrot, W. G. & Sabini, J. (1990). Mood and memory under natural conditions: Evidence for mood incongruent recall. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 321–336. Pylyshyn, Z. (1999). What’s in your mind? In E. Lepore and Z. Pylyshyn (Eds.), What is cognitive Science? Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Roberts, T. (1991). Gender and influence of evaluations on self-assessments in achievement settings. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 297–308. Schwarz, N., & Bless, B. (1992). Constructing reality and its alternatives: An inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects in social judgment. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 165–193). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
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Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 513–523. Schwarz, N. (1990). Feelings as information: Information and motivational functions of affective states. In E. T. Higgins & R. M. Sorrentiono (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior, Vol. 2 (pp. 527–561). New York: Guilford Press. Sinclair, R. C., & Mark, M. M. (1992). The influence of mood state on judgment and action: Effects on persuasion, categorization, social justice, person perception, and judgmental accuracy. In Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 165–193). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Smith, E. R., & Branscomb, N. R. (1987). Procedural mediated social inferences: the case of category accessibility effects. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 23, 361–382. Weiner, B., & Kukla, A. (???). An attributional analysis of achievement motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 15, 1–20. Weiner, B. (1982). The emotional consequences of causal attribution. In Clark M. C. & Fiske S. T. (Eds.), Affect and cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erblaum. Wilson, T. D., & Brekke, N. (1994). Mental contamination and mental correction: Unwanted influences on judgments and evaluations. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 117–142. Winkielman, P., Zajonc, R. B., & Schwarz, N. (1997). Subliminal affective priming resists attributional intervention. Cognition and Emotion, 11, 433–465. Wortman, C. B., & Brehm, J. W. (1975). Responses to uncontrollable outcomes: An integration of reactance theory and the learned helplessness model. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimenyal Social Psychology, Vol. 8 (pp. 278–336). New York: Academic Press. Zillmann, D. (1983). Arousal and aggression. In R. G. Geen & E. I. Donnerstein (Eds.), Aggression: Theoretical and empirical review, Vol. 1 (pp. 75–102). New York: Academic Press.
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Annex 1 Order of presentation of the photos. IAPS code number, their valence, order of presentation of affective dimensions, and means and standard deviations according to American norms: Order. Description. Code Valence Dim Order Valence. Arousal. and Dominance Means and SD 1-Revolver (6230) U DAV : 2.37 (1.57). 7.35 (2.01). 2.15 (2.09) 2-Erotic woman (4180) P AVD: 6.21 (2.57), 5.54 (2.89), 5.44 (2.89) 3-Baby with tumor (3170) U DVA: 1.46 (1.01), 7.21 (1.99), 2.70 (1.89) on face 4-Erotic man (4490) P VAD: 6.27 (1.95), 6.06 (2.42), 5.03 (1.91) 5-A silhouette under (9210) N DVA: 4.53 (1.82), 3.08 (2.13), 4.55 (1.90) the rain 6-Mutilated woman’s face (3030) U AVD: 1.91 (1.56), 6.76 (2.10), 3.69 (2.10) 7-Baby’s face (2050) P VDA: 8.20 (1.31), 4.57 (2.53), 7.71 (2.53) 8-Old man in pajamas (2520) N DVA: 4.13 (1.90), 4.22 (1.69), 4.44 (2.33) 9-Mutilated woman’s body (3140) U DVA: 1.83 (1.17), 6.36 (1.97), 3.20 (2.17) 10-An empty basket (7010) N DVA: 4.94 (1.07), 1.76 (1.48), 6.70 (1.48) 11-Snicker bar (7430) P AVD: 7.11 (1.78), 4.72 (2.29), 5.86 (2.02) 12-Mutilated man’s face (3080) U VAD: 1.48 (0.95), 7.22 (1.97), 2.85 (2.10) 13-Erotic scene (4800) P ADV: 6.44 (2.22), 7.07 (1.78), 5.51 (2.11) 14-A pit bull (1300) U DAV: 3.55 (1.78), 6.79 (1.84), 3.49 (2.10) 15-Man with burns. in bed (3100) U ADV: 1.60 (1.07), 6.49 (2.23), 3.00 (2.16) 16-An umbrella (7150) N DAV: 4.72 (1.00), 2.61 (1.76), 5.55 (2.01) 17-French fries (7460) P DAV: 6.81 (2.08), 5.12 (2.49), 5.78 (2.26) 18-Women at the exit of a church (2700) N ADV: 3.19 (1.56), 4.77 (1.97), 4.44 (2.04) 19-Young man’s face (2200) N AVD: 4.79 (1.38), 3.18 (2.17), 5.44 (2.17) 20-Bearded man’s face (2210) N DAV: 4.70 (0.93), 3.08 (1.76), 5.23 (1.78) 21-Elderly woman (2590) N DVA: 3.26 (1.92), 3.93 (1.94), 4.31 (2.14) 22-Male erotic (4520) P VDA: 7.07 (1.64), 5.48 (2.27), 5.48 (1.58) 23-Woman’s face (2130) N VDA: 4.08 (1.33), 5.02 (2.00), 5.10 (2.00) 24-Naked couple (4690) P AVD: 6.83 (1.94), 6.06 (2.21), 6.12 (2.18) 25-Gnnet (neutral background) (1450) N VAD: 6.37 (1.62), 2.83 (1.87) 6.75 (1.87) 26-Man with blood (3010) U DAV: 1.71 (1.19), 7.16 (2.24), 2.88 (2.41) 27-Couple in a cemetery (9220) U DVA: 2.06 (1.54), 4.00 (2.09), 3.13 (1.97) 28-Female Erotic (4220) P ADV: 8.02 (1.93), 7.17 (2.69), 5.33 (2.12) 29-Dirty toilettes (9300) U ADV: 2.26 (1.76), 6.00 (2.41), 4.12 (2.59) 30-A rabbit (1610) P ADV: 7.82 (1.34), 3.08 (2.19), 6.77 (2.19) Note: V = valence; A = arousal; D = dominance; U = unpleasant; N = neutral; P = pleasant
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Neural development Affective and immune system influences George F. R. Ellis* and Judith A. Toronchuk** University of Cape Town, South Africa / Trinity Western University, Canada
This paper proposes that the developmental processes of Edelman’s neural Darwinism fit together in a very coherent way with the present increasing understanding of the importance of the affective dimension in neuroscience. A synthesis of these two features, with the evolutionarily determined primary affective systems together with the immune system providing the value system required by neural Darwinism, provides an integrative viewpoint relating psychological issues at the macro level to neurobiological processes structuring neuronal connections at the micro level. We look at the various implications of such an integrative viewpoint relating genetically determined affective systems to higher cortical functions, considering successively developmental and functional issues, primary and secondary emotions, psychological issues, evolutionary issues, language, genetic issues, neurological issues, and potential outcomes of the proposal. We suggest that the “wet-wiring” nature of neurotransmitter mediated synaptic connections may be related to this integration. We then consider the implications of molecularly based links between the brain and the immune system, showing this too might play a significant role in the processes of neural Darwinism. Indeed this could possibly relate to the evolutionary origin of affective systems.
.
Introduction
Two recent contributions have advanced understanding of brain function: Gerald Edelman’s “Neural Darwinism” (Edelman 1989, 1992; Edelman & Tononi 2001), dealing with how brain development and function can be well understood in terms of a process of natural selection applied to neural connections, and Jaak Panksepp’s formulation of “Affective Neuroscience” (Panksepp 1998,
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2001), addressing how neurobiological systems mediate the basic emotions.1 We point out here that these theories can complete each other in a very satisfactory way, providing a synthesis which strengthens support for each of the theories individually, and also provides an extended understanding of important interactions in the brain. In brief: on the one hand, major features of the basic value system crucial to Edelmann’s neural Darwinism but not fully elucidated by him can be provided by the affective neuroscience of Panksepp. On the other hand, important aspects of the mechanism implementing Panksepp’s proposal that “valenced affective feeling states provide fundamental values for the guidance of behavior” can be explicated by emphasizing neural Darwinism in a way that more fully accentuates current understanding of developmental biology. This proposed synthesis (which might perhaps be called “Affective Neural Group Selection”) then gives a useful standpoint from which to investigate the relations between affective neuroscience and neural Darwinism, and to consider aspects of developmental and evolutionary psychology. In this synthesis the emotional neural systems in the brain play an important role in selection of higher cortical connections. We present our proposal in terms of a central hypothesis which then leads to a series of conjectures that flesh it out, these in turn leading to a series of detailed questions that are susceptible to development and investigation. We indicate what some of the latter are, but do not have time or space to develop them in detail here. However this overall structure does indeed show that our central hypothesis is a fruitful one which can lead to interesting further investigations. The second theme of this paper addresses the role of immune system-brain interactions in such neuronal selection, suggesting these links too can be interpreted as playing a significant role in neural group selection processes. It is well understood that not only are there causal links from the brain to the immune system (Sternberg 2000; Webster et al. 2002; Kiecolt-Glaser et al. 2002) but also from the immune system to the central nervous system (Mulla & Buckingham 1999; Maier & Watkins, 2000; Larson 2002; Maier 2003). In addition, it is suggested here that immune mechanisms might have been significant in the evolutionary emergence of the hierarchy of signals that result in neural Darwinism. This part of the paper takes our initial theme and extends it in a consistent way to further areas.
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. Neural Darwinism Edelman argues that generalised principles of Darwinian natural selection (“Neural Darwinism”) must apply in the developmental process controlling detailed neural connections in each individual’s brain (Edelman 1989, 1992; Edelman & Tononi 2001).2 The theory3 has three main elements: 1. Developmental selection, 2. Experiential selection, 3. Re-entry (Edelman 1989: 4–8; Edelman 1992: 81–98; Edelman & Tononi, 2001: 79–92). The chemical gradients of molecules, which in some cases are the same as those used by the immune system, steer neurons in the generally right direction and these molecules may also prevent pre-programmed apoptosis. Competition for synapses then weeds out those which receive less use. In other words general tuning occurs by chemical gradients, but epigenetic experience provides specific tuning of those pathways. The key feature that concerns us here is that, after developmental processes establish a great variety of connection patterns between neurons, a process of synaptic selection occurs within neuronal groups as a result of behavioural experiences that modify affective states. These changes occur because certain synapses are strengthened and others weakened without macroscopic changes in the anatomy, although there might be microscopic changes such as perforated synapses or changes in dendritic spines. “This selectional process is constrained by brain signals that arise as a result of the activity of diffusely projecting value systems, a constraint that is continually modified by successful output” (Edelman & Tononi 2001: 84; see also Deacon 1997: 202; Schore 1994: 162, 253, 257).4 An example of a value system is the noradrenergic system, originating in the locus coeruleus and projecting diffusely to the entire brain, releasing norepinephrine. The unit of selection is neuronal groups (Edelman 1989: 43–69; Edelman 1992: 95–99). The “groups” that are selected experientially are those neurons which participate in ongoing, reciprocal signalling between widely separated regions of the brain (forming “re-entrant networks”). This parallel interchange allows for coordination and synchronous firing in the individual components of the neural group enabling coherent coordinated output. Edelman suggests that this re-entrant firing provides the basis for both learning and consciousness. This argument extends the Darwinian type of understanding from the evolutionary processes that historically led to the existence of the brain and shaped
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the genotype to also underpinning both brain developmental processes and brain functioning, thus directly affecting the phenotype. This is in accord with the way that such processes are now understood to underlie the functioning of the immune system through clonal selection5 (Burnet 1959; Edelman 1992: 77– 78). Thus such principles are already known to occur in human physiological functioning in the immune system, giving the same benefits as discussed here: putting in place a mechanism that can deal efficiently with conditions already encountered, but that can also deal adequately with situations that have never before been encountered by the organism. Through this mechanism, “In a very literal sense, each developing brain region adapts to the body in which it finds itself ” (Deacon 1997: 205). Thus this provides a neural mechanism underlying traditional learning theory, also imbedding it in the broader understanding of the adaptive power of Darwinian selection processes, seen as one of the most important mechanisms in biology.
. The affective connection The key issue then is what provides the fitness characterisation determining whether particular connections are strengthened or not. In Edelman’s terms, this is the value system guiding the neural Darwinism, which he relates physically to a fan of connections spreading out from a relatively small number of monoaminergic, cholinergic, and histaminergic neurons located in various brainstem and hypothalamic nuclei (see Edelman & Tononi 2000: 46). It is proposed in this paper that the signals provided by the set of primitive emotional functions described by Panksepp (1998, 2001) are the key signals in the value system guiding neural selection. This would tie brain functioning to vital capacities developed by evolutionary processes, strongly related to survival, and giving a specific set of mechanisms to implement Panksepp’s hypothesis that “affect is a central organizing process for sentience” (Watt 1999), namely diversity of the primary repertoire, selection based on epigenetic modification of synaptic connections resulting in a secondary repertoire, and re-entrant signalling based on reciprocally connected neural maps (see Edelman 1989). Panksepp presents in his work a careful neurologically based taxonomy of basic emotional processes, each related to specific neurotransmitters and associated with activity in specific subcortical brain areas. These are the evolutionary heritage we share with many members of the animal kingdom. They play a fundamental role in human behaviour: “the basic emotional states provide efficient ways to mediate categorical types of learned behavioural changes.
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... emotional feelings not only sustain certain unconditioned behavioural tendencies but also help guide new behaviours by providing simple value coding mechanisms that provide self-referential salience, thereby allowing organisms to categorize world events efficiently so as to control future behaviours ... [they] may provide efficient ways to guide and sustain behaviour patterns, as well as to mediate certain types of learning” (Panksepp 1998: 14–15). That seems just what is required to explicate in detail the value system needed by neural Darwinism (Edelman & Tononi 2001: 87–90). Emotions, in this context, are then the core of pre-organized mechanisms which “help the organism classify things or events as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ because of their possible impact on survival” (Damasio 1995: 117). The basic emotional systems identified by Panksepp (1998) are the following: E1: The SEEKING system: general motivation, seeking, expectancy (pp. 52–54, 144–163). E2: The RAGE system: rage/anger (p. 54 and pp. 187–205). E3: The FEAR system: fear/anxiety (p. 54 and pp. 206–222). E4: The LUST systems: lust/sexuality in the male and female (p. 54, pp. 225–245). E5: The CARE system: providing parental care/nurturance (p. 54, pp. 246–260). E6: The PANIC system: panic/separation, need of care (p. 54, pp. 261– 279). E7: The PLAY system: rough-housing play/joy (pp. 280–299).
Panksepp gives a detailed characterisation in each case, including associated key brain areas and neurotransmitters (for a summary, see Panksepp 2001: 147; and Table 1 below). These systems – processing sensations such as heart rate, palpitations, breathing changes, vasoconstriction etc, and leading to activity in the cortical regions – embody the basic preferences or biases of the organism that guide its further behavioural development. These basic emotional systems underlie the higher-level systems that develop in the brain (Panksepp 1998: 300–323). Various inputs to the SEEKING system to do with thermal balance, hunger, thirst, sexual arousal, etc. enable it to provide the basis of maintaining homeostasis. This system also drives the basic impulse to search, investigate, and make sense of the environment. The foundation of learning is then provided by satisfaction or dissatisfaction associated with the success or failure of one’s endeavours as motivated by the SEEKING system. Presumably as brain development takes place this underlies
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Table 1. Some of the basic emotional systems together with their associated brain areas and key neuromodulators. Serotonin and norepinephrine, which have more nonspecific effects, are omitted, as are higher cortical areas. Derived from Panksepp (2004) and Watt (1999) System
Neural Networks
Neurotransmitter
Aspects
Seeking
ventral tegmental area (VTA), lateral hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens, PAG, diffuse mesolimbic and mesocortical outputs,
Dopamine (+), glutamate (+), neurotensin (+), Opioids (+), other neuropeptides
Appetitive states, anticipatory eagerness, exploration, (seeks nonspecifically)
Rage
medial amygdala, BNST, medial and perifornical hypothalamus, dorsal PAG
substance P(+), Ach (+), glutamate(+)
Anger, frustration, hot aggression
Fear
lateral and central amygdala, medial hypothalamus, dorsal PAG
Glutamate(+), DBI, CRH, CCK, alpha-MSH, NPY
escaping danger
Lust
Amygdala, BNST, preoptic and ventromedial hypothalamus, basal forebrain, ventral PAG
Steroids (+), vasopressin, oxytocin, LH-RH, CCK
pleasure, gratification
Panic
Dorso-medial diencephalon, PAG
Opioids(–), oxytocin (–), prolactin (–), CRH
separation distress, social bonding
Caring
Anterior cingulate, BNST, preoptic hypothalamus, VTA, ventral PAG
oxytocin (+), prolactin (+), dopamine, opioids
Nurturance, maternal care
Play
Dorso-medial diencephalon, PAG
Opioids (+ in small amounts, –in larger amounts)
Play, joy, social affection
Key: PAG = periaqueductal gray, BNST = bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, VTA = ventral tegmental area; CCK = cholecystokinin, CRH = corticotrophin releasing hormone, DBI = diazepam binding inhibitor, LH-RH = leutenizing hormone release hormone MSH = melanocyte stimulating hormone, NPY = neuropeptide Y.
the development of systems that carry out specific tasks to aid these functions, in particular systems that anticipate what may happen by means of some kind of modelling of the external world, including anticipation of the behaviours of others. The explicit hypothesis we make is
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Hypothesis: The basic emotional systems E1–E7 identified by Panksepp, together with inputs from the endocrine and immune systems, are necessary and sufficient to provide the value system of neural Darwinism identified by Edelman and Tononi.
This makes explicit the way in which emotions underlie rationality, extending the understanding of the significance of emotions beyond that recognised by Damasio, namely (i) the production of a specific reaction to an inducing situation, (ii) the regulation of the internal state of the organism so that it can be prepared for a specific reaction (Damasio 2000: 53–56), to also including (iii)shaping of brain functionality, including the aspects classified as rational. This proposal agrees with his statement that “emotions are curious adaptations that are part and parcel of the machinery with which organisms regulate survival” (Damasio 2000: 54). They do so both in the short term through facilitating homeostasis, and in the long term through facilitating the development of intellect (Damasio 2003). In this way “all mammals, indeed all organisms, come into the world with a variety of abilities that do not require previous learning but which provide immediate opportunities to learn” (Panksepp 1998: 25). Thus what is proposed here can provide a neural mechanism underlying behavioural development and learning, and is therefore supported by all the body of evidence that emotion is developmentally and functionally important. In genetic terms, “the genome helps set the precise or nearly precise structure of a number of important systems and circuits in the evolutionarily old sectors of the human brain” (Damasio 1995: 109); these innate circuits then “intervene not just in bodily regulation but also in the development and adult activity of the evolutionarily modern structures of the brain .... whose precise arrangement comes about under the influence of environmental circumstances complemented and constrained by the influences of the innately and precisely set circuits concerned with biological regulation” (Damasio 1995: 109; Damasio 2003: 30–59). It is through this process that the visual, auditory, sensory, and motor systems all contribute to the development of the central nervous system as a whole. The present proposal is that this happens through the mechanism of affective neural Darwinism outlined above. Furthermore, it is suggested that apart
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from immune and endocrine system inputs discussed below, the seven basic emotional systems E1–E7 together with sensory input and life-experience are sufficient to sculpt the developing brain; there are no other unidentified sectors of the value system. This means that when taken together with physiological needs, they are sufficient to underlie any system of “human universals” such as that proposed by Brown (1991).6 Of course such broad concepts are hiding a vast number of essential details, and it is mainly in the explication of the details that scientific progress must be measured. It is this assumption of sufficiency that gives this proposal bite and enables it to be tested in a variety of ways discussed in the next section, and allows it to help guide the required explication of the details.
. Implications of affective neural Darwinism What are the benefits of this view? From the viewpoint of neural Darwinism, it provides a crucial link between macro-behavior and the formation of synaptic connections by identifying the macro-features of the value system in psychological terms. This system is characterised in functional terms in Edelman & Tononi 2001: 87–90, but not related there to specific macro-features of behaviour. This identification clarifies the causal nature of that system in relation to individual development and function. From the viewpoint of the affective neurosciences, it is largely unsurprising because it is just a slightly more specific version of what some already believe (e.g. Panksepp 2001b); it emphasizes explicitly that the effects of primary affective states include adaptive selection of neuronal groups as well as their immediate effect on neuronal functioning. However although the affective viewpoint has been substantiated by recent studies (e.g. Panksepp 2003c), it is nevertheless still contested and not gaining as much ground as one might have expected (Panksepp 2002, 2003b).7 The main benefit here may well be in supporting that view by indicating how naturally it fits with a neural Darwinism viewpoint. What features might be expected and so could serve as a test of this proposal? It serves as a unifying theme that will ultimately be tested by how well it links neurological processes on the one hand and psychological issues on the other, tying them in to evolutionary and developmental processes. That is, the test is how effective it is as an integrating theme suggesting how neurological processes may be tied in to macroscopic aspects of consciousness. On this view, the primary emotions E1 to E7 characterised above become the lynch-pin linking neurophysiology to experience and the social and phys-
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ical environment. They link macro-events to neural micro-structure by topdown action from the macro to the micro scale. Consequently they are a key both to brain physiological development and to evolutionary development of secondary emotions and higher cognitive functions. This should play itself out in terms of both evolutionary psychology and developmental theory, and hence in terms of psychiatry (relating both to physical and developmental disorders) and learning theory. In particular it should manifest in terms of behavioural alterations associated with physiological changes in the primary emotional areas, and in terms of commonalities with our animal relatives. This section outlines how that might work out. . Developmental and functional issues The key factor underlying brain development is the fact that the stored information in the human genome is far too little to control brain development by itself. The Human Genome Project has revealed (Baltimore 2001; Wolfsberg et al. 2001) that there are of the order of 45,000 genes in the human genome; but there are about 1013 cells in the human body and 1011 neurons in a human brain. Consequently – remembering that this genetic information has to cover development of all other bodily structure as well as the brain – there is not a fraction of the information required to structure in detail any significant brain modules, let alone the human brain as a whole (Damasio 1995: 108), for there is only one gene per 107 neurons and per 109 neural connections. Human development has to take place in the face of these genetic limitations, and this is a key reason why neural Darwinism is necessary as an effective mechanism structuring the brain and adapting it to both the local molecular and encompassing social environments. Neural Darwinism also provides individual organisms the advantage of flexible neural development toned to individual somatic conditions such as differences in the size of individual muscles. We can make this specific through the following set of conjectures that flow out of our basic hypothesis: Conjecture 1: the more hard–wired parts of the CNS are the spinal cord, brain stem and diencephalon together with its sensory inputs while the cerebellum and cortical structures are genetically determined only in terms of basic neuronal structure and broad connections between different brain areas. The detailed connectivity in the cerebellum and telencephalon are determined by neuronal group selection.8
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By hard-wired, we mean neuronal connections are determined largely by genes read in the local molecular context, and therefore susceptible to immune and endocrine influences during early development; however, these connections are thereafter fixed except that their strengths may vary according to use in a standard Hebbian way. The chemical milieu in which neurons find themselves early in development can play a role in organization of the brainstem emotional systems, but thereafter these connections are, relative to those in telencephalic structures, more stable and fixed. The reason for this is that it is important that the brainstem structures should not be subject to constant change, as they themselves provide the value system for later emotional development; there is no other value system, by hypothesis. Many of these structures also exhibit use-dependent plasticity, as mentioned above, but by itself this does not guide development in a way dependent on the interplay between a value system and experience; rather it plays a supporting role in such developments. The situation would become dynamically unstable, going into unbounded oscillations or exponential instability, if neural Darwinism applied to the connections determining the value system through the values implicit in that system itself. These structures must under most circumstances be fixed and unchanging in order to provide long-term stability; thus they must be relatively free of perturbation. Nevertheless extreme environmental circumstances during development may provoke dysfunctional changes in the value system. Conjecture 2: Consequently, the only genetically specified brain functions are the unconscious basic regulatory capacities plus instinctive drives together with the basic emotional systems and basic sensory-motor pathways. No higher cognitive capacities are hard-wired: they are determined by developmental interaction with the internal and external environments in conjunction with the internal (self-referential) effects of the brain on itself. Conjecture 3: The secondary emotions and higher cognitive capacities develop under the guidance of the value system provided by the basic emotional systems together with broad information from the immune and endocrine systems. Consequently these higher capacities are shaped by the dimensions of the basic emotional systems, which are the filter through which environmental effects and experience are evaluated and used to guide brain development.
On the view put here, there is a clear distinction between primary and secondary emotions. The primary emotions are affective states arising primarily from subcortical brain structures (the amygdala, basal forebrain, hypothalamus, and nuclei of brainstem tegmentum) that we share with other mammals. On the other hand secondary emotions arise through the effects of the primary
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emotions on cortical regions (ventromedial prefrontal, cingulate and insular cortex) in the course of daily life and social interaction. In brief: primary emotions are hard-wired during early development, secondary emotions are soft-wired products of experience. Both may give rise to conscious awareness. In the main, secondary emotions correspond to social emotions developing out of the primary emotions with a social character (CARE and PANIC, also to some extent LUST and PLAY); this issue is discussed below. Note that some secondary emotions may also occur in other animals, developing through their social interactions. The key question underlying these conjectures is what use is made of the very limited number of genes available for brain development. The view here is that this genetic information is used to hard-wire the brainstem and diencephalic structures, as outlined above, and to soft-wire the rest. Higher level brain development will be only generically set genetically, and then will be determined in detail by neural Darwinism in response to life experience, with the value system guiding that process provided by the less malleable primary emotional systems E1–E7 as listed above. Intrinsic personality differences will then depend on the relative strengths of these seven affective systems, which are sufficient to determine development of higher-level aspects of the brain.9 One can in cartoon fashion imagine a genetic genie together with the early developmental environment setting the values of the relative strengths of the systems E1–E7 for each individual on the dials of an instrument panel; these relative strengths are then fixed for life, determining that individual’s basic emotional type. This is the initial material which then interacts with the physical and social environment to develop the adult personality (Donald 2001); hence the systems E1–E7 provide the emotional palette that guides brain development. How this works out will depend on the manner in which the social environment responds positively or negatively to these basic emotional capacities. Different personality development, in terms of secondary emotion and cognitive development, will occur according to the relative strengths of the basic systems E1–E7 on the one hand and the responsiveness and emotional tenor of the environment in each of these dimensions on the other. An analogy is helpful here: consider colour vision. Because of the genetically determined hard-wiring of the long, medium, and short wavelength photoreceptor systems, colour vision is determined by the relative sensitivities of these systems. The possible nature of colour vision disorders follows from this: there are seven possible types of colour blindness depending on which of these primary colour systems is impaired (with disorders related to non-functionality of a single
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colour system being more likely than those with two or three of them being dysfunctional).10 These can be tested for and related to genetic disorders. If the view proposed here is correct, the pallet of primary emotions characterised above similarly determines the different kinds of emotional disorders that may occur for genetic reasons. Further, vision is determined developmentally as well as genetically: if a person or animal were kept in an environment where some colours never occurred (for example, they were kept continuously in a room illuminated only by very long wavelength light so that it avoided stimulating one set of receptors) the associated visual ability would presumably decay, and they would at later stages be unable to see the colours that had been omitted in their developmental environment. This suggests that analogous, although much more complex, emotional disorders could arise for individuals brought up in emotionally stunted environments. The possible natures of these disorders would again be determined by the pallet of primary emotions. In functional terms, this whole setup may be regarded as a feedback control system, using genetically determined inherited goals to guide the development of the organism in accord with information implicit in those goals about survival needs in the world in which the organism lives. This kind of use of information in feedback control systems is characteristic of the way that higher level order emerges in hierarchically structured complex systems (Ellis 2003). The information is mainly used to attain equilibrium of the organism in its environment, that is, the process is one of homeostasis. According to Milsum (1966), all human physiological systems can be regarded as means to attaining homeostasis. This theme is presented in a different way by Damasio, who emphasizes homeostatic regulation carried out by a multibranched affective tree (Damasio 2003: 30–59). The bottom level consists of metabolism, basic reflexes, and immune responses. The next level is pain and pleasure behaviours associated with reward and punishment - the first stage of the “value” system. The next level is drives and motivations including play, exploration, sex: also part of the value system. Then he has “emotions-proper” such as fear, anger, shame, guilt, and at the top “feelings”, a term which he reserves for qualia-like conscious awareness of emotional states, but he emphasizes that all of these levels (including emotions and feelings) are regulators of homeostasis. This is basically in accord with our view; we address the relation of these higher levels to the value system in our discussion of secondary emotions below. From our viewpoint, we have a causal hierarchy characterised in an extremely simplified form in Figure 1. The emotional system sends information on the affective state of the organism to the cortical areas, thereby influencing the way neurons fire in the cortex and helping shape the outcome of current
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Cognition, feeling secondary emotions
Primary emotional neural systems
Immune system
Figure 1a. The basic set of interactions between the higher level cognitive functions, the emotional system, and the immune system, go both ways. They involve immediate (physiological) effects, longer term (developmental) effects, and very long term (evolutionary) effects. The suggestion here is that the latter two proceed by basically the same evolutionary mechanism, albeit operating on very different timescales. Thus in broad brush terms the immune system underlies the emotions, which in turn underlie intellect.
neuronal operations there; thus they inform the cognitive functions and modify their outputs. This is bottom-up action from the emotional system to the cortex. Similarly the higher cortical areas send information on the way the higher brain views the situation to the emotional system, thus informing it and modifying its outputs; this is top-down action from the cortex to the emotional system. However additionally, through the value system, bottom-up action by the emotional system helps shape the network of neuronal connections in the cortex; it is crucial that there is no converse downwards effect from the cortex to the emotional system. We may summarise by saying that emotion and intellect interact with each other operationally, but emotion shapes intellect developmentally. In short: emotion underlies intellect. This hypothesis can be tested overall by extending the range of investigations of factors underlying human cognitive abilities (Carroll 1993) to include the relative strengths of the primary emotional systems E1–E7 as outlined above. This may help illuminate the key unresolved issue of why some people are cleverer than others (Deary 2001, Chapter 3).
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Neocortex
amygdala
hippocampus hypothalamus pituitary
HPA axis
Autonomic nervous system
Adrenal gland
Immune system
Figure 1b. More detailed view of the basic set of interactions between the higher level cognitive functions, the emotional system, and the immune system.
. Primary and secondary emotions A key point is the relation between primary and secondary emotions (Ekman & Davidson 1994: 5–48; Damasio 2003). On the view put forward here, secondary emotions would arise through the effects of the primary emotions on the cortex in the course of social interaction, the primary emotions based in subcortical limbic structures being our genetic heritage from our animal forbears. The secondary emotions are not part of the value system, as they don’t originate in the same loci as the primary emotions. They are however indirectly able to be effective in determining neural connections through the mechanisms of neural Darwinism, because of their powerful ability to affect the state of primary emotions, which then act as the value system. In this way the secondary emotions can modulate both the immediate state of the primary emotions, and their longer-term effects through sculpting neuronal connections. It is clearly crucial to clarify which are secondary and which are primary emotions. As an example, Damasio (2003: 44) suggests universal primary emotions are,
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P1. happiness, P2. sadness, P3. fear, P4. anger, P5. surprise, P6. disgust,
and (pp. 45 and 156) characterises developmentally emergent secondary emotions as, S1: embarrassment, shame, guilt; S2: contempt, indignation; S3: sympathy, compassion; S4: awe/wonder/elevation, gratitude, pride; S5: jealousy, envy.
Because of animal behaviour patterns (Manning & Dawkins 1998: 395–401; Slater 1999: 200–204), there is a good case to add to these, S6: social rank/dominance, S7: belonging/exclusion.
Now these proposals may be compatible with our functional distinction between primary and secondary emotions, but this needs testing in each case; where there is a disagreement, we suggest our functional distinction should take precedence because of its grounding in neurostructure. Furthermore the classification of secondary emotions is not settled, and one can suggest that they will be universal in humanity, because of the universal nature of the developmental experiences leading to their existence. To what degree they are shared by higher primates and other animals is a fascinating subject for further study. The point is that it isn’t 100% clear which ones should be considered primary and which are derivative. Others would have different lists than those of Damasio given above.11 The need is to come up with a coherent classification that makes sense in the light of the mechanisms proposed here and also relates sensibly to Panksepp’s list E1–E7, which is not the same as the list P1–P6 above. Those listed as primary must be sufficient to underlie development of all present day intellectual and emotional capabilities, including the secondary emotions, as outlined in Conjectures 1 to 3 above, and should also be related to activity in specific subcortical structures and neurotransmitters utilized in their activation.12 Thus a revised categorisation of primary and secondary emotions, and a characterisation of which primary emotions are most important for developing which secondary ones,13 is an important task. The outcome of all this should be either a confirmation that Panksepp’s list E1–E7 is indeed adequate to serve as the basis of higher emotional and cognitive development, or a proposal for further additions to that list in order
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that it is indeed sufficient. There could for example be a case for adding a basic underlying emotional system E0: PLEASURE/PAIN, an overall “state-of -the-system” assessment, related to overall happiness/welfare/unhappiness and corresponding to Damasio’s emphasis of the importance of these overall aspects of emotion (Damasio 2003: 32–34).
To make this good one would have to identify a corresponding physical locus and associated neurotransmitters. A possibility is that this dimension is related to the noradrenergic system, originating in the locus coeruleus and projecting diffusely to the entire brain (Kingsley 2000: 131; Edelman & Tononi 2001: 84), and closely related to the SEEKING system (Panksepp 1998). Further elucidation is needed. Pleasure/pain may just be part of the seeking system, although the way this affective dimension is characterised by Damasio differs from Panksepp’s description of E1. Reconsideration might decide that some of the primary emotions listed by Damasio (see above) should be considered as additions to Panksepp’s list. Alternatively the conclusions might be that some of them, for example P6: Disgust in which the insular cortex (Wicker 2003) plays a major role, should rather be classified as secondary emotions. Furthermore P5: Surprise seems to be a reflex rather then an emotion (it does not convey specific values suggesting any specific actions are appropriate), and so should either be taken off the list of primary emotions, or incorporated with E0. Additionally it is plausible that in view of our animal forebears’ social structures, some of the social emotions may in fact be primary (i.e. hardwired through the evolutionary process and related to specific genes) because of their high survival value, suggesting a re-classification of some of the secondary emotions identified above as primary. This might specifically apply to S6: social rank/ dominance, which would then be re-classified as primary rather than secondary, and possibly also to S1: embarrassment, shame, guilt. Alternatively one would like a definite proposal as to how these can reliably emerge in each individual from the primary emotions through the processes of social interaction, for example based on E5: The CARE system and E6: The PANIC system, which are basic emotions related to sociality and so could possibly provide the basis needed for these to develop as secondary emotions.
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. Psychological issues The developmental environment might be characterised in a similar way in terms of its responsiveness and depth in these emotional dimensions; the ultimately resulting personality will depend on the interaction between the environment and the intrinsic capacities in each dimension. Two theoretically possible kinds of experiments indicate how it would in principle be possible to test the above hypotheses. They are, Experiment 1 (structural effects): surgically, genetically or chemically inactivate the various basic emotional systems E1–E7 in young children or animals, and see what the developmental results are; Experiment 2 (environmental effects): raise children or other mammals in a milieu where they receive only cognitive rather than emotional stimulation, and see what the developmental effects are.
In the latter case, one could have a set of four comparison groups: E+ I+ , an emotionally and cognitively stimulating environment; E+ I– , an emotionally stimulating but cognitively deprived environment; E– I+ , an emotionally deprived but cognitively stimulating environment; and E– I– , an emotionally and cognitively deprived environment.
It is well known that in the latter case children will lag developmentally, will lose weight, and may even die from lack of caring attention. For example Coe and Lubach (2003) have recently reviewed the effects on the health of infant monkeys and children of the interaction of immune and psychological factors during separation. This matrix of comparison will determine which effects are more significant, and the hypothesis will be that it is the emotional aspect that is developmentally more important. One could further separate this out according to emotional category by depriving the subjects separately of stimuli/responses in each category E1–E7. Of course it might be impossible to deprive a child in just one emotional category, or even to completely separate emotional and intellectual stimuli, but still one could find environments where there were sufficient differences in these dimensions to look for such effects. Although these variables cannot be experimentally manipulated in humans, there are situations in which this has been effectively what has happened, through either genetic defects or physiological trauma in the first case, and through impoverished home or environmental circumstances in the second. However this is not an all–or–nothing affair: one can create a causal matrix to
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test for degrees of such genetic and environmental effects, in particular testing for various relative strengths of the basic emotional systems on the one hand, and to what degree emotional/cognitive aspects are encouraged and responded to in particular family/school/life situations, on the other. Thus a meta-analysis could be carried out using studies already in the existing literature. (There is a great deal of relevant modern animal information on such issues, including neuroscience varieties. For an excellent review of the animal literature see Panksepp 1998.) The causal interactions here are of course immensely complex; nevertheless if the basic thesis proposed here is true, it should in principle be possible to characterise the relative strengths of the basic systems E1–E7 by psychological tests, and similarly to characterise the developmental environment along the same dimensions, and then to relate these two causal features to psychological tests of resulting secondary emotions and cognitive capacities, so determining a causal matrix for these primary relations. The ultimate way to test the proposed integration would be characterisation of developmental and functional disorders resulting when the various brain regions corresponding to the systems E1–E7 either suffer damage at an early age, or are developmentally defective ab initio. These would be contrasted with physiological damage leading to impairment of operations of the secondary emotions S1–S7, which are known to lead to a series of functional disorders (Damasio 1995, 2003). This all clearly ties in well to the concept of emotional intelligence (Goleman 1996) as well as the importance ascribed to emotion in design issues by Donald Norman (2003). This leads on naturally to studies of the relation to child developmental issues (Schore 1994): what kinds of interactions in terms of the primary emotions E1–E7 are conducive to sound child development, and what to pathological development? What social interventions may be useful as a result? A vast amount has of course been written on this topic, and in particular Panksepp (2001b) has already developed this theme to a considerable degree in the context of affective neuroscience. Relating the sufficiency proposals made here to that literature would be a useful exercise. It might even be possible to develop a relation of adult psychological personality categorisation schemes to the basic factors E1–E7, perhaps suggesting related psychological disorders and interventions (Panksepp, 2002). Clearly that would be a very complex and demanding project; nevertheless the hypothesis of the key developmental role of the basic emotions E1–E7 might be useful in this context too. The Five Factor Model (FFM) is viewed by most contemporary personality theorists as representing the best current model of personality structure. Developed through factor analysis, it suggests that personality can
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be best described in terms of five basic dimensions: extraversion (E), emotional instability (or neuroticism N), openness to experience (O), agreeableness (A) and conscientiousness (C). Data collected in several distinct cultures from both genders and various ages all yield five similar factors (e.g. McCrae & Costa 1997; Costa et al. 2001; McCrae 2001) suggesting that personality trait structure is universal. Other theorists have suggested that E and A form the axes of an interpersonal circumplex characterising interpersonal behavior (Trapnell & Wiggins 1990) on which they can be alternatively labeled affiliation and dominance. If these five orthogonal factors are in fact universal, they would have arisen either through genetic influence or experience common to all humans, and it would be expected that they bear some relationship to primary emotions. It might be that SEEKING provides a physiological basis for E for example, and PLAY for O. PANIC and CARE together might contribute to A while RAGE and FEAR provide aspects of N. The FFM may provide a mechanism to characterize different basic personality types according to the relative strengths of the basic emotional systems: the ‘settings on the dial’ corresponding to each aspect E1–E7 of the basic emotions mentioned above.14 In extreme cases, some of the settings might be either zero or exceptionally high, with the corresponding basic emotion either missing, with corresponding personality disorders resulting (for example E3– is a lack of emotion type E3), or pathologically dominant, with the opposite emotional disorder emerging (for example E3+ is over-dominance of emotion type E3). Injury might cause destruction of one or more of the basic emotional capacities, leading to similar emotional-lack disorders, the difference from the previous ones being that these problems will in this case start at some specific event in the individual’s history, rather than being there ab initio. The FFM has already been shown in numerous studies to differentiate various personality disorders (Lynam & Widiger 2001) and has indeed already been incorporated in the Affective Neuroscience view (Davis et al. 2003; Reuter & Hennig 2003). There is a clear relation of the above to learning theory in terms of exploring emotional relations underlying learning success (in contrast to approaches based on rational aspects alone). One might suggest here for example that it is E1: The SEEKING system that is the primary driver in the learning of skills and abstract understanding, but with the E7: The PLAY system also playing a significant role, generating alternative possibilities that express creativity; and consequently that these are the ones that would be most significantly correlated with educational success; and indeed there is a large literature on the importance of play in the development of the mind (Bruner et al. 1976; Hughes 1998; Frost et al. 2000). This proposal helps to explain why the PLAY system is im-
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portant enough to be genetically determined through the evolutionary process (being a primary rather than secondary emotion). Many schooling systems rely on E3: The FEAR system as a main motivational driver, which may well work in the short-term but at the expense of attaching such negative emotional tones to the relevant topics as to make probable failure of educational achievement in the long term. This would agree with what Skinner and other behaviourists pointed out: that organisms learn more readily through reward than punishment. However the implications of the present view are more than that: they are that we should pay considerable attention to the affective climate in our educational systems as well as to the intellectual quality of activity (c.f. Salovey and Sluyter 1997). Of course high quality intellectual activity can inspire pupils and so be a driver in the affective domain, but that cannot be taken for granted, and it is possible that good educational outcomes may be at least as dependent on the emotional atmosphere in the classroom as on the intellectual quality of material engaged with. . Evolutionary issues The proposal put here has significant implications for evolutionary psychology (Barkow et al. 1992). Specific evolutionary psychology proposals should only claim to produce brain modules that have in fact been genetically implemented, and the suggestion here is that these are only the primary emotions E1–E7 plus automatic reactions. Claims of any further brain modules need solid substantiation in terms of showing they are indeed (a) physiologically existent and (b) genetically determined, taking into account the limitations on genetic information mentioned above. Thus this proposal should enable a re-visiting of the specific claims of evolutionary psychology, seeing if one can relate them to the primary emotions E1–E7 and subsequent reliable development of secondary emotions S1–S7, without supposing any other genetically determined systems. Here, as indicated above, we define basic emotions as those that are genetically determined in the context of the developmental environment and secondary emotions as those that then are developmentally determined. One task would be to show why each of the genetically determined primary emotions E1–E7 plays such an important role in individual functioning in the face of threats to survival, that it became hard-wired into the species. This re-visitation might result in postulation of specific further basic genetically determined modules needed for explanatory completeness, that could then be searched for physiologically and psychologically, for example (as noted above)
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checking if some of the social emotions are hard wired. In terms of evolutionary game theory, the idea would be to determine what might be an evolutionary stable set of emotions that could underlie evolutionary stable strategies. There is a clear relation of this proposal to studies of primates and our other close animal relations who share a large part of our genetic heritage, so ethology is also very relevant (Panksepp 2003a). Apart from looking at our close relatives such as apes for the corresponding emotional systems and their developmental effects, for example looking at the role of the amygdala in such animals (Aggleton & Young 2002), relevant tests could be carried out on animals such as mice, lab rats, and naked mole rats, the latter being of particular interest in this regard because of their eusociality. By doing so one might be able to establish the kind of link envisaged here between emotional systems and behavior in those animals, and so establish relevant aspects of the path of its evolutionary development (Panksepp 2002). One could also look for its precursor traces in much simpler animals such as C. elegans and Drosophila, thereby tracing even earlier parts of this evolutionary history. . Language The key issue of language and symbolism separates humans from all other animals (Deacon 1997; Hauser et al. 2002). There may be a significant difference in the way the seeking system operates in humans as opposed to in all other animals in order to allow language development in conjunction with the vocal apparatus allowing speech. This mechanism must provide the basis for brainlanguage-culture co-evolution (Deacon 1997; Donald 1991). As argued above there is not sufficient genetic information available to specifically determine construction of language modules (Pinker 1994), but rather the mechanisms to develop such modules must evolve; see Edelman (1992), Deacon (1997), Panksepp (1998). Similar issues arise in relation to mathematics and numeracy (Butterworth 1999; Devlin 2000). It may well be that language develops in response to strong emotional pressures related to development of culture and social interaction between ever more conscious beings in a social context (Bonner 1980; Donald 1991, 2001; Tomasello 2003). Thus apart from E1: The SEEKING system, one might expect that together with E7: The PLAY system (important in all cognitive development as discussed above, and known to be important in language development, see e.g. Bruner 1985; Rinaldi et al. 2000), it is E5: The CARE system that is crucial in language development in the individual, because it is the mother-child dyad that is crucial in early mental development (Schore 1994) and communi-
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cation between them must be the essential foundation of individual language development; this will be strongly driven by parent-child bonding. Hence one can look at these basic emotional capacities in those with language disorders both in terms of psychological tests of those basic capacities, and checking for structural or chemical variations in areas important to these emotional systems. One might also include the proposed emotions S6: social rank/dominance and S7: belonging/exclusion as drivers of language ability, whether these are in fact primary or secondary emotions. Furthermore in evolutionary terms one would look for some substantial change in these systems at the time that language arose, subsequently seen as a difference between us and our closest primate relatives. One could compare such possibilities of a change in the SEEKING or CARE system with the claim that the sudden expansion of the cortex, based on the number of times the neural precursor cells divide, might have been enough to lead to language, given that other apes have already well developed emotional responses including curiosity and nurturance. However that scenario fails to explain why the expansion of the cortex took place. It makes sense to ask if some other change took place first, that then led to the need for greatly increased memory and/or computational capacity. The further challenge here will be to explain from this perspective the kinds of developmental issues that have led Pinker and others to postulate a specific intrinsic language module (Pinker 1994). These apparent in-built grammatical propensities should arise out of the way the generic pattern-seeking apparatus of the cortex interacts with the seeking system in response to environmental stimuli. Showing how this happens is an intriguing and substantial challenge; Tomasello (2003) may have already done what is needed here, but his proposal, based on intention-reading and pattern-finding on the one hand, and on usage based linguistics (emphasizing that language structure emerges from language use) on the other, could usefully be revisited in the light of the affective connection (which he does not emphasize). The CARE system will plausibly play a major role in intention reading; while pattern-finding (and associated world modelling) would seem to be central to the SEEKING system’s functioning. . Genetic issues Given the claim that the basic emotional faculties are genetically determined, clearly one could try to locate the specific genes related to each such capacity E1–E7 (functionally based in the limbic system). One can in principle determine which sets of genes or quantitative-trait loci (QTL) are related to
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which basic emotional system by looking for correlations between disorders in development in the corresponding brain areas and the characteristics of the individual’s genome. These disorders should lead to developmental consequences as indicated above, so those can be looked for also, realizing however that many disorders are complicated by complexity of interactions in several pathways. For example, Fullerton et al. (2003) have recently reported a genetic linkage scan identifying QTLs that influence variation in the personality trait of neuroticism. In particular, genetic studies of families showing inherited language disabilities should be particularly informative in relation to the development of language, as briefly mentioned above. Lai et al. (2001) have recently reported finding a mutation on chromosome 7 which severely disrupts language but not other abilities. One could presumably try to trace the developmental pathways associated with the relevant genes, and compare the human genome with animal genomes in this context in order to search for differences associated with the rise of language. We mention this possibility of what would be immensely complex studies, without attempting to give any details at this point, because they would be an important part of the overall project and our proposal would be incomplete without indicating this link. . Neurological issues We have not attempted here any detailed characterisation of the brain areas and neural connections underlying the above proposals, and of course a vast amount is known about these connections (see e.g. Schore 1994 and references therein) and in particular about the regions and neurotransmitters associated with specific primary emotional systems (see Panksepp 1998; and Chapter 4 of Solms and Turnbull 2001, partially summarised in Table 1 above). The final requirement to pull the present proposal together is to pursue those neural connections in detail and see how the connectivity between the various parts of the limbic system and the various areas in the cortex might implement the suggested neural Darwinism mechanisms based on the primary emotions. Thus we need to relate this proposal to a much more detailed characterisation of how the different affective systems connect to different brain regions. This will not be attempted in this brief paper, for it is a large task whose elucidation will require much further endeavour. However the overall point is that the different primary emotions E1–E7 are of primary significance for the different secondary emotions and cognitive powers, and the major neural connectivities should reflect this set of functional relations. Two further comments are as follows:
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First, the emotions listed above are valenced: many are negative emotions suggesting either avoidance or confrontation (‘fight or flee’), but some are positive emotions suggesting reinforcement. These two valences (to some degree depending on the context) must presumably be handled in a different way through the effects of their associated neurotransmitters, which may either strengthen or weaken neural connections (but not in simple overall correlation to the valence of the emotion). Explicating this would seem a worthwhile exercise.
Second, we note that it is possible for neurons to be directly wired to each other, rather than so often using the rather odd mechanism of sending neurotransmitters across a synaptic gap to convey information from an axon to a dendrite. Why has this strange soup-based mechanism evolved, instead of the simpler use of direct wiring?15 One possible answer is that this mechanism is needed in order that neural Darwinism can take place. By using neurotransmitters to convey information across synapses, one enables non-local modulation of synaptic effects by neurotransmitters from the value system that are conveyed to all the neurons in a cortical region, the catecholamine neurotransmitters sometimes diffusing from their source to fill a volume rather than being transmitted to precisely chosen synaptic connections. Those synapses in this region that are currently active may then be affected by these diffuse neurotransmitters16 but those that are inactive will not, and this may be presumed to be a key aspect of neural Darwinism. Thus the strange “wet-wiring” across synapses may be needed to enable neuronal group selection to function. If this is correct, one might make the following tentative hypothesis: Conjecture 4: Those neuronal connections that are genetically hard-wired (for example in the eye, the synapses within the retina itself i.e. between bipolar cells, horizontal, amacrine and ganglion cells) will often be directly wired electrical synapses; but all those whose detail is determined by neural Darwinism will be neurotransmitter-based chemical synapses. This difference would then be reflected in some appropriate way in the genes determining the neural structuring.
This would be supported by noting the increased efficiency that direct wiring will allow, but on the other hand evolution often does not attain maximal efficiency, and rather cobbles together solutions based on the material at hand; in which case chemical synapses might be used in these cases too, even though that is relatively inefficient.
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An interesting point is that chemical synapses may also be needed to enable memory to function, apparently providing a different rationale for their use. But the issue then is, Who chooses what to remember? Information is thrown away by the billions of bits each day, with only the important remembered out of the flood of information arriving in our brain; but determining what is important requires a value system to provide a decision, so this may in fact be related to the proposal here: wet connections are required both for neural Darwinism and for memory. . Potential outcomes The above characterisation of relations that might follow from our overall hypothesis provides a variety of ways of checking its validity. On pursuing them, we should be able to check the adequacy of the main hypothesis by developing implications of the relation of the value system identified (the basic emotional systems E1–E7) to neuroscience on the one hand and the integrated package of genetics, evolution, and development on the other. This is in principle doable as outlined above. This serves as a test of the outlined proposal and may suggest areas where it is deficient. In particular, we can consider (a) Are the basic emotions plus the immune and endocrine systems sufficient to characterise the value system, or should there be other kinds of components added? If so what are they and how would one test for them?
The point here is that whatever such extra components might be, because of their developmental importance (which would follow precisely because they are part of the value system), in turn leading to evolutionary significance (else they would not be genetically determined), they must have determinable psychological effects which can be searched for. The suggestion here is that the basic emotions E1–E7, with a possible addition of E0 as characterised above, are sufficient as well as necessary to determine the value system. But that can be tested as a hypothesis. If there are other factors needed they should be characterisable; any such proposal will then lead to a revision of all the aspects outlined above. (b) Is the list of basic emotions E1–E7 complete or does it need supplementation?
Apart from seeking for omissions of basic emotions needed for causal completeness, such as E0, the main issue here is separating primary and secondary emotions as discussed above, with the former genetically determined but the latter developmentally determined. For example, should there be recognised
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a primary emotion corresponding to social status or rank (“pecking order”)? Various studies of animal behavior might suggest some such system exists in our animal relatives, and has strong survival value so that it is embodied in our genetic structure. But then its physical correlates should be determinable. We note here that play may be a substrate for the epigenetic emergence of adult dominance, especially when combined with anger and fear systems. Alternatively, as dominance is one axis of the interpersonal circumplex, perhaps it is indeed a primary emotion. Any such understandings will in principle have implications for child psychology/psychiatry on the one hand and learning/teaching theory on the other, as briefly indicated above. In essence such implications then form the platform for further testing of the basic hypothesis, either confirming it, or showing its inadequacy and the need for further development of the basic idea.
. Relation to the immune system One might also speculate on conceivable implications regarding the interaction between the immune system and the brain. It is known that these two systems interact with each other at multiple levels and in a bi-directional manner (see Sternberg 2000 and references therein). If the conjecture proposed here were correct, similar Darwinian processes would underlie both neural and clonal selection in the nervous system and the immune system (for the immune system case, see Burnett 1959). One could therefore consider whether the immune system might, through similar mechanisms, also be engaged in shaping the brain at a sub-emotional level (see Figure 1). In evolutionary terms, if one accepts the notion proposed by Edelman, described above, that the emotional neurocircuitry of the brain, including noradrenergic systems activated during fear or stress, play a role in shaping higher order brain functions as discussed in the first part of this paper, then it is not unreasonable to propose that the immune system may have evolutionarily played a similar role in setting emotional brain systems. There is much evidence that cells and molecules of the immune system play an essential role in shaping neuronal connections, synapse formation and even neuronal cell death and survival in health, during development, throughout life, during learning, and in the course of inflammatory and infectious diseases of the brain. Furthermore, immune molecules also alter the emotional circuitry of the brain at a systems level (e.g. Maier & Watkins 1998; Mulla & Buckingham 1999; Maier & Watkins 2000; Larson 2002; Davidson et al. 2002; Maier 2003).
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There are an immense variety of immune molecules, with many used both in the immune and nervous systems. It is known that some affect neuronal function at the cellular level and may also modify structural relationships between neurons. Thus, the immune molecule interleukin 1 (IL-1) plays a role in memory consolidation, especially certain types of memory that depend on place recognition in the hippocampus (Watkins & Maier 2000). Maier et al., (2003) have shown that IL-1 treatment of mice during context dependent conditioning interferes with the establishment of contextual memory for the aversive stimulus. The same immune molecule, IL-1, affects an immediate electrical/cellular event important in establishment of memory, long-term potentiation. Schneider et al. (1998) have shown that just as neurotransmitters do, IL-1 itself can induce long-term potentiation. There are also structural parallels between molecules expressed in the immune and central nervous systems, which play an important role in the establishment of connections and signalling between immune cells on the one hand and neurons on the other. Thus a molecule usually expressed on immune cells, MHC class 1, which in the immune system is critical for lymphocyte-macrophage interactions with antigen and subsequent lymphocyte maturation, is also expressed on neurons and is important in synapse plasticity (Huh et al. 2002). Immune molecules act as growth factors in the CNS (Benveniste 1998), and immune molecules and cells also play an important role in neuronal cell death and survival (Bajetto et al. 2002). It is now clear that interleukins are produced by some non-neuronal cells of the nervous system – including microglia and astrocytes – some of which are derived from or closely related to the immune cells, macrophages. Immune molecules released from these cells within the nervous system act in many ways like growth factors, either enhancing neuronal survival under some conditions, or promoting cell death, or apoptosis, under other conditions. Immune molecules can affect neuronal cell death and survival whether they are released from resident non-neuronal cells of the nervous system, or from immune cells that enter the nervous system in the course of inflammation (Schwartz & Cohen 2000; Rothwell et al. 1997; Rothwell & Luheshi 2000). The role that these cells and molecules play in neuronal cell death, survival and synapse formation can thus be thought of as shaping brain development in much the same way that pruning may shape a tree by stimulating some branches to grow and removing others. That is another way of saying they participate in neuronal group selection, but in this case based on immunological rather than affective states. In addition to this effect of immune molecules on neurons and neuronal function at a molecular and cellular level, immune molecules also have im-
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portant effects on brain function at a systems level. Thus, immune molecules produced outside the nervous system, at sites of inflammation, in immune organs, or during infection, can alter a variety of brain functions. Interleukins in this sense act like hormones, molecules that are produced at one site in the body and affect the function of an organ distal to their site of origin. Many immune molecules, including interleukins and interferons, have been shown to activate the brain’s hormonal stress response (reviewed in Webster et al. 2002), alter mood and cognition, induce sleep and fever (Krueger & Majde 1994), and induce a set of behaviours called sickness behavior (Dantzer et al. 1998: Watkins & Maier 2000). The latter are conserved across species and consist of decreased locomotion, loss of appetite, social isolation, loss of interest in sex – i.e. a pattern of behaviours that causes the organism to turn in upon itself rather than focusing on the outside world. At the same time, interleukins also cause a profound change in mood, with induction of symptoms in many ways overlapping with those of depression (Davidson et al. 2002; Dantzer et al. 1998; Miller 1998). Thus at molecular, cellular and functional levels, immune cells and molecules have profound immediate and long-lasting effects on the nervous system in general, and on emotional sub-systems within the nervous system, in particular. Thus the immune system acts in a functional way on the CNS, in particular activating affective states; we are suggesting that additionally, part of this function can be seen as adding to the value system that guides neuronal group selection, in this case conveying danger signals implied by homeostatic disequilibrium. Interestingly, while the amygdala-based fear system is amongst those proposed to mediate selection of adaptive pathways of higher brain functions, it is the parasympathetic vagal system, originating in the brainstem nucleus of the tractus solitarius, which mediates incoming immune signals to the emotional systems of the brain. One could question the evolutionary advantage of these two opposing arms of the autonomic nervous system in selection of adaptive pathways at two sequential levels of this hierarchy. One possible answer might be that the inhibitory effects of the parasympathetic nervous system on the adrenergic sympathetic nervous system, could serve as a natural negative feedback loop, protecting the overall system from spiralling out of control.17 There are two points that arise. The first is what specific effects might arise through long-term programming of emotional systems by immune system molecules during the life of an individual. It might extend to affecting the way the primary systems are activated: attaching negative emotional valence to
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specific kinds of conditions and hence developing avoidance reactions to such situations, and perhaps playing a role in depression. The second is, what role could this have played in evolution? We propose Conjecture 5: The immune system could have played a selective and survival role in setting emotional systems in the first place during evolutionary history.
The issue here is not how the different emotional systems became differentiated but rather how any emotional system at all came into being. This is a crucial step on the way to full consciousness. Once the basic capacity was there it could evolve to respond to the major environmental issues confronting the individuals in a population, resulting in the basic affective reactions. That capacity would then evolve to the present primary emotional systems that are indeed genetically laid down and realised in response to the local environment during embryonic development. Once they have come into being, the immune system would still help guide neural development but not in as specific a way as the primary emotions. The proposal here is that in the causal hierarchy shown in Figure 1, immune signals to the emotional subsystems of the nervous system, and in turn, neurotransmitter signals from emotional systems to cortical areas of higher brain function, could represent not only a current functional hierarchy but also an evolutionary developmental sequence. Consider early animal development where a rudimentary CNS is in operation but no affective system has yet been formed; the animal is unable to consciously “feel” (it behaves as if it is emotional though; it shows what might be called emotional behaviours, but on a reflexive level). But later animals can feel; the issue is how the possibility of affective states first arose. Now we have seen that the immune system can signal to and affect the CNS, conveying the information of health-threatening states to the CNS; this is a possible rudimentary form of value system as discussed above. It is then natural to suggest an evolutionary sequence whereby (i) a primitive innate immune system was present in the earliest metazoans, then (ii) the evolution of the innate immune system provided several basic mechanisms that were co-opted in evolutionary development by the nervous system, (iii) the immune system started functioning as a primary component of the value system for the CNS, and (iv) further co-opting of the immune mechanisms allowed a primitive form of neural Darwinism to be utilized in the CNS of early vertebrates.
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The common molecules would have facilitated the development of synapses that are reliant on neurotransmitters, because of the survival value of recognising the threats to life from the events and environments associated with infectious attack. As consciousness developed, in whatever way that happened, it might be natural for this immune system interaction with the CNS to provide the first affective states, essentially the feeling of “being ill”.18 The immune system also provided the first differentiation of “self ” from “non-self ”, an ability which reaches its highest level in human consciousness. Once a first set of such affective states had come into existence, presumably corresponding to the suggested basic affective dimension E0: PLEASURE/PAIN suggested above, they could have been adapted and developed into the full set E1–E7 identified by Panksepp and additionally become genetically determined, because of the evolutionary advantage they provided through acting as a value system. Neural Darwinism in the individual would have proved itself to be a winning strategy and hence could have developed further affective capacities in an efficient way, through the usual evolutionary process of natural selection acting on the developing brain in a sequence of animal species. Conjecture 6: It was through this process of immune system interaction with the CNS that neural Darwinism came into being as a brain-structuring mechanism in the course of evolutionary history.
This suggestion has the potential to explain why some molecules are both immune system molecules and also neurotransmitters. It could conceivably even help explain how chemical synapses came into being in the first place, or at least why they are so common.
. Implications of the immune system link The proposal here suggests an evolutionary sequence that can be searched for through its survival in present day animals: first the basic immune system came into being, then neurons connected together to form a CNS developing a simple response capacity, then the basic immune system developed into a clonal selection system, and only then the major emotional neural systems coming into being. Hence one can test the proposal made here by looking at the levels of primary emotions and immune system development in simpler animals (for example nematodes and insects, as well as more complex animals such as birds and mammals), using this to trace the evolutionary sequence and hence see if it is in accord with the idea proposed here or not. This investigation could
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also clearly be related to the study of the genomes of these animals and their developmental pathways. Our proposal also suggests that infectious attacks may develop not only immediate feelings of ill-health but also longer term emotional aversion to the kinds of conditions that lead to those infections. Presumably one could test that kind of effect in animals such as mice, finding corresponding behavioural effects. One could then try to trace how far down the scale of complexity such effects existed: for example could snails be shown to behave in this way? This would clearly relate to the evolutionary issue just mentioned.
. Conclusion There is an immense and complex literature on neuronal development and function. Our suggestion is that the overall causal linkages we have sketched here might represent significant organising principles applying within that complex reality. We would not be so bold as to make such a proposal ab initio; rather we gain some confidence because our proposal is based on unifying two theories that are already well developed and supported by an extensive literature, namely affective neuroscience on the one hand and neural Darwinism on the other. By supporting the two theories independently, that extensive literature serves to indicate that they are each valid in their own right, and if both are valid, this then provides some support for a proposal such as ours for combining the two into a unified whole. Several pieces of evidence have been proposed to bolster the hypothesis of Neuronal Group Selection. These include the following: – something like this is needed to account for the great variability in human brain structure, contrary to any process of construction according to a preset algorithm (Edelman 1992: 27, 82); – this allows the brain to optimally adapt to the local physical and cultural environment (Deacon 1997: 206; Siegel 2001), while also being able to face up to new circumstances in a adaptive way; – there is far too little genetic information available to structure the brain in a more direct way, as discussed above; – it links to the fact that neuronal connections are set up in a random way on the micro level, and then pruned by micro processes. On the other hand there is ever increasing recognition of developmental and neuronal importance of the affective dimension. The first part of our paper
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suggests these two developments fit well together. If this proposed syntheses is true, this would imply three key features: – First, immune system, higher brain, and emotional system evolution, development, and function would all be based on the same generalised Darwinian selectional principles (the way this happens being set out in the main Hypothesis); a significant unification of understanding and extension of application of the basic Darwinian insight in terms of allowing developmental emergence of high level structures through processes of natural selection operating on various time scales; this is widely regarded as the only viable way of enabling teleonomic higher level structures to emerge through self-structuring processes in evolutionary history, and extends that proposal to developmental processes. This unification has intriguing links to functional detail at the neuronal level (see Conjecture 4). – Second, it makes concrete proposals as regards the neurobiological functioning underlying the role of emotions and the immune system in brain evolution and development as well as in learning, namely with primary emotions providing the essential part of the fitness function that shapes the result of natural selection processes operating developmentally in the phenotype (see Conjecture 3). This understanding provides sound links between evolutionary theory, neurology, developmental biology, and aspects of psychology (particularly learning theory) and ethology as outlined above, by explicating a key multilevel link of the kind envisioned as underlying social neuroscience (Cacioppo et al 2002). It also could provide proposals for the function of significant brain systems whose physiological role is otherwise unknown (e.g. some of the monoamine systems, see Kingsley 2000: 131). – Third, it makes specific proposals as regard the age-old nature-nurture issue, see Conjectures 1 and 2; this issue has important implications for social policy and politics, as so clearly shown by Stephen Pinker in his book The Blank Slate (Pinker 2002). In the second part of the paper, we suggest that investigation of a corresponding link from the immune system to brain development and evolution could be interesting. This proposal is based on two features: first, there is a substantial literature on influences the other way, from the brain to the immune system. But given this causal connection, it then makes sense to look also for effects of the immune system on the brain (this may be thought of as an application of the heuristic principle, where there is an action, there is often a reaction). Second, there is evidence that immune molecules do indeed have the capacity to influence neurons in the CNS. The question then is what form that
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influence might take when considered at the macro level, and a natural extension of the ideas of the first part suggest this might also take the form of a contribution to neural Darwinism, in this case with the immune system influencing both evolution and function of the affective systems (Conjecture 5). Indeed this interaction could possibly have played a significant role in the first evolutionary development of affective systems at the macro level and of chemical synapses at the micro level, and through this process have facilitated the emergence of neural Darwinism (Conjecture 6). This proposal does not deny the immense complexity of the immune system in its own right, but does indicate interesting lines to follow in terms of understanding its possible interactions with the CNS – another immensely complex system. This interaction would leave traces in the historical record; particularly one might attempt to show that immune system development preceded emergence of simple affective responses. Overall, the point of this paper is that the macro-role of neural Darwinism is not fully explicated until the nature of the value system has been made clear. We have made such a proposal that unites neural Darwinism with a major aspect of recent neuroscience, namely the appreciation of the importance of affect. The resulting synthesis provides a unification with interesting implications as outlined above. It has a plausibility arising from the fact that it proposes a concrete mechanism to underlie the effectiveness of affective macro processes, for which there is an ever-growing body of evidence. Our final major recommendations flowing from all of this (relating to Section 4.3 above) are as follows: Recommendation 1: A series of psychological tests should be devised that aim to determine the relative strengths A(EI ) of the basic emotional system E1–E7 (see Section 4.1 above) as well as the strengths A(SI ) of a suitably chosen set S1-S7 of secondary emotions; Recommendation 2: These tests are then used to search for correlations of the primary emotional factor strengths A(EI ) with those of the secondary emotions A(SI ); Recommendation 3: These tests are also used in conjunction with tests of the different aspects of intelligence (a general factor g, group factors gi , and specific factors gi (s) within each group, see Deary, 2001 for a summary of such factors) to search for correlations with the intelligence factors g, gi , gi (s) firstly of the primary emotional factor strengths A(EI ) and secondly of the secondary emotions A(SI ). These tests should enable firmly experimentally based investigation of the basic hypothesis proposed here, in line with the strong experimental approach laid out by Deary (2001).
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Acknowledgements GE thanks the members of the University of Cape Town Consciousness Study Group for helpful discussions, and particularly David Kibel for drawing my attention to the writings of Jaak Panksepp. We thank Jaak Panksepp and Alan St Clair Gibson for helpful communications, and Esther Sternberg for very helpful contributions.
Notes * Mathematics Department, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, Cape Town, South Africa. email address:
[email protected]. ** Psychology and Biology Departments, Trinity Western University, 7600 Glover Road, Langley, B.C. V2Y 1Y1 Canada. email address:
[email protected]. . See also Damasio (1995, 2000, 2003); Schore (1994); Le Doux (1998); Lane and Nadel (2000); Davidson et al (2002). . See also Schore (1994); Deacon (1997); LeDoux (2002); and references therein. . The name neural Darwinism can be criticised because there is no element of reproduction with genetic inheritance and variation; instead there is variation of connections created by imprecise synaptic formation, followed by neuronal group selection. This is however just an argument over semantics; it does not affect the nature of the theory, which centres on the core Darwinian feature that it is survival of the fittest that structures emergent complexity. It may be more accurate to call the proposal, “Neuronal Group Selection”. . Schore (1994) relates it to the idea of “parcellation” (pp. 19, 250, 258). . An antigen selects particular lymphocytes out of a very diverse population of pre-existing lymphocytes for clonal expansion, enabling the immune system to respond to antigens that it has never encountered before. . Summarised in Pinker (2002), see the Appendix. . See for example the concise survey of psychology by Butler and McManus (2000), where the role of emotions in behaviour is consigned to a few remarks on pages 67–68, commenting that for many they are regarded simply as an impediment to rational thinking. . Many neocortical connections could also emerge in tissue culture, but these connections would be broad and general and not represent detailed connectivity such as that provided by experience. If there is no experiential input, then the connections cannot be representative of such. . In mathematical terms, they form an orthogonal basis for the space of primary emotions. . It is usually claimed there are four types, because all of the conditions with one type of cone or no cones leave one with monochrome vision only (there must be two or more cone types to have different responses to different wavelengths). However these monochromatic images will each be different, corresponding to what can be seen with different colour filters.
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Neural development . As another example, Evans (2001) lists hardwired basic emotions as Joy; Distress; Anger; Fear; Surprise; Disgust, and universal higher cognitive emotions as Love; Guilt; Shame; Embarrassment; Pride; Envy; Jealousy. . There is not a unique relation here, as there is great overlap in the transmitter systems, plus many transmitters have both excitatory and inhibitory effects. . Preliminary assessments in this regard are given by Damasio (2003: 156). . We assume from here on that by ‘E1–E7’ we mean whatever classification of primary emotions emerges from the reconsideration just discussed. . We thank Alan St Clair Gibson for raising this issue. . This possibility is not taken into account by current models of synaptic plasticity rules (see Dayan & Abbot, 2001, Section 8.2) and consequently the possibility of value based learning is not considered in present studies of the neuronal bases of learning (ibid., Sections 8.3 and 8.4). However the possibility of classical conditioning and reinforcement based learning (and specifically the role of dopamine) is recognised at the macro-level (ibid. Chapter 9). . We thank Esther Sternberg for this suggestion. . This theme will be pursued further in an upcoming paper (Toronchuk & Ellis 2005).
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Consciousness, emotion and face An event-related potentials (ERPs) study Michela Balconi* and Claudio Lucchiari Catholic University of Milan / Neurological National Institute “C. Besta”
Are conscious and unconscious elaboration of emotional facial stimuli qualitatively different processes? To answer to these questions event-related potentials elicited by supraliminal and subliminal stimuli were recorded when subjects viewed emotional facial expressions of three emotional or neutral stimuli. ERP effect (specifically N2 negative deflection, temporal interval 180–300) were analyzed in terms of their peak amplitude and latency measures. First, an emotional face specificity was observed for the negative deflection N2, with a consistent difference between ERP elicited by emotional and neutral stimuli. Secondly, the unaware information processing was revealed quite similar to aware one in terms of peak amplitude but not of latency. In fact, unconscious stimulation produced a more delayed peak variation than conscious. Third, cortical lateralization (right/left) was not correlated to conscious/unconscious distinction. On the contrary a more posterior distribution of the ERP was found for N2 as a function of emotional content of the stimulus. Functional significance of our results is underlined in terms of subliminal stimulation and emotional face decoding. Keywords: Consciousness, emotion and face; event-related potentials (ERPs)
.
Introduction
Facial expressions of emotions are social and communicative tools, since humans use facial expressions to interpret the intentions of others. Previous paradigms of analysis have focused on conscious elaboration of emotions, leaving out other interesting cognitive processes not at the level of consciousness. In contrast with most of the previous literature, in this research we focus on the “other side” – on unconscious psychological mechanisms and their role in emotion recognition. There is now considerable evidence supporting the no-
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tion that significant affective processing happens outside conscious awareness (Bunce et al. 1999; LeDoux 1996; Shevrin et al. 1996). In fact, in addition to consciously-perceived stimuli, there are a great number of signals from without and within the subject which are perceived and processed without any reportable awareness. The term implicit perception was suggested for this process, as an analogue of implicit memory (Kihlstrom et al. 1992). An obvious example, well known from experimental psychology, is the phenomenon of subliminal perception. Unconsciously mediated psychological phenomena could also be demonstrated in neuropsychological contexts. For example, prosopagnosia, an inability to recognize people from their visual appearance, may result from damage to visual association cortices. In some cases it has been demonstrated that prosopagnosics appear to recognize familiar faces even though they completely fail to verbally identify the persons (Tranel & Damasio 1985). Thus the patients show evidence of unconscious recognition that cannot be accessed consciously. Conceptually similar findings are reported by Öhman (1999) from conditioning experiments with human subjects, conditioned to facial stimuli paired with electric shock. When previously conditioned angry faces are presented masked by neutral faces, which block their conscious recognition, they nevertheless elicit conditioned responses. Moreover, research on attention has introduced a distinction between automatic and conscious (Posner 1978), or automatic and controlled (Shiffrin & Schneider 1977), information processing. This concept was developed to account for the fact that the selectivity of attention is better described in terms of a flexible and strategic distribution of limited processing resources across stimuli and tasks. In addition, LeDoux (1990) has argued that the core of the emotional system is a brain mechanism that computes the affective significance of a stimulus. He argues that this brain mechanism is part of what gives rise to the conscious experience of emotion, and that it necessarily operates outside of conscious awareness. Even though the existence of unconscious effects now has been widely accepted, the question is still open concerning their importance. For example we can ask how complicated an unconscious system is, or whether it operates in an analogous manner to the conscious system. The main purpose of this study is to elucidate the relationship between conscious and unconscious decoding of emotional facial expressions. First of all, we consider previous research on emotional facial expressions that have used a neuropsychological paradigm of analysis, and, specifically, ERP (event related potential) measures.
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An increasing number of studies has analyzed the cognitive and neuropsychological features of face recognition (Balconi & Pozzoli 2003a; Posamentier & Abdi 2003). Specifically, PET studies (Bernstein et al. 2002; Haxby et al. 2000), fMRI (Adolphs et al. 1998; Grelotti et al. 2002; Kanwisher et al. 1997) and ERPs (Eimer and McCarthy 1999; Herrmann et al. 2002) have underlined the brain specificity of emotion decoding. ERP studies in humans have provided evidence consistent with this view. In particular, they have revealed the early emergence of recognition processes and their distinctiveness from other cognitive processes. Streit et al. (2000) evaluated differences in ERPs in emotional and structural face processing. They found an early negative deflection at about 240 ms post-stimulus (N2 effect), related to emotional faces more than to neutral faces, for an explicit (recognition of emotional expression) task. Successively, a similar ERP effect was found with an implicit task (Sato et al. 2000). Two theoretical positions were proposed to explain this ERP effect: the first interpretation supposes that N2 could be a cognitive marker of the complexity and the relevance of the stimulus (Carretié & Iglesias 1995). A second position underlines the emotional-face specificity of N2 (Balconi & Pozzoli 2003b; Herrmann et al. 2002). Secondly, from the viewpoint of cognitive neurophysiology, subliminal perception has been studied only in a limited number of cases (Shevrin & Fritzler 1968; Wong et al. 1994). Some investigations were applied to the classical oddball paradigm (Batty & Taylor 2003; Bernat et al. 2001; Brázdil et al. 2001); a P300 ERP effect (a positive deflection) was found for unconscious stimuli, similar to a supraliminal condition. This result might demonstrate that ERPs can index unconscious mental process (Shevrin 2001). Nevertheless, no previous study has explored the relationship between unconscious elaboration of emotional faces and specific ERP effects. In the research reported here, we adopted a model of analyses that postulate quite homogeneous cognitive processes for both subliminal and supraliminal stimulation. Specifically, we hypothesized that: – –
Subliminal ERPs have a component structure similar to conventional supraliminal ERPs. Subliminal ERP components have similar psychological properties to supraliminal ERPs.
In line with this model, we suppose that the wave profiles elicited by conscious and unconscious decoding might be similar with respect of their peak profiles.
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Objectives and hypotheses Some main questions remain to be answered: 1. First of all, the cognitive nature of the negative ERP variation N2 must be clarified, in order to analyze its specificity for emotional facial expression decoding. The comparison of facial expressions with a neutral condition (neutral facial expression) might be useful, in order to characterize the emotional value of this early peak. About this point we suppose that the ERP profile for emotional expression should be differentiated from the wave profile of a neutral stimulus. Specifically, a negative ERP variation (N2) should signal the emotional content of faces, with a higher peak variation if compared to a neutral stimulus; 2. Subliminal and supraliminal stimulation have been hypothesized to have a quite similar effect on ERP correlates, in terms of wave variations and, more specifically, for peak emergence. Moreover, the ERPs were predicted to discriminate between the type of the stimulus (emotional or neutral), whether the stimuli were processed in conscious awareness (supraliminal ERPs) or below the objective detection threshold (subliminal ERPs). At the same time, this study aims to contribute to the understanding of emotional processes by demonstrating that ERPs are sensitive to the affective valence of the stimulus, whether processed in awareness or outside of conscious awareness; 3. A third interesting point of discussion is about variations in the time of emergence of ERP as a function of the level of consciousness. In fact, as was previously observed, delayed unaware information processing represents a distinctive feature of implicit visual perception (Bernat et al. 2001; Junghöfer et al. 2001), and it was represented as a consequence of a more complex cognitive process underlying unconscious stimulation. Nevertheless, some other studies have underlined an anticipated peak variation for subthreshold stimuli compared to sovrathreshold ones (Brázdil et al. 1998, 2001). Thus, this theoretical point has to be explored more exhaustively. 4. Moreover, a cortical localization effect was analyzed. We expect a more posterior distribution of negative peak variation (N2), as revealed by previous studies (Sato et al. 2001). In fact, as pointed out by some experimental results, emotional stimuli should elicit higher activation of visual areas, covering a broad range of the occipito-temporal cortices relative to the neutral stimuli. For this reason, we expected a quite differentiated cortical distribution of N2.
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5. In addition to the localization effect for emotions, we aim to analyze the lateralization effect due to the levels of consciousness. Specifically, Gazzaniga (1993) suggested that the left hemisphere is crucial for consciousness, because its dominance in response to conscious stimuli is reflected in terms of the left-brain decoder. Nevertheless, some discrepancies from this theoretical perspective were observed, and an opposite right lateralization was revealed for conscious awareness (Brázdil et al. 2001; Henke et al. 1993).
Methodology Participants Twenty three healthy volunteers took part in the study (eighteen women, age 21–25, mean = 22.17) after giving informed consent. They were students of Psychology at the Catholic University of Milan, all right-handed and with normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity. They were invited to participate to an experiment on cognitive processes related to stimulus perception and comprehension. Materials Stimulus materials were taken from the set of pictures of Ekman and Friesen (1976) (see Fig. 1). They were black and white pictures of a male actor, presenting respectively a happy, sad, angry or neutral face. Each face was presented ten times, resulting in a total of 40 stimuli. Pictures were presented in a randomised order in the center of a computer monitor.
Figure 1. The three prototypical facial expressions of emotions (sadness, happiness, and anger) and neutral face
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Table 1. Percentage values for the evaluation of the subliminal/supraliminal stimuli Stimuli Supraliminal Anger Happiness Sadness Neutral
%
%
Correctly recognized
Uncorrectly recognized
91 93 88 92
9 7 12 8
44 37 41 35
56 63 59 65
Subliminal Anger Happiness Sadness Neutral
At the end of the experimental section, each subject was requested to evaluate previous stimuli viewed, for both subliminal and supraliminal experimental conditions (see next paragraph). As shown in the next table (Table 1), only the supraliminal condition subjects were able to recognize the emotional stimuli, whereas, on the contrary, the subliminal condition subjects did not correctly recognize the emotional stimuli previously viewed (target) with a probability more than chance. In fact, the χ2 analysis applied to each type of emotion in the supraliminal condition showed a correct identification for sadness (χ2 1, 22 = 5.67, P = .02), anger (χ2 1, 22 = 8.12, P = .001) and happiness (χ2 1, 22 = 6.05, P = .01), as well as neutral stimulus (χ2 1, 22 = 8.52, P = .001). On the contrary, the subliminal subjects showed casual responses for each type of stimulus (respectively, for sadness χ2 1, 22 = 1.57, P = .19; anger χ2 1, 22 = 1.04, P = .25; happiness χ2 1, 22 = 1.84, P = .10; neutral χ2 1, 22 = 1.77, P = .13).
Procedure The inter-stimulus fixation point was projected at the center of the screen (a white point on a black background). Subjects were seated comfortably in a moderately lighted room with the monitor screen positioned approximately 100 cm in front of their eyes. During the examination, they were requested to continuously focus their eyes on the small fixation point in the center of the screen and to minimize blinking. The subject was told to observe the faces carefully for a successive recognition task. This task was finalized to keep the attentional level high during decoding of faces, since an implicit or explicit
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response to some features of the stimulus was not required. This was done for three main reasons: to avoid confounding motor potentials in addition to brain potentials; to avoid causing subjects to be more attentive to the emotional stimuli than the neutral ones; finally, because asking for a response to stimuli that are not being consciously seen can be nonsensical to participants. Prior to recording ERPs, the subject was familiarized with the overall procedure (training session), where every subject saw in a random order all the emotional stimuli presented in the successive experimental session (a block of 10 trials, each facial expression repeated twice).
Subliminal/supraliminal stimulation Two experimental conditions were carried out (between-subjects independent variable). In the supraliminal condition, twelve subjects consciously saw the stimulus, which was presented for 500 ms on the monitor with an interstimulus interval of 1500 ms. On the contrary, the other eleven subjects saw subthreshold stimuli. For the subliminal condition the stimulus duration was of 1 ms, with an interstimulus interval of 1500 ms. Subliminal stimuli in the current study meet objective detection threshold criteria. According to the signal detection theory, when detection sensitivity is at chance, it is unlikely that there is conscious awareness of the stimulus (Macmillan 1986; Snodgrass 2000). The methods of measuring unconscious processes by presenting visual stimuli subliminally has a long history marked by methodological difficulties and advances. Snodgrass (2000) argues that detection is sufficiently exhaustive to result in a conscious perception, on the basis of signal detection theory (SDT) EEG Registration parameters The EEG was recorded with a 32-channel DC amplifer (SYNAMPS system) and acquisition software (NEUROSCAN 4.0) at twelve electrodes (four central, Fz, Cz, Pz, Oz; eight lateral, F2, F3, T2, T3, P2, P3, O1, O2) (international 10– 20 system) with reference electrodes at the mastoids. Electroculograms (EOG) were recorded from electrodes lateral and superior to the left eye. The signal (sampled at 256 Hz) was amplified and processed with a pass-band from .01 to 50 Hz and was recorded in continuous mode. Impedance was controlled and maintained below 5 KΩ. An averaged waveform (off-line) was obtained from about ten artifact-free (trials exceeding 50 µV in amplitude were excluded from the averaging process) individual target stimuli for each type of emotion. Peak amplitude measurement was quantified relative to 100 ms prestimulus. The noise in the signal was low (7% epochs were rejected). To evaluate differences
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in ERP response for the five facial expressions, we focused data analysis within the time windows of 180–300 ms.
Data analysis A three-way mixed design analysis of variance (ANOVA) condition (conscious vs unconscious – between subjects) × type (emotional vs neutral – withinsubjects) × electrode sites (within-subjects) was applied to the peak amplitude measure. Type I errors associated with inhomogeneity of variance were controlled by decreasing the degrees of freedom using the Greenhouse-Geiser epsilon. The analysis showed significant differences only for the main effect of type F(1, 22) = 11.07, P = 0.001. A higher negative peak was revealed for emotional faces (M = 1.56; Ds = 0.21) when compared to neutral (M = 1.15; Ds = 0.28) faces. On the contrary, profiles of ERP for conscious and unconscious conditions were undifferentiated F(1, 22) = 1.04, P = 0.20 (respectively for conscious M = 1.28; Ds = 0.19, and unconscious M = 1.38; Ds = 0.15). With respect of the site effect, an interaction type × site effect F(11, 22) = 10.20, P = 0.001 was observed, with a more temporal distribution of the peak for emotional stimuli. In fact, the post hoc comparisons (Dunnet test) revealed a significant difference between emotional (M = 1.88; Ds = 0.25) and neutral (M = 1.37; Ds = 0.25) stimuli in T1 F(1, 22) = 6.61, P = 0.001 and T2 F(1, 22) = 4.58, P = 0.001. The wave profiles for temporal sites T1 and T2 are represented in Figure 2a and 2b, as a function of the type of stimulus. No other comparison was significant. Left and right brain differences as a function of consciousness were explored in a second ANOVA (condition × side). In this case, no main effect was significant to the analysis (respectively for condition F(1, 22) = 1.11, P = 0.25, and site F(11, 22) = 1.33, P = 0.30, ), nor their interaction F(11, 22) = 1.48, P = 0.22. The next figure (Fig. 3) represents left/right lateralization as a function of condition effect. The ANOVA applied to the second dependent measure (latency) showed a significant main effect of condition F(1, 22) = 7.98, P = 0.001). On the contrary, type F(1, 22) = 1.01, P = 0.40 and electrodes F(11, 22) = 1.17, P = 0.20 were not significant, as well as their two- and three-way interactions. The unconscious stimuli were temporally delayed (M = 220 ms; Ds = 17) when compared to conscious ones (M = 200; Ds = 26). The absence of significant result for type effect makes more evident that the temporal retardation of the
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Consciousness, emotion and face N2
P3
+ –
2.0 ìV
ms 0
100
200
300
400
500
neutral facial expressions emotional facial expressions
Figure 2a. Grand-average ERPs elicited by neutral and emotional facial expressions in T1
N2
P3
+ –
2.0 ìV
ms 0
100
200
300
400
500
neutral facial expressions emotional facial expressions
Figure 2b. Grand-average ERPs elicited by neutral and emotional facial expressions in T2
180 160 left
right
140 conscious
unconscious
Figure 3. Lateralization effect as a function of condition (grand-average ERP) for N2
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peak appearance is related to the unconscious elaboration of the stimuli and not to its emotional value.
Discussion First of all, no other study has exhaustively analyzed the N2 ERP effect, with the aim to analyze its functional significance for emotional face recognition processes. The data support the view that emotion discrimination occurs at a first stage of conceptual stimulus processing, and the current results indicate that emotional facial expressions induce greater activation of the posterior temporal areas, with a latency of about 210 ms from stimulus onset. Therefore, the first main point of the current research is that the N2 deflection appears strictly related to the emotional value of faces (Streit et al. 2000). The negative deflection is not only due to global processing of the facial stimuli, but N2 is more specifically related to the emotional expression decoding (Streit et al. 2000), since N2 could represent an explicit marker of emotional facial expressions, and not a generic detector of facial stimulus elaboration Nevertheless, a successive positive ERP deflection (P300) has been monitored by some authors after an emotional stimulation, even when it does not seem to be exclusive for faces, since it has been observed even in response to adjectives or objects with an emotional content (Bernat et al. 2001). P3 effect could be more generally related to emotional content of the stimulus (pictures with emotional content) or to the stimulus complexity, and this effect is viewed as reflecting decision or cognitive closure of the recognition processing (Brázdil et al. 2001; Iragui et al. 1999). In line with this hypothesis, previous results on P3 applied to facial stimuli are contradictory: while in some studies the neutral faces evoke lower amplitude than emotional ones (Carretié & Iglesias 1995), some other studies have found that neutral stimuli evoke the highest peak (Vanderploeg et al. 1987). As previously emphasized, differences in lateralization were found for N2. The negative variation was heterogeneously distributed on the scalp, and the temporal (both right and left) lateralization was emerging. In line with previous results, in fact, the posterior sites (specifically temporal left and right sites) were observed as much more involved in emotional facial expressions than neutral stimuli. In previous studies, neural networks have been demonstrated for processing specific facial emotions, with the implicated regions including cortical (mainly prefrontal and occipito-temporal junction) and sub-
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cortical structures (amygdala, basal ganglia and insula) (Damasio et al. 2000; Gorno-Tempini et al. 2001). Secondly, as observed in our results, ERP profiles were unaffected by the supraliminal/subliminal stimulation. Similar ERP effects were observed, with analogous morphological peak profiles, except for the temporal feature of the ERP. Based on this analysis, similarities in processing between supraliminal and subliminal stimulation can also be assessed: substantial analogies in the subliminal and supraliminal ERP component structure were well-founded, suggesting that similar neural activity is involved (Shevrin 2001; Snodgrass 2000); and all these similarities between the classical N2 and its subliminal analogue suggest that they are of a similar origin in both experimental conditions. By obtaining subliminal and supraliminal ERPs to the same stimuli, the relationship between conscious and unconscious affective processes can be examined. Responses to stimuli in the subliminal and supraliminal conditions were similar in waveform, as well as sharing differences between emotional and neutral stimuli. These similarities suggest that similar neutral pathways were engaged during the two conditions, implying that some mental processess may operate on the same basis whether or not conscious perception is involved. More generally, it seems evident that the information presented to a subject under subliminal conditions may be perceived and processed on a higher level even if the subject is not aware of this information. Nevertheless, temporal retardation of the peak appears to distinguish between subliminal and supraliminal information processing. Peak latencies of the corresponding deflections elicited by subliminally presented stimuli were clearly distinct when compared to the latencies of the supraliminal N2. Subliminally, the N2 peak is produced later. In order to explain the temporal effect observed, we hypothesized that the time required to elaborate the emotional information might be conditioned by the type of stimuli viewed. The differences found between the two experimental consciousness conditions would depend on the type of processing and, more specifically, on the level of complexity and/or of the attentional effort of the two kinds of cognitive processing implicated. As suggested by Brázdil and coll. (1998), who found different patterns in mutual time relations in a part of their sample (in some cases delayed and in the others anticipated), the attention level differences of the subjects could be a valid explanation of the heterogeneous results. But, since ERP provides information regarding the temporal sequence of human information processing, further analysis of the time relations between the supraliminal and the subliminal N2 peak latencies might be fruitful in the future.
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What are the implications of the reported research? First from a methodological standpoint, the research provides strong evidence for the assertion that unconscious processess are instantiated in electrophysiological events. Although often smaller in amplitude (Shevrin 2001), subliminal ERPs appear to have the same component structure as supraliminal ERPs and may serve as markers for unconscious process. Secondly, from the present results we can infer that subliminal components are correlated with psychological process that are quite similar to those occurring supraliminally. Therefore, our findings suggest that at least some of our understanding of the supraliminal N2 effect may also apply to unconscious N2 effect. Finally, even if in the present research we have no results in favour of lateralization of conscious processing, the question of possible lateralization of awareness to the right side emerges. In fact, some authors suggest the crucial role of the right hemisphere for consciousness, whereas others favor the left hemisphere. The lateralization findings for the supraliminal ERPs call attention to possible qualitative differences between conscious and unconscious affective processing, and this topic has to be explored systematically. Nevertheless, it would be speculation to form a theory on the lateralization of consciousness from sparse experimental data only. Clinical neurology can make an important contribution to the discussion. For example, the dependency of neglect syndrome development accompanying right hemisphere lesions in most patients is very well known. This syndrome represents a typical disorder of conscious perception of stimuli in the contralateral hemispace. Furthermore, several papers have confirmed preserved implicit perception in some patients with neglect syndrome. Similar clinical experiences with dissociations between perception and consciousness after brain damage support the crucial role of right-sided structures in conscious processing of perceived visual signals. On the whole, concerning our initial twofold question (structural and psychological similarity of subliminal and supraliminal ERP profiles), on one hand we can answer in favor of the structural similarity of the two ERPs. On the other hand, the psychological homogeneity of subliminal and supraliminal stimulation is a main point that requires more attention, and which we must explore in the future.
Note * Addres enquiries to Michela Balconi, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Catholic University, L. Go Gemelli, 1, 20123 Milan, Italy; e-mail:
[email protected]
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References Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1998). The human amygdala in social judgment. Nature, 393, 470–474. Balconi, M., & Pozzoli, U. (2003a). ERPs (event-related potentials), semantic attribution, and facial expressions of emotions. Consciousness & Emotion, 4, 63–80. Balconi, M., & Pozzoli, U. (2003b). Face-selective processing and the effect of pleasant and unpleasant emotional expressions on ERP correlates. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 49, 67–74. Batty, M., & Taylor, M. J. (2003). Early processing of the six basic facial emotional expressions, Cognitive Brain Research, 17, 613–620. Bernat, E., Bunce, S., & Shevrin, H. (2001). Event-related brain potentials differentiate positive and negative mood adjectives during both supraliminal and subliminal visual processing. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 11–34. Bernstein, L. J., Beig, S., Siegenthaler, A. L., & Grady, C. L. (2002). The effect of encoding strategy of the neural correlates of memory for faces. Neuropsychololgia, 40, 86–98. Brázdil, M., Rektor, I., Daniel, P., Dufek, M., & Jurák, P. (2001). Intracerebral event-related potentials to subthreshold target stimuli. Clinical Neurophysiology, 112, 650–661. Brázdil, M., Rektor, I., Dufek, M., Jurák, P., & Daniel, P. (1998). Effect of subthreshold stimuli on event-related potentials. Electrophysiology and Clinical Neurophysiology, 107, 64–68. Bunce, S., Bernat, E., Wong, P. S., & Shevrin, H. (1999). Further evidence for unconscious learning: Preliminary support for the conditioning of facial EMG to subliminal stimuli. Journal of Psychiatry Research, 33, 341–347. Carretié, L., & Iglesias, J. (1995). An ERP study on the specificity of facial expression processing. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 19, 183–192. Damasio, A. R., Grabowski, T. J., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Ponto, L. L., Parvizi, J. (2000). Subcortical and cortical brain activity during the feeling of self-generated emotions. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 1049–1056. Eimer, M., & McCarhty, R. A. (1999). Prosopagnosia and structural encoding of face: Eveidence from event-related potentials. Neuroreport, 10, 255–259. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1976). Pictures of facial affect. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologist Press. Gazzaniga, M. S. (1993). Brain mechanisms and conscious experience. Experimental and theoretical studies of consciousness. In CIBA Fundation Symposium 174 (pp. 247–262). Chichester: Wiley. Gorno-Tempini, M. L., Pradelli, S., Serafini, M., Baraldi, P., & Porro, C. (2001). Explicit and incidental facial expression processing: An fMRI study. Neuroimage, 14, 465–473. Grelotti, D. J., Gauthier, I., Schultz, R. T. (2002). Social interest and the development of cortical face specialization: What autism teaches us about face processing. Developmental Psychobiology, 40, 213–225. Haxby, J. V., Hoffman, E. A., & Gobbini, I. M. (2000). The distributed human neural system for faces perception. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 223–233. Henke, K., Landis, T., & Markowitsch, H. J. (1993). Subliminal perception of pictures in the right hemisphere. Consciousness and Cognition, 2, 225–236.
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Herrmann, M. J., Aranda, D., Ellgring, H., Mueller, T. J., Strik, W. K., Heidrich, A., & Fallgatter, A. J. (2002). Face-specific event-related potential in humans is independent from facial expression. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 45, 241–244. Iragui, V. J., Kutas, M., Mitchiner, M. R., & Hillyard, S. A. (1993). Effect of aging on event-related brain potentials and reaction times in an auditory oddball task. Psychophysiology, 30, 10–22. Junghöfer, M., Bradley, M. M., Elbert, T. R., & Lang, P. J. (2001). Fleeting images: A new look at early emotion discrimination. Psychophysiology, 38, 175–178. Kanwisher, N., McDermontt, J., & Chun, M. M. (1997). The fusiform face area: A module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 17, 4302–4311. Kihlstrom, J. F., Barnhardt, T. M., & Tataryn, D. J. (1992). Implicit perception. In R. F. Bornstein & T. F. Pittam (Eds.), Perception without awareness: Cognitive, clinical, and social perspectives (pp. 17–54). New York: Guilford. LeDoux, J. E. (1990). Fear pathways in the brain : Implications for a theory of the emotional brain. In Brain, P. F., Parmigiani, S., Balnchard, R. J., & Mainardi, D. (Eds.), Fear and defence (pp. 112–139). London: Harwood. LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinning of emotional life. New York: Simon and Schuster. Macmillan, N. (1986). The psychophysics of subliminal perception. Behavioral Brain Sciences, 9, 38–39. Öhman, A. (1999). Distinguishing unconscious from conscious emotional processes: Methodological considerations and theoretical implications. In Dalgleish, T., & Power, M. J. (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 112–128). Chichester: Wiley. Posamentier, M. T., & Abdi, H. (2003). Processing faces and facial expressions. Neuropsychology Review, 13, 113–143. Posner, M. I. (1978). Chronometric explorations of mind. Erlbaum: Hillsdale. Sato, W., Takanori, K., Sakiko, Y., & Michikazu, M. (2000). Emotional expression boosts early visual processing of the face: ERP reecording and its decomposition by independent component analysis. Neuroreport, 12, 709–714. Shevrin, H. (2001). Event-related markers of unconscious processes. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 209–218. Shevrin, H., Bond, J. A., Brakel, L. A. W., Hertel, R. K., & Williams, W. J. (1996). Conscious and unconscious processess: Psychodynamic, cognitive, and neurophysiological non– vergences. New York: Guilford Press. Shevrin, H., & Fritzler, D. (1968). Visual evoked response correlates of unconscious mental processes. Science, 161, 295–298. Shiffrin, R. M., & Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127–190. Snodgrass, J. M. (2000). Unconscious perception: Theory, method, and evidence. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Streit, M., Wölwer, W., Brinkmeyer, J., Ihl, R., & Gaebel, W. (2000). Electrophysiological correlates of emotional and structural face processing in humans. Neuroscience Letters, 278, 13–16.
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Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1985). Knowledge without awareness: An autonomic index of facial recognition. Science, 228, 1453–1454. Vanderploeg, R. D., Brown, W. S., & Marsh, J. T. (1987). Judgments of emotion in words and faces: ERP correlates. International Journal of Pshycophysiology, 5, 193–205. Wong, P. S., Shevrin, H., & Williams, W. J. (1994). Conscious and nonconscious processes: An ERP index of an anticipatory response in a conditioning paradigm using visual masked stimuli. Psychophysiology, 31, 87–101.
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Phenomenal consciousness, sense impressions, and the logic of ‘what it’s like’ David Beisecker University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Many philosophical puzzles about phenomenal consciousness are raised in terms of “what it’s like” to have certain experiences: to see red or taste a pomegranate, to be in love or to be afraid, to wake up with a hangover, maybe even to be a bat. To the extent that such discourse is dismissed as unintelligible, one fails to have a satisfactory theory of phenomenal consciousness. Yet such discourse notoriously resists analysis in purely physiological or functional terms. The “hard problem” of consciousness arises because statements involving the qualitative character of experience – or “qualia” – bear no obvious logical connections to descriptions couched in physical or physiological terms. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t abandon all hope for unraveling the mystery of phenomenal consciousness. In this paper, I argue that the appearance of an explanatory gap arises because talk about “what it’s like” performs an important, yet perfectly unmysterious, epistemic function that cannot be played by ordinary physical vocabulary. Once this function is understood, we can readily account for many of the puzzling things we are tempted to say about phenomenal consciousness, including those statements taken as evidence for the hard problem – namely, attributions of knowledge of what it’s like to have various experiences as well as inter- and intra-personal comparisons of the qualitative character of experience. Keywords: hard problem, qualia, knowledge argument, sense impressions
What it’s like: The vulgar and the philosophical Many philosophical puzzles about phenomenal consciousness are raised in terms of “what it’s like” to have certain experiences: to see red or taste a pomegranate, to be in love or to be afraid, to wake up with a hangover, maybe
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even to be a bat. To the extent that such discourse is dismissed as unintelligible, one fails to have a satisfying theory of phenomenal consciousness. Yet such discourse notoriously resists analysis in purely physiological or functional terms. The so-called “hard problem” of consciousness arises because statements involving the qualitative character of experience – or “qualia” – bear no evident logical connections to descriptions couched in physical, physiological, functional, or even intentional terms. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t abandon all hope for unraveling the mystery of phenomenal consciousness. Just as so-called semantic accounts of truth aim to make sense of proper applications of the truth predicate, a semantic account of phenomenal consciousness would attempt to regiment talk about “what it’s like” to have certain experiences. The task of providing a logic for such talk hasn’t been seriously pursued, and too quickly dismissed. This paper attempts to address that lacuna. In it, I argue that the appearance of an explanatory gap arises because talk about “what it’s like” performs an important, yet perfectly unmysterious, epistemic function that cannot be played by ordinary physical vocabulary. Once this function is understood, we can readily account for many of the puzzling things we are tempted to say about phenomenal consciousness, including those statements taken as evidence for the hard problem – namely, attributions of knowledge of what it’s like to have various experiences as well as inter- and intra-personal comparisons of the qualitative character of experience. Before we begin, however, we need to distinguish the philosophical conception of what it’s like from more ordinary notions. For while the former, sophisticated idea is presumably an extension of less sophisticated counterparts, everyday talk about what it’s like differs from rarefied philosophical parlance. When the vulgar (or those not trafficking in the consciousness industry) ask one another to describe “what it’s like” to have a certain experience, they’re generally interested in the experience’s effect upon the subject’s psychological and emotional makeups. Inter- and intra- personal comparisons of what it’s like are thus relatively unproblematic. Your reactions to skydiving might be similar to my reactions to snowboarding. And your first taste of Arrogant Bastard Ale (the bottle says you’ll probably not like it) might be very different from a subsequent taste, if and when you grow to appreciate an exquisitely hopped beer. However, the experiences that form the stock and trade of philosophical discussions of phenomenal consciousness (e.g., seeing red, smelling creosote, or hearing a buzzing sound) are often too thin to elicit distinctive reactive attitudes. Furthermore, we are tempted to say of those very reactive or emotional attitudes (anxiety, excitement, and the like), that there is something it is like
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to have them. So when those in the consciousness biz talk about what it’s like to have a certain experience, they’re apparently after something else: the qualitative character of an experience, or its so-called “qualia.” Such a conception is meant to answer to widely-held intuitions that the “subjective feeling” of experiencing a particular property might have been other than what it actually is, and that how it feels for one to have a certain experience could differ from how that same experience feels to another. Rather than ridiculing this sophisticated conception as sophistical philosophical nonsense, in the hopes that it will eventually just go away (an attitude copped, for instance, by Dennett 1988), the aim of this paper is to clarify many of the funny things we in the biz are tempted to say about this qualitative dimension of phenomenal experience. That is, I think an account of qualia (or “what it’s like”) can be constructed, which respects these intuitions, or at least renders them intelligible.
Sellarsian sense impressions Let’s begin with an almost embarrassingly mundane observation. Competent speakers of natural languages must learn how to apply observation vocabulary in experience. We all need to be trained to make even the most basic observation reports. Our ability to classify things as red, or even as looking red is not innate. While we have biologically innate predilections for certain classification schemes, other speakers of our language must teach us how to make observation reports that accord with the specific classificatory dispositions of our fellows. Subjects thus face the task of coordinating or calibrating states of themselves with the application of observation concepts in experience. Simply put, speakers must learn to report the presence of a certain property (e.g., red) whenever they are struck in certain fashions – that is, whenever they are in certain internal discriminatory states. And they must further learn when to restrain their acquired dispositions to report such a presence when circumstances are such that the subject’s being in a particular state is not a reliable indicator of something’s actually exhibiting that property. In those circumstances, subjects learn to say that it only “looks” or “seems” as if that property is present. They learn to report merely that they are stimulated in a way that, under normal circumstances, would reliably indicate that property’s presence. Now even though these internal discriminatory states are presumably physiological states (and states of the nervous system in particular), subjects are typically not able to identify them in physiological terms. Even our most ac-
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complished neuroscientists have trouble identifying the neural correlates of the simplest sensations. The point here is that ordinary observation vocabulary – including ‘looks’-talk – is conceptually prior to a developed neuroscience. In speaking about the task facing speakers as they learn to apply observation concepts in experience, we should remain theoretically non-committal regarding the underlying physiological substrate. In the final episode of his “Myth of Jones,” Wilfrid Sellars (2001, Part XVI) showed us how the philosophical notion of a sense impression could be introduced as a theoretically silent way to refer to such discriminatory states of subjects. Roughly, Sellars regarded a sense impression of some particular perceptible property as the imprint that is characteristically left upon us by the presence of that property under normal circumstances, which can then be used by that subject to elicit non-inferential judgments of its presence.1 And so the task described above is that of subjects learning how to coordinate sense impressions with the application of appropriate observation concepts. To borrow a term from Dretske (1988), one might say that subjects must face the task of “recruiting” appropriate internal states of theirs to play the role of indicators of particular observable features of the world. One of Sellars’ chief accomplishments was showing how once sense impressions have been introduced into our vocabulary, it turns out to be a trivial trick for subjects to come to “observe” when they’re having certain sense impressions. Following Lycan (1996), one might say that subjects acquire a sort of “higher-order perception.” To report the presence of a red sense impression, subjects merely need to detect when they are disposed to report when something is or looks red to them. Thus subjects have a readily explicable authority over reports about their own sense impressions that they lack in the case of reports about external qualities and the sense impressions of others. Moreover, since subjects can be trained to make observation reports of their own sense impressions, one might be tempted to say that those impressions leave their own “higher-order” impressions. Curiously enough, since the conditions in which one is disposed to report the presence of a red sense impression are precisely those in which something is or looks red to that subject, the sense impression of red turns out to be equivalent to the impression of that impression. It pleasantly follows that reports about sense impressions are, what you might say, “phenomenally transparent.” The overall Sellarsian strategy is to work from the outside in, rather than the inside out. Our ideas of inner sense impressions derive from our concepts of the properties they are impressions of. To believe otherwise – to think that our taxonomies of sense impressions are conceptually prior to external properties –
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is, like classical empiricism, to subscribe to the “myth of the given.” Though Sellars doesn’t do so in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, this account of sense impressions extends nicely to the self attribution of other psychological states said to have phenomenal content. I’m thinking here of inner sensory states like pain, brute cravings or urges, moods, and of course, emotional states like anger, fear or exhilaration. When acquiring the concepts of such states, we learn that they have behavioral and expressive cores; their originary application is to subjects reacting or expressing themselves in certain ways to specific types of situations. As Darwin famously advanced, there appear to be characteristic responses and facial expressions associated with, and indicative of, many of the basic emotions. Put much too crudely, fearful creatures typically react to situations they find threatening by cowering or fleeing, while angry creatures typically bare their teeth and show aggression. By the same token, there are characteristic reactions to bodily harm that we associate with creatures in pain. We then discover that just as in the case of sensing external qualities, we can in our own case associate such inner sensory, emotional, and psychological states with particular Sellarsian sense impressions. They each have their distinctive “feels” for us, such as the characteristic flush of anger or the trembling and quickening of the heart and respiratory rates associated with fear. Using these sense impressions, we can effortlessly and reliably report the applicability of such concepts to our own person without having to observe our own outward behavior, and can even begin to apply them in our own case to those non-standard situations in which such feelings fail to produce the standard responses (i.e., fear that doesn’t result in flight). And we can begin to understand similar self-reports in others. Consequently, we can readily account for the privileged access we appear to have with respect to many of our own psychological and emotional states that we don’t have when we consider those states in others, and in our own case, we begin to apply these concepts in experience, and so make non-inferential “observations” of our own states of mind.2 For our purposes, several features of this broadly Sellarsian account of sense impressions warrant further comment: (1) To begin with, sense impressions are functionally specified, understood as internal discriminatory states that dispose subjects to make certain observation reports. As such, they are not identified in physical or physiological terms and could be realized in myriad ways. Different sense impressions of the same perceptual quality might have vastly different intrinsic constitutions. A sense impression of red for a typical human might be realized in a wholly different manner in a bug-eyed alien . . . or a bat (if indeed, bats have such impressions at
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all). Sense impressions do not have to be similar even between members of the same species. To take a striking example, persons with synaesthesia appear to have recruited sense impressions governing their application of various observation concepts, which are less discriminatory than normal folk, and which are subject to an unusual range of non-standard conditions. Conditions in which they are inclined to say something “looks red” to them (such as the presence of particular numbers or letters) can be quite different, and slightly more extensive, than the conditions in which I’m apt to say something looks red to me. Since they are functionally specified, sense impressions are not to be identified with states of the central nervous system, although they might be realized by such states. The precise manner in which different sense impressions are realized in creatures like us is a matter of empirical investigation and discovery. Though it might seem a bit weird, there is nothing in the bare notion of a sense impression that would prohibit non-material realizations of sense impressions. The bare notion of a sense impression is thus neutral between materialism and dualism. (2) Sense impressions do not have to possess the qualities that they are impressions of. A sense impression of red is most likely not itself red.3 Nevertheless, sense impressions stand (or are supposed to stand) in containment and exclusion relationships to one another in much the same way that the features that they are impressions of stand in relation to one another. This thought is all we need to capture the truth behind the idea that sense impressions are (or at least should be) images of the external world. Just as an instance of some determinate shade of red, such as scarlet or crimson, is at the same time an instance of the determinable red, the particular internal state that realizes (or plays the role of) a sense impression of scarlet at the same time realizes a sense impression of red. That is, the class of red sense impressions includes that of scarlet sense impressions. Similarly, red and green sense impressions are supposed to exclude one another just like properties of redness and greenness presumably exclude one another in the external world.4 (3) The richness of our sensory manifold far outstrips the observational discriminations we are able to draw in natural language. Our sense impressions are variegated in ways that we cannot express through our concepts. And it is evident we could recruit our sense impressions to indicate features of ourselves and the world other than those that we actually do recruit them to indicate. Subjects can thus have sense impressions of particular perceptible and emotive qualities without yet having acquired the concepts of those qualities. Even non-linguistic creatures could be understood (by us) to have sense impressions.
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They just don’t recognize them as such. Insofar as there is some characteristic way in which red things in normal circumstances strike a dog, allowing them to discriminate red things, we can regard dogs as having sense impressions of red (they might of course turn out to be color-blind). But dogs are not conscious of their sense impressions; they aren’t aware of them as such and certainly don’t report their presence. So while we might credit them with the sentience possessed by any creature in sensory contact with its environment, we need not credit them with the full-blown sapience enjoyed by concept-mongering creatures. And insofar as dogs do not endeavor to coordinate their own sensory states with the (verbal) application of observation concepts, we need not conclude that they have any idea of what it’s like for them to see red (though there might be something that it’s like for us to view red things through doggy eyes). If you happen to think that dogs do apply observation concepts, then I kindly ask you to slide further on down the great chain of being. (4) Finally, although we classify sense impressions in terms of particular sense contents, we do not have to regard these contents as part of their intrinsic natures. There is no need to assign sense impressions any “non-conceptual intentional content” (Tye 2000), or meaning that isn’t parasitic upon conceptual meaning. As mentioned above, though some non-linguistic creatures might have red sense impressions, there is no need to think that there is any sense in which these impressions are red to them. More significantly, the physiological states that turn out to realize my sense impressions of red might not have done so. Had the world been other than the way it is (or had I been outfitted with those color-inverting lenses of philosophical legend), then that state might instead have been recruited as an indicator of green. In fact, the physiological state that serves now as my sense impression of red might not serve that function in the future. We must continue to recalibrate our dispositions to report when things are or seem red to us (a monitoring capacity that would seem to be unavailable to so-called “blindsighted” individuals). As my perceptual equipment ages, it might undergo a “red shift.” The physiological state that once was recruited to be my sense impression of red might no longer be a reliable indicator of redness in my environs, in which case I would be obliged to recruit a different state (should one still be available, and I not have become color-blind).
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The function of ‘what it’s like’ With those remarks about Sellarsian sense impressions behind us, we can now proceed to the punch line. I submit that many of the curious things philosophers have said about phenomenal consciousness or the qualitative character of conscious experience can be understood as making perfectly straightforward assertions about sense impressions understood in this Sellarsian fashion. In particular, the expression ‘what it’s like’ (in its philosophical sense) functions as an elliptical and pre-theoretical means of picking out the particular manner in which a subject realizes a certain kind of sense impression. Such a proposal makes evident and intuitive sense of inter- and intra-personal comparisons of the qualitative dimension of experience. Due to differences in our perceptual constitutions and the structures of our perceptual modalities, what it’s like for us to see red might be completely different from what it’s like for a bat or bugeyed alien to see red, so much so that we could not understand what it would be like to be either. And while what it’s like for me to see red is presumably pretty much what it’s like for most everyone else, this generalization can break down in the case of folk like synaesthetes, who have recruited non-standard sense impressions to indicate externally observable properties. Furthermore, since my perceptual apparatus could change over time, even though this change is so gradual that I fail to realize it, what it’s like for me to see red now might well not be what it’s like for me to see red in the distant future or past. It would even seem to be possible (albeit highly improbable) for what it’s like for me to see red eventually to shift all the way across the spectrum and become what it’s like for me to see green. In effect, I would have been outfitted over time with those color-inverting lenses of philosophical legend. One appealing aspect of this proposal is that it allows certain internalist intuitions or prejudices to take hold, while at the same time enabling us to be externalists about intentional or representational content. On this account, internally indistinguishable subjects (those “molecule-by-molecule” duplicates of philosophical fantasy) will have experiences with similar phenomenal characters, even though external considerations dictate that the representational contents of their experiences are radically different.5 On this account, it is the functional unspecificity of sense impressions that allows one to suspect that what it’s like to have a particular kind of experience could have been other that what it actually is. This is precisely the kind of intuition that allows so-called “modal arguments” for the explanatory gap to get off the ground (Chalmers 1996; Levine 1983). And the present proposal nicely affords two distinct ways to cash it out. On the one hand, ‘what it’s like’ can
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be taken to refer rigidly to the indicated sense content, allowing the internal discriminatory state to vary. Read in this fashion, the thought that what it’s like to have a certain sort of experience could have been otherwise means that it is conceivable for one to have recruited some other internal discriminatory state to indicate that sense content. Alternately, ‘what it’s like’ can be taken to rigidly pick out the internal discriminatory state, allowing the indicated sense content to vary. On this interpretation, the thought above asserts that that internal discriminatory state could have been recruited to indicate an entirely different sense content. Taken together, these separate thoughts generate the idea that ‘what it’s like’ is determined neither by a subject’s physiology nor by the contents of its intentional states. But now we can see that these intuitions in favor of an explanatory gap are motivated by different ways in which one can pick out the referent of ‘what it’s like.’ In other words, the appearance of an explanatory gap trades on a readily explicable referential ambiguity.6 Perhaps more significantly, this story about sense impressions can help untangle the issues surrounding the so-called “knowledge argument.”7 Sellars himself famously thought that sense impressions play little role justifying empirical knowledge. He also had little truck with the skeptical worries generated by absent and inverted qualia scenarios. Nevertheless, it’s clear Mary (the color benighted cognitive scientist in Frank Jackson’s oft-discussed thought experiment) has not come to face the task that the language of sense-impressions has been introduced to describe – namely that of coordinating her own internal states with the application of particular observation concepts in experience. The knowledge argument gains its force, because it’s unclear how Mary’s assumed vast knowledge of physiological facts ever could help to overcome this task. Doing brain science by itself will not tell Mary when to report non-inferentially the internal occurrence of a red sense-impression. When Mary escapes her black and white environment (a place I like to think of as the Kansas depicted in The Wizard of Oz) and spies a ripe tomato, which she somehow already knows to be red, she exclaims, “Ah, so this is what it’s like to see red.” What has she learned, and what kind of thought does her exclamation express? It seems reasonable to suppose that her exclamation amounts to the claim that she is now having a red sense impression. If that is the case, then it would be true enough, and it would be a piece of knowledge unavailable to her till now, simply because she’s never had the opportunity to have such an impression. But there’s nothing in this that can’t be cashed out in materialist terms. So if that was the only kind of knowledge that Mary gains, then the so-called knowledge argument would lack the anti-materialist force its proponents take it to have. Instead, Mary is claimed to gain some further
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knowledge: namely “knowledge of what it’s like” to see red. What, then, does that amount to?
Knowing what it’s like I propose that attributions of knowledge of what it’s like to have a certain kind of experience should be understood as claims that a subject has a justified ability to apply corresponding observation concepts in experience. While most speakers would qualify as capable enforcers of the norms governing color reports, it would be irresponsible to extend this authority to just anyone. A color-blind person would obviously be an incompetent teacher of color terms, even if he knows a great deal about the human visual system, as well as the inferential connections between colors and other empirical concepts. It would also be reasonable to withhold this authority from those, such as young children, who haven’t been sufficiently indoctrinated into our reporting practices. Unlike the color blind, Mary (we suppose) has the potential to make accurate color discriminations. She also knows all the inferential connections color terms bear to the other terms in our language. However, until she justifiably demonstrates that she can apply color concepts in experience as reliably as competent speakers, we can reasonably deny that she truly knows what it’s like to have perceptual experiences of color.8 She clearly lacks a justificatory status, which manifests itself in our reasonable reluctance to grant her authority enforcing the norms governing our observational vocabulary. And this would be so, even if she happens to possess an uncanny ability to make accurate color discriminations. As a result, we can say that knowing what it’s like requires more than just having a perceptual or recognitional ability; one must be in a position to justify this discriminative capacity as well.9 Notice crucially that I haven’t claimed that Mary is unable to entertain any specific beliefs. Even during her stint in Kansas, she might suspect that something looks red to her yet fail to know this, for she fails to have the appropriate experience to justify this suspicion. Thus we can hang onto Jackson’s conclusion that pre-release Mary lacks propositional knowledge that we would normally express with observation reports. Rather than missing the ability to form certain beliefs, she lacks the history or experience required for her to entertain those beliefs responsibly. And it is her assumed epistemic responsibility, not simply her lack of experience, which really prevents her from ever having entertained beliefs that things look red to her.
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Consider how this proposal applies to those ever-popular subjects of philosophical fantasy: our physical and functional duplicates spontaneously generated out of swampmuck. Such abominations might make all sorts of claims about how things look to them, and they might try to convince us that they have the requisite experience and know-how to enforce the norms governing our observation vocabulary. But the justifications they give for entitlement to this authority would fail, simply on the grounds that they would be false. So even though, by some remarkable coincidence, some such beings happen to have the discriminatory capacity and classificatory dispositions to be competent reporters, it still would be inappropriate for us to so treat them. For if it truly were a cosmic coincidence that they have this gift, then we would be in no position to responsibly believe this to be the case.10 Insofar as their perceptual apparatus differs from our own, we’d also be justifiably reluctant to grant perceptually exotic creatures – bats, bots, or bugeyed aliens, for instance – the authority to govern the use of our color terms. Lacking the perceptual capacities to employ our observation concepts in experience, they might not ever attain the status of full-fledged (norm-enforcing) members of our linguistic community. In particular, their different physiology might well prevent such beasts from being able to tell when things are likely only to “look red” to a human observer. That is, their different perceptual equipment might prevent them from anticipating our justifiable perceptual errors. Likewise, we would be unable to master fully a bat’s observation concepts. Moreover, their different responsive repertoires might preclude them from having anything more than a rudimentary grasp of what it’s like to have our emotional attitudes (and vice-versa). Hence we can respect the intuition that we are unable to know what it’s like to be a bat, without having to claim we can’t so much as entertain the same beliefs or that there is some sort of special phenomenal content wholly unavailable to us. Some perceptually exotic creatures might even make the same color discriminations that we do (in their own terms, of course). The conditions of proper application for some of their observation concepts would mirror those of our own color concepts. Still, if we lack sufficient contact with these creatures to justifiably believe this extensional equivalency, we can reasonably deny them the authority to enforce the rules governing the use of our color concepts. So while they would know what it’s like for them to see red, they might not know what it’s like for us to see red. This last point shows how we can deal with an objection that could be raised to approaches like the one advanced here, which tie knowing what it’s like to have certain experiences with linguistic mastery or grasp of particular perceptual concepts. The objection has us suppose that Mary, while still in
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Kansas, has gained access to several unlabeled paint chips, at least one of which happens to be red. With that chip in view, Mary comes to have her first red visual sense impression, and so one might be tempted to say that at that point she comes to know what it’s like to see red. Yet she fails to realize that it is a red sense impression that she has come to experience. So while she comes to know what it’s like to see red, she nevertheless does not yet have a justified ability to apply the concept red in experience. It might seem, then, that our proposed analysis of knowing what it’s like fails. But this objection ignores the perspectival nature of knowledge attributions generally. While I grant that Mary has failed to demonstrate mastery over our concept of red, presumably she can still classify future visual experiences as being of roughly the same type as she has when she views the red paint chip. Thus we might still claim that she has acquired a justified ability to apply an observation concept which she could demonstratively identify as “the shade of that chip,” and which turns out to be more or less extensionally equivalent to our concept of red. And so, in a de re sense (or from our perspective), we might say of the property red, that Mary has learned what it’s like to see it. But in a de dicto sense (or from the perspective of her concepts), we can reasonably deny that she knows what it’s like to see red. Not until Mary comes to realize that her experience is one that we would classify as a seeing of red, would she characterize herself as knowing what it’s like to see red. Once we register that attributions of knowledge of what it’s like admit to the same de dicto/de re distinctions as attributions of knowledge more generally, we can see that the objection fails to provide a true counterexample to the proposed analysis. Indeed, I take this consistency with other types of knowledge attributions to be a great virtue of the present account. In sum, the knowledge argument rests on the fact that one cannot discern whether subjects know what it’s like to have an experience just by examining the causal transactions inside their heads as they have those experiences. But that merely shows that such a narrow focus abstracts away from the epistemically significant, historical facts required for them to have such knowledge. The proper moral isn’t that facts about phenomenal consciousness must remain objectively ineffable, for these further social and historical features are by no means inaccessible from a third-person perspective. Moreover, we can finally see why subjects would find it important to possess knowledge of what it’s like. For justifiably applying observation concepts in experience entitles subjects to do things forbidden to the inexperienced. Though “swampzombies” might be inclined to behave as I do, others would be disposed to treat them differently.
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Hence having knowledge of what it’s like really can matter or make a difference to conscious subjects.11
Conclusion By making sense of the puzzling things philosophers are inclined to say about “what it’s like” to have certain experiences, I think that I’ve begun to sketch a perfectly unmysterious account of phenomenal consciousness or “qualia.”12 Now some might object that such an approach is too deflationary to explain phenomenal consciousness (Chalmers 1996: 186–189). While it might explicate our judgments about the qualitative character of experience, it fails to address the puzzling features of phenomenal consciousness itself. It’s no more committed to the genuine existence of qualia than explications of religious belief must be committed to the existence of deities. But this objection ignores a respect in which this account is not eliminativist. I haven’t simply told a story about how we come to believe in phenomenal consciousness; I’ve also shown how free-standing claims about what it’s like to have certain experiences can be true. Thus this account licenses beliefs in phenomenal consciousness itself, not just beliefs in those beliefs.13 Indeed, a semantic account of phenomenal consciousness such as the one advanced here, would seem tailor-made to bridge the explanatory gap. Those who subscribe to the gap occasionally bid us to imagine beings who are physiologically and psychologically similar to us, and who live in physically similar environments. They then claim that despite these similarities, it is conceivable for such beings to differ from us phenomenally. Since there could be phenomenal differences without any corresponding differences in the physical, physiological, and psychological circumstances, it is argued that physical or physiological explanations of consciousness are not in the offing. So are there any unmysterious differences between us and the denizens of those imagined worlds, which might explain the appearance of an explanatory gap? I think so. Despite our similarities, we belong to distinct linguistic communities, defer to different experts, and thus speak distinct languages. Despite a hypothesized remarkable degree of intertranslatability between our languages, their concepts are not really our concepts, and like the bug-eyed aliens envisioned above, it would be irresponsible for us to grant them authority over our observation terms. Since they don’t apply our particular observation concepts in experience, they wouldn’t really know (in the de dicto sense) what it’s like to see red. Indeed, we may say that seeing red is nothing to them, even though they
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might apply some extensionally equivalent concept. Hence it seems natural to try to trace the mystery of phenomenal consciousness to logical peculiarities of the discourse we use to describe it, much as I’ve attempted to do here.14
Notes . As Brian Coates (2004) usefully explains, Sellars initially introduced the notion of a sense impression to distinguish sensations from thoughts. The sense impression is the nonconceptual “descriptive residue” that distinguishes a perceiving that something is the case from a mere thinking that it is the case. . Curiously, I think the case of doxastic attitudes is somewhat different. Instead of associating particular beliefs with characteristic feels or sense impressions, we learn to ascribe to ourselves a particular belief by looking to the strength of the evidence that we have that that belief is true. For that reason, ascribing to oneself the belief that p is pragmatically equivalent to asserting p. For that reason as well, beliefs are not said to have much of a phenomenal component. For more discussion of doxastic first-person authority, see Beisecker (2003). . Note that this idea is not at all compelling when applied to the other phenomenal states we’ve been considering. An impression of anger or fear is not itself angry or fearful, just as an impression of pain would seem to be the wrong sort of thing to be in pain. Instead, it makes more sense to ask whether we react to these impressions like we react to the objects of our emotions. Must an impression of pain itself be painful, or must we fear the impression of fear? Such questions strike me to be very much like asking whether a sense impression of red would have to look red to its subject. According to the account on offer here, it clearly would not. I suspect, then, that it would be a mistake to identify fear, pain, and the like with their impressions. . It will be obvious here (and throughout) that I appeal to a naïve realism about colors (and other perceptual properties), according to which such properties are primarily attributed to (or possessed by) everyday objects in the external world, and not sensations. I’m afraid that this paper is not the place to defend such a quotidian position. . These internalist intuitions pose one of the greatest challenges to intentionalist (or representationalist) theories of phenomenal content (another being that phenomenal qualities attend other psychological states, such as emotions, which aren’t clearly representational). By most accounts, intentional (representational) content is externally determined. Consequently, it seems that one can dream up cases in which undetectable changes in a subject’s environment can generate changes in intentional content without producing any corresponding phenomenal changes (see Block 1990). Moreover, since most theories of intentional content are also functional, subjects with seemingly distinct phenomenal profiles could have equivalent intentional profiles. Thus intentional and phenomenal distinctions wouldn’t seem to track one another, making it unlikely that phenomenal content could be reduced or understood in terms of intentional, representational content. In response, some representationalists (Tye 2000) have sought to invent a distinct notion of “non-conceptual”
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or “perceptual” intentional content that cleaves more closely to these internalist intuitions. The account on offer here shows why such a maneuver is unnecessary. . This type of referential ambiguity is characteristic of definite descriptions in modal contexts. For instance, the statement, “My wife could have been in pictures.” similarly admits of two distinct readings. It could either be about Monica (my actual, current wife) in particular, or it might be understood as making a claim about the range of my erstwhile marital prospects. Outside the philosophy of language, such referential ambiguity appears to generate little trouble, and even less excitement. . See Jackson (1982). The knowledge argument continues to be one of the most vivid illustrations of the hard problem of consciousness. For the uninitiated, here’s a little bit of background: Jackson’s initial aim was to draw out an intuition that there is some sort of epistemic gap between phenomenal and non-phenomenal facts. To do so, he invited us to consider the celebrated case of Mary, a neuroscientist who is supposed to know everything there is to know about the mechanics of the human visual system, but for some fantastic reason (typically imprisonment in a wholly black-and-white environment), she has never had a red sense impression. Most are inclined to agree that despite her vast knowledge of neuromechanics, Mary nevertheless lacks “knowledge of what it’s like” to see red. So the thought experiment suggests that phenomenal knowledge cannot be reduced to, or derived from, theoretical knowledge of physical, physiological, or even functional and representational facts. Originally, Jackson went on to elevate this epistemic gap into a metaphysical one. That is, he took the thought experiment to support the thesis that phenomenal facts are ontologically distinct from the mundanely physical, physiological or functional. Although fanciful and woefully underdescribed, it seems hard to resist the intuition that Mary learns something when she escapes her black and white environment. The challenge for materialistically inclined philosophers of mind is to explain (or explain away) her post-release enhanced epistemic standing without invoking mysterious, non-material “phenomenal” facts. . Observe that simply having an experience need not be sufficient for knowing what it would be like to have that kind of experience. One can see this most clearly in the case of the perceptually subtle qualities attributed, for instance to wine, beer, or chocolate. Utterly lacking a connoisseur’s palate, a single passing acquaintance with an expensive wine will most likely not be enough for me to claim that I truly know what it’s like to experience its finer characteristics. . For this reason, we need to distinguish this analysis of knowing what it’s like from the various versions of the “ability hypothesis” advanced by Lewis (1990). Perhaps the most popular type of response to the knowledge argument, Lewis suggested that the knowledge Mary gains is not factual knowledge at all (or knowledge that), but rather some sort of ability (or knowledge how). Originally, Lewis proposed that upon having her first red visual impressions, Mary gains new imaginative capacities – e.g., the ability to conjure up a red impression in memory. More sophisticated versions of this strategy hold that Mary gains recognitional capacities or something like the ability to access physical facts in a new “quasi-indexical” fashion (see Loar 1990; Carruthers 2000; Perry 2001; and Papineau 2002). Without going into great detail, the trouble with these proposals is that it is hard to pinpoint exactly what the ability or abilities in question are, for it seems that one can pry them apart from the knowledge Mary gains upon her first red sense impression. For instance, one could
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reasonably suppose that Mary learns what it’s like to see red, even if she couldn’t later come to envisage it in imagination. . Moreover, if you’re of a frame of mind to believe that such beings don’t genuinely apply any observation concepts at all, on the grounds that they lack the requisite history to be true participants in a linguistic community, then you might conclude that there is nothing it is like for them to see red. For in that case the expression ‘what it’s like for them to see red’ fails to determine any referent. So in a certain sense, they’d be “zombies,” at least for a time, even though they’d try to convince us otherwise. . I am aware that some critics will contend that such extrinsic, normative differences are, from a narrowly scientific perspective, explanatorily otiose. I think that such criticisms rest upon implausibly scientistic (perhaps physicalistic) assumptions that systematically exclude the rational types of explanations, in which attributions of phenomenal consciousness (and other intentionally-freighted concepts) most naturally find their home. See my “Functionalism and Folk Psychology: How the Mental Earns its Keep” (forthcoming 2004) . To be sure, I cannot pretend to have offered a complete account of consciousness, for I have not addressed the issue of what would make a mental state conscious, as opposed to unconscious. . Notice as well that such attributions are objective or attribution-transcendent in that it can be proper to attribute to one knowledge of what it’s like to see red without anyone actually doing so, and that everyone’s attributing such knowledge to another (a “swampzombie,” perhaps) doesn’t make it the case that it would be proper to do so. So while knowledge of what it’s like makes sense only in the context of attributing such knowledge to others, it doesn’t follow that facts involving phenomenal consciousness are merely attributed. . Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2001 Tucson Conference on Consciousness, the XXIst World Congress of Philosophy in Istanbul, and at a group session meeting of the Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World at the 2003 Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Many thanks to the organizers, participants, and audiences of each of these sessions for their endurance and the help they provided at each stage along the way.
References Beisecker, David (2003). Interpretation and first-person authority: Davidson on selfknowledge. Southwest Philosophy Review, 16 (1), 89–96. Beisecker, David (forthcoming, 2004). Functionalism and folk psychology: How the mental earns its keep. Southwest Philosophical Studies, 26. Block, Ned (1990). Inverted earth. Philosophical Perspectives, 4, 52–79. Carruthers, Peter (2000). Phenomenal consciousness: A naturalistic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chalmers, David (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Coates, Paul (2004). Wilfrid Sellars, perceptual consciousness, and theories of attention. Essays in Philosophy, 5 (1), http://www.humboldt.edu/∼essays/coates.html Dennett, Daniel (1988). Quining qualia. In A. Marcel & E. Bisiach (Eds.), Consciousness in contemporary science (pp. 43–77). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dretske, Fred (1988). Explaining behavior: Reasons in a world of causes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jackson, Frank (1982). Epiphenomenal qualia. Philosophical Quarterly, 32, 127–136. Levine, Joseph (1983). Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 354–361. Lewis, David (1990). What experience teaches. In William Lycan (Ed.), Mind and cognition: A reader (pp. 447–61). Oxford: Blackwell. Loar, Brian (1990). Phenomenal states. Philosophical Perspectives, 4, 81–108. Lycan, William (1996). Consciousness and experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Papineau, David (2002). Thinking about consciousness. Oxford: Clarendon. Perry, John (2001). Knowledge, possibility, and consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sellars, Wilfrid (1963/2001). Empiricism and the philosophy of mind. Reprinted in W. DeVries & T. Triplett (Eds.), Knowledge, mind, and the given. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Tye, Michael (2000). Consciousness, color, and content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Exposing the covert agent Anton Lethin San Francisco, California
The sense of self as a covert agent is a key component to the sense of self. This paper focuses on covert action as a preparation to interact. This activates the entire motor system, including the gamma motoneurons innervating the muscle spindles. The propioceptive stimulation is fed back to the network of origin, contributing to a sense of self as generating the covert activity. A study of motivated behavior in the rat is presented to clarify how the motivation potentiates actions in the body. This is set into Panksepp’s subcortical action system of emotional circuits, where the motivation arises. This sets the motor tone for the planned action. This picture is interpreted with Ellis’s and Newton’s model portraying how emotional motivation can lead to phenomenal consciousness. It is proposed that no motor imagery occurs without involving the body. The higher levels of awareness depend on the subcortical bodily intentionality. Keywords: periaqueductal, covert, gamma, facilitation, somatosensory.
The sense of agency is a key component to the sense of self. There is evidence that this sense depends on events preceding action that prepare for movement (Haggard & Libet 2001: 47–63). It is now realized that actions involve a covert stage. “The covert stage is a representation of the future, which includes the goal of the action, the means to reach it, and the consequences on the organism and the external world” (Jeannerod 2001: S103). Does the sense of self depend on feedback from this covert activity? A sense of self as covert agent? If so, what is the nature of this feedback? This paper proposes that this covert preparation for an interaction with the affordance leads to somatosensory feedback from the body, and that this is necessary for a sense of self grounded in the body and the world. I believe this preparation is emotionally motivated. Gallagher discusses a minimal self- “a pre-reflective point of origin for action, experience and thought . . . a consciousness of oneself as an immediate
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subject of experience, unextended in time. The minimal self almost certainly depends on brain processes and an ecologically embedded body . . .” (Gallagher 2000: 15). There are “two closely related aspects of minimal self-awareness: selfownership- the sense that it is my body that is moving; and self-agency- the sense that I am the initiator or source of the action.” “. . . experimental research on normal subjects suggests that the sense of agency is based on that which precedes action and translates intention into action” (ibid.: 16; my emphasis added). This would include planning and preparing to act. The feedback from this to the network of origin leads to self-awareness. Libet and Haggard, in separate experiments, showed that electroencephalographic events precede the conscious awareness of deciding to move (Haggard & Libet 2001: 47–63). Haggard introduced a new element by including situations wherein a subject must choose between a left- and a right-handed action. “Since the motor system must have selected which specific movement to perform by the time that the readiness potential lateralises, we concluded that conscious intentions were related to specific rather than general preparation for action” (ibid.: 51). Their finding suggests that awareness of intention is associated with this lateralized readiness potential, a stage of action preparation known to be devoted to the selection of the specific movement to be made. What is the nature of this preparation? I want to focus on the preparations to move the body.
Bodily intentionality I would describe this as a bodily intentionality. “It is my body as a sensorimotor organism perceiving and acting in the world that first expresses intentionality. There is a bodily intentionality, on Merleau-Ponty’s view, on which all other forms of intentionality rest” (Wider 1997: 135). I would suggest that the body’s preparing to interact expresses this intentionality. “. . . intention does not directly generate behaviour, rather it modulates response activation within a system that is sensitive to environmental (bottom-up) factors as well as intention (top-down control)” (Humphrey & Riddoch 2003: 203; emphasis added). Jeannerod discussed the stage of “covert actions”: “The hypothesis that the motor system is part of a simulation network that is activated under a variety of conditions in relation to action, either self-intended or observed from other individuals, will be developed. The function of this process of simulation would be not only to shape the motor system in anticipation to execution, but also to provide the self with information on the feasibility and the meaning of potential
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actions” (2001: S103). Gallagher interviewed him and responded: “You suggest that goal-directedness is a primary constituent of action . . . This means, I think, that the motor system is not simply a mechanism that organizes itself in terms of what muscles need to be moved, but it organizes itself around intentions” (Gallagher & Jeannerod 2002: 13; emphasis added). The pre-movement activity identified by Jeannerod in the motor system represents bodily intentionality. This involves the whole organism in an integrated action – visual, autonomic including blood flow, neuropeptide, neurotransmitter, and hormonal changes. (Damasio 1999: 145–149; Decety 1993: 549–563). Newton’s definition of representation is similar to Jeannerod’s definition of the covert stage: “Representation is the process of performing goal-directed activity in a manner that allows the activity to be rehearsed and optimized in advance of the realization of the goal. This realization (whether planned or simply hypothesized) is what is represented by the activity,” (Newton 2003). She has moved beyond just including the goal in the planning of the action to providing for rehearsal and optimizing. How can the organism rehearse and optimize an activity before the performance? In order to optimize this covert pre-movement activity, the organism will need afferent input from both the salient environmental condition (which we will refer to as the “affordance”) and from the body. The organism needs to know what posture the body is starting from, and where the affordance is in relation to the body. The physiological system for propioception involves the muscles and tendons, the visual apparatus, and the labyrinths of the inner ear. Based on these studies and others, Marcel radically proposed that what he calls “. . . a minimal sense of ownership is provided by the spatial content of movement specifications . . . The . . . body parts that are to implement the action must be specified in a common reference frame with the targets . . . The only spatial description common for all body parts and for external locations is an egocentric one . . . The self enters the representational scene as the origin of the egocentric frame of reference utilized in movement specifications . . . This would give, in the normal phenomenology, a perspectivalness of the source of the action, that is, spatial points of origin and intention.” He views the experience of the self during action as being immersed, meaning that the self is perceptually recessive – there is no reflective consciousness of self (Marcel 2003: 43). Newton has a similar view: “While bodily awareness seems to be a background element in all conscious experience, it can and frequently does fall outside the focus of attention. In those cases we may be said to be conscious ‘only’ of external sensory input. But while we may speak in that way, the very notion of externality presupposes some awareness of one’s own body and its
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boundaries, as does any awareness of possible interactions with the external world – its ‘affordances’” (Newton 2001: 57; original emphasis).
Neuromuscular basis of bodily intentionality I want to focus now on the neuromuscular aspect of bodily awareness. The activity in the brain can facilitate a movement by stimulating the gamma motoneurons in the spinal cord (Eldred 1953). These stimulate the muscle spindles in the skeletal muscles, which are tiny stretch receptors that also contain a tiny muscle. When a muscle is stretched, the spindles sense this and increase the propioceptive afference to the alpha motoneurons and to the spinal cord and brain. (See Fig. 1). When the gamma motoneurons stimulate the spindles, the spindle muscles contract and increase the propioceptive stimulation, just as though the muscles had been stretched. This strongly facilitates the alpha motoneurons to the muscles (see appendix for more details). I call the loop from the brain to the gamma motoneurons through the spindles back to the brain the “body gamma loop.” The “peripheral loop” describes only the loop from the gamma motoneurons to the alpha motoneurons. How does this relate to preparing to move? Jeannerod investigated the relation of simulation of action to preparing to act. Functional brain imaging by magnetic resonance (fMRI) has shown activation of sensorimotor cortex during imagined action in multiple studies (Jeannerod 1999: 8). Experiments on motor imagery supported “the hypothesis that mental simulation of action is assigned to the same motor representation system as preparation to execution” (ibid.: 4). If so, “mental simulation should activate motor pathways . . . The main result of this experiment was that motoneurons excitability, as tested by the amplitude of spinal monosynaptic reflexes, was increased during mental simulation . . . Insofar as the sensitivity of the neuromuscular spindles is under the control of gamma motoneurons, the increase in excitability of the (muscle stretch reflex) suggests a selective increase in gamma motoneurons activity during mental simulation of a movement” (ibid.: 6–7; emphasis added). Muscle stretch reflex results from the muscle spindles’ stimulation of the alpha motoneurons. The muscles can be prepared to move by increasing the tension of the muscle spindles inside the muscles. This increases the propioceptive afferent feedback both to the spinal cord and to the network originating the preparation of the body’s readiness for the action (see below). Referring to Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on body intentionality and reflexivity, Wider quotes Dillon: “It is his ‘discovery of corporeal
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B R A I N
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Figure 1.
reflexivity’ . . . (that is) the means to overcome ontological dualism” (Wider 199: 138; Dillon 1993: 79). Preparing to act is very complex. In my view it is a preparation of the entire organism, involving the autonomic nervous system, including hormonal, neurotransmitter, and neuropeptide changes (Damasio 1999: 59–62). Even mental simulation of action activates cardiac and respiratory control mechanisms (Decety et al. 1993: 549–563). They suggest that autonomic activation during imagined action is part of the more general phenomenon of preparation for action of the entire nervous system. Even so, the motor preparation all ends up facilitating the alpha motoneurons to the muscles to be contracted and inhibiting the antagonists. Part of the facilitation is caused by the gamma motoneurons’ stimulation of the muscle spindles.
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Panksepp’s emotional circuits The present account of preparation will be clarified if we transpose it to the network of emotional circuits described by Panksepp in his book (1998a). His seminal work summarizes decades of his and others’ experimental studies about the seven basic motivational-behavioral systems that converge on the periaqueductal gray. I propose that the covert preparation to interact originates here. He believes these seven basic circuits are primitive networks that have persisted during evolution in mammalian brains, and are the roots of emotion in primitive “value generators.” Each system emphasizes a different combination of neurotransmitter pathways, and is highly reactive to modulation by neuropeptides. These all project to a diencephalic-midbrain area with an epicenter in the periaqueductal gray, and they are expressed by activating innate motor programs. Their “initial adaptive functions were to initiate, synchronize, and energize sets of coherent physiological, behavioral, and psychological changes” (ibid.: 123). He emphasizes the role of motor functions: “In affective experience, a direct motor preparatory linkage appears to be especially evident . . . The intrinsic neurodynamics of such affective, motor-tone setting circuits, along with various converging somatic and visceral inputs, may create pervasive and fractally propagated feeling of self-ness within the organism” (Panksepp 1998b: 574–575; emphasis added). This suggests that the sense of self as covert agent may originally have developed with the adjusting of motor tone as a movement is prepared. Motor tone is the tension in the muscles, which can be perceived by the resistance a muscle offers to passive stretching. It is maintained by a low-frequency, asynchronous discharge of impulses in a small fraction of the motor nerve fibers supplying a muscle, and can be modulated by supraspinal facilitation or inhibition (Bard 1961: 1117–1118) (see Fig. 1 in this paper). “In the present context, primary process intentionality is envisioned to be the natural action readiness that is intrinsically coded within the interaction of emotional processes with the neural representation of the SELF” (Panksepp 1998b: 573). This is an emotionally motivated preparation to move to interact with the affordance. He uses the capitalized SELF to refer to this fundamental neural substrate as a distinct brain system among all the associated psychological states that coalesce during development. He refers to this as a ‘Simple Ego-type Life Force.” It is important to bring out the primary role he envisages for this system. This “is the lowest region of the brain to orchestrate various coordinated emotional responses via a variety of motor outputs” (ibid.: 570). In discussing the evolutionary development of this network, he concludes: “I assume the SELF
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provides the first executive mechanism for behavioral coherence and bodily awareness” (Panksepp 1998a: 311).
Motivated behavior in the rat His emphasis on motor-tone setting as part of readiness can be looked at more closely by using an example: a study of motivated behavior in the rat. Stellar’s classic work proposed that the hypothalamus was the center of motivated behavior (Stellar, E. 1954: 5–11). Pfaff did a thorough investigation of the neural pathway from the hypothalamus involved in the execution of the lordosis reflex in the female rat (Pfaff 1980: 1–281; Stellar, J. & Stellar, E. 1985: 73). The rat was motivated to get ready for copulation by preparing to hyperextend her lower back. With lordosis the female becomes sexually receptive to the male. They administered the estrogenic substance estradiol to the female rat to facilitate this reflex. The pathway represents a convergence of hypothalamic influences on spinal cord reflexes via brainstem mechanisms. The output of ventromedial hypothalamic cells, excited by estradiol, converges on midbrain central gray neurons with afferent sensory input and on midbrain reticular formation neurons. From there, the descending influences are relayed through the reticular formation of the medulla to ventral horn cells of the spinal cord via the reticulospinal tract. Other descending influences from the lateral vestibular nuclei are necessary to elevate the tone of the axial muscles. Here, between T-12 and S-1, the reflexes of vertebral dorsiflexion are executed in response to flank, rump, and perineal stimulation by the male rat. Thus lordosis and a sexually receptive posture are executed by the female rat (See Fig. 2). (Pfaff 1982: 290–292; Pfaff 1980: 190–191, 239–241). The estrogenic stimulation of the hypothalamus does not elicit a lordosis reflex. It only prepares the rat to interact. The cutaneous stimulation either by the male rat or administered experimentally is necessary for lordosis to occur (Sakuma & Pfaff 1979a, b). I interpret the process as follows. The estrogenic stimulation has activated the latent innate goal to receive the male rat’s advances. This motivates the preparation of the lordosis behavior by potentiating the muscles’ contraction. This can occur by tensing the spindle muscles within the extensor spinal muscles. As this occurs, there is increased propioceptive stimulation both to the alpha motoneurons in the spinal cord and back up to the brain stem and hypothalamus in the areas originating the preparation of the muscles (see Fig. 1). “Descending tracts might have either of two modes of action in facilitating lor-
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Anton Lethin medial preoptic med. ant. hypothal ventromedial nucl. hypothal.
Estradiol midbrain central gray
midbrain reticular form
lat. vestib. nucl. medullary reticular formation
lateral vestibulosp. and reticulosp. tracts
Spinal cord
Dorsal Roots L1, L2
Stimuli
L5, L6, 51
pre rec ssur ep e tor s
Flanks Skin of rump tailbase perineum
Lat. longissimus & transverso – spinalis
Lordosis Response
Figure 2. Reprinted by permission from Pfaff (1980).
dosis. One is a tonic effect, in which spinal circuits relevant for lordosis would be prepared for reflex execution before the onset of the adequate peripheral stimuli. For instance, tonic facilitation might result in a subliminal amount of background activity in motoneuron pools which supply muscles important for lordosis and a corresponding reduction in activity in motoneuron pools for muscles antagonistic to lordosis. Against this prepared background, cutaneous stimuli adequate for lordosis would be able to trigger the behavioral response” (Pfaff 1980: 190). He goes on to describe a possible second
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mode of action which would involve spinobulbospinal reflex loops, initiated by cutaneous afferent activity. This would not be a major mode of action. Preparatory action occurs at several different levels. How does the motor image of the planned action arise? There is a hierarchical organization of the planned interaction, with source-schemas, component schemas, sequencing schemas and motor schemas representing different degrees of integration of the same action (Jeannerod 1997: 173). “The hypothalamus is only part of an extensive limbic system involving the brainstem, diencephalon and forebrain. In many cases it may be the major integrator in a hierarchy of integrators along the neuraxis” (Stellar, J. & Stellar, E. 1985: 27). The “most immediate behaviorally relevant action would be at lumbar spinal cord level. Preparatory action with a longer time course appears to take place in the lower brainstem. Some components of tonic facilitation may also occur in the central gray of the mesencephalon. Finally, the longest time course of cellular preparation for lordosis behavior must occur in and around the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus, where long-acting estrogenic effects are registered” (Pfaff 1980: 191). This picture of preparing for an action raises the question of whether planning for an action at a high level can lead to the experience of self as agent. Pfaff ’s work suggests that the preparation at the high level integrates the preparing at all the levels of the nervous system. This implies that the experience will be based on feedback to all levels of the selffrom the periaqueductal gray to the prefrontal cortex. Gallistel pointed out that “. . . higher-level circuitry coordinates the activities of the lower circuits primarily by regulating their potential for activation, a phenomenon I term selective potentiation and depotentiation” (1980: 398). He finds that these processes of potentiation and depotentiation are the means by which motivational processes influence behavior. On the spinal level the alpha motoneurons to the lateral longissimus and transverse spinalis muscles are facilitated. This can also be described as potentiated. The muscle contraction will be much stronger if and when it occurs. Any afferent stimulation from the appropiate cutaneous nerves will also directly stimulate both the gamma and alpha motoneurons as well as the central nervous system. With the propioceptive afferent feedback the rat experiences her motor intentionality to assume a lordotic posture in interaction with a male rat. Can we assume that she experiences the preparing with her self as the agent? The goal-oriented activity is sensed in the networks of origin, so it may well be that the rat feels this as an action of her SELF, as defined by Panksepp. The latent disposition to interact sexually with a male rat is innate, and obviously includes
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the goal. When this disposition is activated, the preparing to interact adjusts to this actual male rat moving now in this corner of this cage or room. As mentioned above, the estrogenic stimulation of the hypothalamus does not elicit a lordosis reflex. It only prepares the rat to interact. The cutaneous stimulation either by the male rat’s mounting or administered experimentally is necessary for lordosis to occur. The female rat was motivated to lordotically interact with a male rat. The cutaneous stimulation would amplify the motivation and give it priority over other dispositions. In the report by Pfaff he did not describe the gamma motor stimulation to the muscle spindles. He interpreted the descending influences from the hypothalamus as being below the threshold for activating muscle contraction. “The parameters of motoneuronmuscle dynamics most clearly controlled by lateral vestibular and lateral reticular influences (for instance, “muscle stiffness” and the threshold for the stretch reflex . . .) remain to be determined” (Pfaff 1980: 206). The gamma motor activity and propioceptive response could be studied directly in the female rat to confirm my interpretation. This is an example of how motor intentionality is embodied, in this instance activated by estradiol administration. The goal and motor program are innate.
Seeking system activates preparation I want to place this lordosis “reflex” into the picture visualized by Panksepp. He proposes that the primitive self is based on a subcortical network that is the primitive initiator and motivator for the organism. As mentioned above, this is in the diencephalon and mesencephalon centering in the periaqueductal gray, and with adjacent networks it integrates the emotional circuits, sensory input, motor activity, and autonomic nervous system. This network is responsive to the body’s needs and functions in the same way as Damasio’s proto-self (1999: 153–160). The emotional-motivational circuits organize diverse behaviors by activating or inhibiting motor plans. One of these is the SEEKING system. Panksepp uses capitals when referring to one of the genetically ingrained emotional operating systems. Previously he called this system the “appetitive motivational seeking system which helps elaborate energetic search and goal-directed behaviors in behalf of any of a variety of distinct goal objects” (Panksepp 1998a: 52). “. . . the emotive tendencies aroused by this type of brain stimulation most clearly resemble the normal appetitive phase of behavior that precedes consummatory acts” (ibid.: 147, emphasis added). Richard Depue called the seeking
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system the behavioral facilitation system (Depue 1989: 458). “. . . when fully aroused, it helps fill the mind with interest and motivates the organism to move their bodies effortlessly” (Panksepp 1998a: 52). As for subjective experience, he suggests “that “intense interest,” “engaged curiosity,” and “eager anticipation” are the types of feelings that reflect arousal of this system in humans” (ibid.: 149). Watt points out that the seeking system “probably underpins a most basic emotional capacity . . . – the capacity to experience hope” (1999: 195). There are two components to this arousal. For example, when the organism espies and prepares to move toward the food nearby, his experience of eager anticipation occurs without any movement. Then when he starts moving toward the food, he can sense the movement with continuing eager anticipation of the consummation. The seeking system is “quite motivationally and goal non-specific, facilitating only the relative activation of other potentially affectively rich interactions with others and the environment, mediated by activations of the other primes or prototypes, and of course, the hypothalamic mediation of homeostasis in the seeking of food, drink, and other biological requirements” (ibid.: 196). One example would be the specialized neurons that are sensitive to the various hormones that control sexual tendencies, one of which is estrogen. When Pfaff administered estradiol to the female rat, this sexual urge was expressed through the SEEKING system. “Critical circuits that sensitize the lordotic spinal reflex via tonic descending influences arise from the central gray of the midbrain and the ventromedial hypothalamus . . .”(Panksepp 1998a: 240). The most effective way to sensitize the spinal reflex is to increase the tension in the muscle spindles by stimulating the gamma motoneurons. The cutaneous stimulation affects the gamma and alpha motoneurons in the lumbosacral spinal cord, and this elicits a lordosis spinal reflex without needing further supraspinal involvement. As Depue said, the behavior is facilitated by the SEEKING system. Panksepp points out that “the core of the SEEKING system is remarkably well highlighted by the trajectory of brain DA systems, especially the mesolimbic and mesocortical components which ascend from the A10 DA neurons of the VTA to the shell of the nucleus accumbens, and areas of the frontal cortex and amygdala” (ibid.: 156). (DA refers to dopamine and VTA to ventral tegmental area in the mesencephalon). The energizing aspects of dopamine are well documented. He adds, however, that the ascending DA systems are only one link within the complex chains of electrophysiological and neurochemical events, and it is certain that the system also has important descending components. The reticulospinal tract would be one of these.
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Emotionally motivated preparing to interact We are phenomenally conscious of our sense of self as agent. Ellis and Newton proposed a characterization of consciousness, taken from their phenomenal experience of it, which they broke down into three elements (Ellis & Newton 1998: 439). I want to apply each of these to the lordosis reflex viewed in Panksepp’s SEEKING system. 1.
“[The first element is] an emotional motivation which grounds an interest in anticipating the future.”
The hypothalamic stimulation of the SEEKING system in our example activates the motivation for the preparation. As mentioned above, the experience of the SEEKING system being activated can be described as one of eager anticipation. The anticipation facilitates the lordosis response when the affordance appears. The female rat is emotionally motivated to copulate with a male rat, and seeks this interaction. The motivation grounds the interest as it embodies it. 2.
“[The second element is] sensory, sensorimotor or propioceptive imagery (which, by itself, can occur preconsciously) activated by this emotional motivation”.
They emphasize that it is the emotionally motivated anticipation of input that leads to such “imagery”. Ellis and Newton describe an image as “the felt sense that one is looking for (or listening for, tasting for, propioceptively feeling for, etc.) some object or state of affairs that would take the form of an intentional object. The role of imagery in action-planning involves forming (not necessarily a visual or auditory image but) a sensory and/or propioceptive and/or sensorimotor image of oneself performing the action in the way planned” (Newton 1996; Ellis & Newton 1998: 435; emphasis added). The image is representing “not just sensory data, but also the execution of bodily actions” (Ellis & Newton 1998: 436). I want to focus on the process of “forming” in their description of imaging. It would appear that this is part of intentionality, since it involves seeking an intentional object. One aspect of this would be the motor intentionality that includes preparing a movement interaction with the affordance. If we look at the rat’s motivation as potentiating the action at many levels, then this would take place in the experiment described in the hypothalamus and descending through the midbrain and brain stem to the spinal cord. To prepare to hyperextend the lower back would include stimulating the gamma motoneurons in
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the spinal cord, according to my hypothesis. This results in propioceptive feedback from the muscle spindles, creating a propioceptive pattern of the planned bodily action. Can this be described as the felt sense that one is “propioceptively feeling for” a state of affairs (receiving the male rat)? This assumes that the pattern of gamma motor stimulation persists in memory. Then when the afferent propioceptive pattern returns to the network of origin, the self can sense that one is seeking this state of affairs. There is reflexive self-reference. This can occur pre-consciously, as Ellis and Newton say: “To image something is to have an internally generated experience similar to the actual perceptual experience of that thing” (ibid.: 439). The generating is the expression of intentionality. The female rat may also form a visual image of the male rat as part of the seeking, as well as an olfactory image and a cutaneous image. She is “looking for” a specific state of affairs. Searle has proposed that visual experiences have intentionality (Searle 1992: 195), and I agree. There is an expected pattern that is prepared for, which may be pre-conscious. The intentional object mentioned above assumes the goal is part of the preparation to interact. To adjust the preparation to fit the goal requires that the sensory input from the affordance is integrated with the propioceptive input and the efferent preparatory activity. 3.
“[The third element is] a resonating between the activity of emotionallymotivated imagery and the activity stimulated by incoming sensory data and data reactivated through memory”.
Here we move to a higher level. “This core system of the SELF interacts closely with other nearby components for exteroceptive consciousness such as the Extended Reticular and Thalamic Activating System (ERTAS) . . . Thus, the PAG-centred emotional SELF system may be seen as the very core of the visceral-hypothalamic-limbic axis (which is essential for affective, interoceptive consciousness), while the ERTAS is the core of the adjacent somaticthalamic-neocortical axis (which is essential for exteroceptive consciousness)” (Panksepp 1998b: 571). “PAG may even be essential for the arousal or maintenance of a conscious state, or at least for virtually all behavioural intentionality . . .” (Watt 1999: 196). As the estradiol-stimulated female rat is seeking to copulate with a male rat, she forms a propioceptive image of the sought interaction. Then she sees and smells a male rat in the room. The sensory data from the male rat elicits a new instant of preparing to copulate, anticipating the future. At the same time, remembering previous copulation reactivates a latent disposition to copulate. These both interact with the emotionally-motivated imagery of copulating existing in its seeking activity. As Newton describes it, the past, present and future are blended. There is temporal thickness, and phe-
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nomenal consciousness emerges (Newton 2001: 54–55). This is awareness of the experience, and does not imply any reflective consciousness.
Higher levels depend on lower Where does the experience of motor intentionality take place? It is controversial as to whether this occurs solely in the mind/brain, or in a brain-body-brain loop. For example, does the preparation to move generate the “as-if sensation” of propioceptive activity in the brain – propioceptively “imaging” what it would feel like to move in this way? Alternatively, does the organism prepare the entire body to move in a way that generates propioceptive activity from the muscles themselves, as well as the rest of the organism? Looking first at high-level activity, I turn to Newton’s description: ‘So what I’d say is that the intentional experience of planning (or just thinking about) an action with oneself as the agent, IS the experience of sensori-motor/propioceptive goaloriented activity. In that activity, the goal is part of the activity; forming action images or high-level representations of that activity for planning purposes is being an agent” (Newton 2003). What is the experience of sensori-motor/ propioceptive goal-oriented activity? One imagines the activity (e.g., reaching to grasp an object), forming a dynamic pattern of the movement, including the expected propioceptive and sensory feedback. Is this reflexive self-referring on a high-level? Is it somehow dependent on lower levels? “Although a high level of awareness is certainly not a local property of the PAG itself, such functions may emerge from the higher brain areas that are recursively linked to the PAG, especially in cingulate, frontal, and temporal lobes” (Panksepp 1998b: 578; PAG refers to the periaqueductal gray). There are supporting studies by Damasio 1994, Mantyh 1982, and Sesack et al. 1989. “Obviously, affective feelings, as all other forms of consciousness, are hierarchically organized in the brain, with the higher functions being decisively dependent on the integrity of the lower functions, but not vice versa” (Panksepp 1998b: 578; emphasis added). He summarizes evidence from studies with several approaches to validate his conclusion. The rat’s preparing to hyperextend her lower back is part of an affective feeling, part of the primitive emotional circuitry. The emotional motivation toward a specific goal activates the preparation for a movement interaction. The higher levels influence the selection, modulation and the inhibition of the lower levels, but this activity is all organized toward the goal generated in the subcortical area. Ellis and Newton agree: “From an empirical standpoint, afferent processing, e.g., in the occipital lobe, never results in conscious awareness of the object
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unless accompanied by corticothalamic loops instigated by midbrain motivational activity, especially frontal-limbic activity (Ellis & Newton 1998: 433; emphasis added; Posner & Rothbart 1992). As Merleau-Ponty has said, all higher levels of intentionality are dependent on a basic motor intentionality. This is where the motivation toward the goal arises. The prefrontal cortex may integrate and control the behavior, but the impetus toward the behavior comes from the PAG. “Eager anticipation and intense interest” describe the experience when the seeking system is aroused.
Propioceptive imaging Can there be propioceptive images created in the mind/brain without involving the body itself? “This imagining of action affordances is facilitated by the motorically-initiated efferent brain commands that Damasio calls the ‘as if body loop’ ” (Ellis 2000: 45). This “as if body loop” bypasses the body. Damasio has “suggested, and LeDoux agrees, that some emotional responses can change somatosensory representations in the brain directly, “as if ” the latter were receiving signals from the body, although in effect the body is bypassed. People probably have both body-loop and as-if-body-loop mechanisms to suit diverse processing conditions. The critical point, however, is that both mechanisms are body-related” (Damasio 1997: 141; Damasio 1999: 280–281; emphasis added). It appears necessary that if an emotional response is to create a propioceptive image, it will result from the emotion evoking an efferent motor image. The body loop as described by Damasio did not specify a brain-gamma motoneuron-muscle spindle-propioceptive afferent loop. I propose that this is part of the body loop. Naito et al. investigated whether motor imagery contains kinesthetic sensations which are a substitute for the sensory feedback that would normally arise from the overt action (Naito 2002: 3683–3691). They induced an illusion of palmar flexion by vibrating a wrist extensor at a frequency known to stimulate the muscle spindles. They found that motor imagery of wrist movement influenced this sensory experience of kinesthetic illusion. They found “no peripheral inputs or minimal inputs, if any” during the motor imagery. They based this on the PET scans measuring regional cerebral blood flow. Also they found no EMG activity during imagery. This contrasts with other studies mentioned below. They did train their subjects to image without producing any EMG activity, so that could account for this difference. It is conceivable that training to suppress EMG activity during imagery might inhibit the alpha
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motoneuron activity, as Requin found in his studies (1984: 277). They concluded by agreeing with Frith and Dolan (1997) that “mental imagery reflects the effects of previous knowledge about the predicted sensory effects of the subject’s own actions on sensory processing areas in the absence of sensory input” (Naito 2002: 3689). Jeannerod’s experiments produced different evidence on this question. He found that “. . . even if you are simply imagining the action in terms of its goal, in simulating it you also rehearse all the neuronal circuitry. . . . if you examine the brain activity during motor imagination, you will find activation of the motor cortex, the cerebellum, etc.” (Gallagher & Jeannerod 2002: 14). As mentioned above, the increase in excitability of the muscle stretch reflex in his studies “suggests a selective increase in gamma motoneurons activity during mental simulation” (Jeannerod 1999: 6–7). There are, however, many influences on the excitability of the alpha motoneurons included in the muscle stretch reflex path. Fadiga found that corticospinal excitability was specifically modulated by motor imagery in a magnetic stimulation study, recording motor evoked potentials (Fadiga 1998: 147–158). Corticospinal excitability refers to the excitability of the alpha motoneurons stimulated by the cortical neurons. Was this increase due to gamma motor stimulation to the muscle spindles, leading to more propioceptive stimulation of the alpha motoneurons, or due to direct alpha stimulation? There are several other reports of an increase of EMG activity in muscles involved in the imagined motor act (Porro et al. 1996: 7696; Jacobson 1930; Wehner et al. 1984; Harris & Robinson 1986). Some studies have not shown an EMG increase. The results of the studies can reflect differences in consciously preparing a prescribed movement, motor imaging, and mental simulation, and in how the activity is studied. “During preparation there is concurrent massive inhibition of the alpha motoneurons, which ‘prevents any premature triggering of action’ ” (Jeannerod 1997: 118; Requin 1977: 139–174). This can explain the absence of EMGs, H-reflex changes, and motor-evoked potentials in some of the studies (Naito 2002: 3683–3691; Kasai 1997: 147– 150). Jeannerod concluded that the inhibition occurring with simulation is less intense, and there is only a “partial block of the motoneurons, as shown by residual EMG and increased reflex excitability” (Jeannerod 1997: 118).
Selective fusimotor activity Fusimotor is the same as gamma motor (L. fusus, a spindle). Selective refers to activation of fusimotor neurons without simultaneous alpha motor activation.
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Prochazka proposed that “the fusimotor system plays a role independent of the alpha motoneurons system, associated with arousal and expectancy” (Prochazka 1989: 281–307). Taylor recorded a spindle afferent from a jaw closing muscle in a chronically prepared cat while it was lapping milk. It became satisfied and stopped. After “a short pause the animal took interest in the milk again and there ensued a period of rhythmically modulated spindle discharge without EMG or jaw movement before lapping recommenced. . . Evidently the central pattern generator started working and sending an output to the (static) fusimotor neurones before the excitability of the alpha motoneurones was sufficient to make an overt expression of the rhythm” (Taylor, Durbaba, & Rodgers 1995: 374). Gandevia and others in 1997 recorded muscle spindle afferents directly during mental rehearsal of movements. They found that no spindle activity occurred unless there was increased EMG activity. “Mental rehearsal did activate alpha motoneurons, and if this was sufficiently strong, the skeletomotor discharge was accompanied by recruitment of spindle afferents” (1997: 264). They theorized that liminal contractions occurred without overt movement, and that this involved unintentional performance of the planned motor task. They concluded that there was no selective fusimotor activation during imagined movement. “ ‘Anticipation’ is associated with changes in gain of spinal reflexes and muscles are often tensed unintentionally in preparation for the command signal to move.” (ibid.: 265; also see Burke 1980).
Ascending propioception during peripheral inhibition So we have evidence of efference to the body for both gamma and alpha. What about afferent feedback from the body of this efference? It is possible that the central stimulation of the gamma motoneurons occurs with concurrent pre-synaptic inhibition of the propioceptive afferents’ synapses with the alpha motoneurons (to prevent premature action). There are also spindle afferents synapsing with interneurons in the spinal cord which synapse with somatosensory tracts to the brain. I propose that these would not be inhibited. The differential control of collaterals of sensory fibers by GABAergic interneurons results in varying levels of synaptic effectiveness (Rudomin 2002: 167). GABA is a neurotransmitter released by most presynaptic terminals. This propioceptive feedback to the network originating the gamma motor stimulation can be the basis for the organism being aware of how it is preparing for the intended movement via the body-loop through the muscle spindles. Gallagher
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has proposed that somatic propioception, in its most typical form, provides a sense of ownership for the body and its movements (2003).This is a prereflective, non-perceptual bodily awareness. It refers to the subjective experience of ownership of embodiment. He is referring to posture and movement, but I find that his analysis fits the process of preparing to move.
No motor imaging without involving the body It is possible that the artificial circumstances of experimental studies asking for motor imaging result in very minimal emotional motivation, particularly when required to relax. I propose that normally there is no motor imaging without involving the body. When the subcortical areas originate the emotionally-motivated activity, this activates the preparation in the entire organism for an interaction. The motor system, including the autonomic nervous system, is involved in the activation. Propioceptive feedback from the body would occur. An exception would occur with pathology- for example, patients who have lost their propioceptive afference have a markedly distorted sense of self (Cole 1998: 261–262). As for persons with quadriplegia, Damasio points out that “all the surveys of patients with spinal cord damage . . . have revealed some degree of impaired feeling, as one should have expected given that the spinal cord is a partial conduit for relevant body input” (1999: 289). Normally, the goal of the imagined movement is expressed in patterns of activity in the higher levels of the motor system and in the body. Even with patients who have lost their propioceptive afference, the subcortical area will still motivate the preparation in the higher levels. In this case, there would be no propioceptive afference from the body loop, so that the body would be by-passed for this mode, except for visual and vestibular. The as-if body loop would still occur. In discussing how covert actions simulate actions, Jeannerod says: “. . . activation of the motor cortex and of the descending motor pathways seems to fulfill several critical functions. First, this activation contributes to generating corollary signals that propagate upstream to parietal and premotor cortex. This mechanism would allow evaluation of the potential consequences of the future action. It could also provide the subject with information for consciously monitoring his (simulation states) and realizing that he is the agent of this covert activity, in spite of absence of overt behavior” (Jeannerod 2001: S108; emphasis added). What is the source of this information for monitoring? The phrase “descending motor pathways” could refer only to the subcortical motor nu-
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clei of the thalamus and basal ganglia or also to the pathways descending to the gamma motor neurons, which would generate afferent signals from the muscle spindles. The innervation of the gamma motoneurons occurs over four pathways: corticobulbospinal, rubrospinal, reticulospinal, and vestibulospinal. The corticobulbar fibers synapse in the red nucleus and motor areas of the reticular formation in the brain stem, where the rubrospinal and reticulospinal tracts arise (Kingsley 2000: 241–247). This means that the activation of the cortex in covert actions may reflect the activity of the corticobulbar neurons to the rubrospinal and reticulospinal tracts, as well as the activity of the corticospinal tract itself. The vestibulospinal tract originates in the vestibular nuclei of the brain stem. Their various effects are facilitatory or inhibitory of the alpha and gamma motoneurons. When he realizes that “he is the agent of this covert activity”, we suggest that he experiences the activity as a motor intention. So there is evidence that the organism prepares to interact by activity in the entire motor system, possibly including the gamma motoneurons to the muscle spindles. The organism is also directly preparing the alpha motoneurons for the action as the final common pathway. This exemplifies the hierarchy of potentiation described above by Gallistel. All of the supraspinal networks that influence the gamma motoneurons may also affect the alpha motoneurons’ excitability. Most of these act through interneurons, allowing for integration of influences.
Conclusion The primary importance of the motivation originating from the subcortical emotional circuits rests on the fact that this is the area responding to the biological needs of the organism. These are the value-generators. “Without emotion allowing and informing a central representation of value, executive and attentional functions are collapsed at their base, as are personal meaning and any viable image of agentic active self . . .”(Watt 1999: 193). The activities of the higher levels of the brain are organized around the emotional motivation originating here. Speaking of the needs and values of the organism, it might be well to add that one of the emotional neural circuits that Panksepp delineates deals with the social needs for bonding, sex, and nurturance. Ellis and Newton proposed that when the three elements described above interact in a certain way, they are inevitably accompanied by consciousness. “If the organism’s knowledge of its environment is to involve a ‘felt’ dimension, in the sense that there is ‘something it feels like’ to have a state of consciousness,
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the conscious processing must first flow from an emotional process within the organism, which pre-exists any particular input, and puts its qualitative stamp on each selected input” (Ellis & Newton 1998: 431). The phrase “interact in a certain way”, of course, raises many intriguing questions. The sense of self as covert agent originates in the subcortical area centered on the periaqueductal gray. The primitive emotional circuits motivate the behavior by potentiating a movement interaction with the affordance. It is proposed that this potentiation stimulates the gamma motoneurons to the muscle spindles in the muscles (and possibly the alpha motoneurons). The resulting propioceptive activity is fed back to the network of origin, which leads to an awareness of self as generating the potentiation. This aspect of the sense of self thus depends on somatosensory feedback. “Propioceptive awareness thus provides an immediate experiential access to my pre-reflective, embodied self . . .” (Gallagher & Marcel 1999: 21).
Appendix The muscle spindles are tiny sensory receptors embedded in the skeletal muscles. They sense the steady-state length of the muscle as well as dynamic changes in length and tension. When the muscle is stretched, the spindle is also stretched, and the sensory nerve activity increases. When the muscle contracts, the spindle length decreases, and the sensory nerve activity decreases (unless overridden by the central nervous system – see below). There is, however, a unique feature of this sensory receptor. It contains tiny muscle fibres (called intrafusal). When the gamma motor nerve to the spindle causes the intrafusal muscle fibres to contract, the spindle’s sensitivity to stretch increases. This has important ramifications. Even though the muscle itself remains at the same length and is not stretched, the gamma motor stimulation has increased the stimulation of the sensory nerves just as though the muscle had been stretched. There is no movement of the muscles, but there is increased propioceptive activity (Kingsley 2000: 217; Matthews 1972). When this occurs, impulses travel up the muscle afferent nerves to the spinal cord. There they synapse with the alpha motoneurons that can contract the muscle itself with added stimulation from the brain. The increase of stimulation from the muscle spindles exerts a powerful facilitation of these neurons (they are more sensitive to stimulation). The muscle tone is increased (Taylor & Prochazka 1981; Taylor et al. 1995). The gamma and alpha motoneurons both originate in the spinal cord and send axons to the muscles. Their activity is influenced by supraspinal
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and propiospinal activity, by cutaneous afferent and autonomic input (Gladden 2000: 213), and by interneurons in the spinal cord. The subject’s motor set alters the response to these influences. The muscle afferent nerves stimulate neural tracts going to the brain. (Fig.1) The central stimulation of the gamma and alpha motoneurons can be independent or integrated. The central nervous system stimulation of the gamma motoneurons may precede the alpha stimulation, thus facilitating their activity, or the gamma stimulation may increase simultaneously with the alpha when a muscle contraction is initiated (Kingsley 2000: 221–223).
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Sesack, Susan R., Deutch, Ariel Y., Roth, Robert H., & Bunney, Benjamin (1989). Topographic organization of the efferent projections of the medial prefrontal cortex in the rat: An anterograde tract-tracing study with Phaeolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 290, 213–242. Stellar, Eliot (1954). The physiology of motivation. Psychological Review, 61, 5–22. Stellar, James R., & Stellar, Eliot (1985). The Neurobiology of Motivation and Reward. New York: Springer-Verlag. Taylor, A., Durbaba, R., & Rodgers, J. F. (1995). The evolving gamma loop. In Anthony Taylor, Margaret Gladden, & Rade Durbaba (Eds.), Alpha and Gamma Motor Systems. New York and London: Plenum Press. Taylor, A., & Prochazka, A. (1981). Muscle receptors and movement: Proceedings of a symposium held at the Sherrington School of Physiology. New York: Oxford University Press. Watt, Douglas F. (1999). Consciousness and emotion. Review of Jaak Panksepp’s “Affective Neuroscience”. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, 191–200. Wehner, T., Vogt, S., & Stadler, M., (1984). Task-specific EMG characteristics during mental practice. Psychological Reearch, 46, 369–401. Wider, Kathleen V. (1997). The Bodily Nature of Consciousness. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
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Doing it and meaning it And the relationship between the two Marek McGann and Steve Torrance Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (COGS), University of Sussex/DBS School of Arts, Dublin / School of Health & Social Sciences, Middlesex University
A number of related approaches to cognition and consciousness have been gaining momentum in the literature in recent years, emphasizing the active, embodied nature of the mind and grounding mental states and processes in the interaction between mind, body and world. These approaches are here gathered under the title “enactive.” Given a working hypothesis, that there is a meaningfulness to our conscious states that seems fundamental to those conscious states, implications of this enactive approach to mind are outlined. It is argued that taking such an enactive approach implies a fundamental role for motivational states and goals, which currently lack an explicit explanation in consciousness studies or cognitive science more generally. An enactive framework for considering goals is sketched, and two of the more dramatic implications for our understandings and investigations of consciousness are outlined. Keywords: Enaction, enactive theories of mind and consciousness, embodiment, intentionality, conceptions and theories of goals
Introduction: A working hypothesis Consciousness is many things to many people. Definitions are usually futile, and sweeping statements are invitations to dismissal as much as to argument. Progress must be made, however, and to this end let us begin with a claim, a sweeping statement, a launching point for an argument about the nature and structure of consciousness. The hypothesis is this: There is a meaningfulness to our conscious states that seems to be fundamental to those conscious states. Whatever else it may be, consciousness, being aware of ourselves or the world,
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seems meaningful. Being conscious of something seems, at least in part, for that thing to have some meaning for us. Our relationship with the world seems mediated by this relationship. It is not one of simple occurrence, but one of interaction. We are not rocks in a stream of experience, but agents actively involved with our environment, our world. This claim, if sensible, has some important implications for theories of consciousness. It is not necessary to be insolubly wedded to it, but it would seem fair to say that it is sufficiently prevalent in the literature on consciousness to warrant investigating its implications in some depth. In particular, this claim, coupled with a view on mind and consciousness fast gaining momentum in the literature, has some important and fundamental ramifications for theory and research. The view on mind and consciousness is the enactive approach, a perspective on cognition that makes central our nature as agents in the world. There are a number of facets to this approach, many of which arose independently within subdisciplines of cognitive science. Though there is no united front to this perspective put forward in the literature, the present paper will try to draw out the common themes that bear implications for our investigation and understanding of consciousness. In what follows, we will first very briefly deal with two possible counterexamples to the claim that consciousness is bound up with meaningfulness, then outline the form of enactive approach that will be dealt with here, finding commonalities in the work of Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991), Hurley (1998), O’Regan and Noë (2001) and others. This will include drawing out implications concerning the kinds of concepts that must be clearly described if an enactive approach is to hold together. In particular, the concept of perspective, which is defining of an agent and subject in the world, will be examined and given a basic evolutionary account. In doing so, the work of John Collier will be used to explicate a difficulty faced by some such evolutionary accounts, and a solution to that problem. An appreciation of the power of enaction in our understandings of the mind will throw into relief the question of motivations and goals. A brief foray into the cognitive scientific literature provides no extant theory of goals which might be used successfully to describe the agentic nature of our existence, so a sketch of an enactive framework is drawn before some of the more potent implications of the enactive approach for consciousness studies are outlined. But first things first.
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Rejecting two potential counterexamples to meaningful consciousness There are two possible counterexamples to the importance of meaningfulness in consciousness, which need to be addressed before we can get to the issue at hand. Firstly, is to point out that there are times or situations when we might be fully aware of something, but fail to grasp any meaning in it. One might read an article, for instance, but fail utterly to comprehend it. You might suffer some experience, but see no point to it, become thoroughly confused by it and be left unable to understand it, even at a very basic level. A simple response to this argument is that such situations do not really involve a complete absence of meaning. Rather, while there is meaning in it, it is not the kind of meaning that we want. One may read a sentence and fail to understand it, but could say many things about it - what it sounds like when read aloud, whether it is a long or short sentence, if it is in a language we would normally understand. What is not available to us is its meaning in the context of the text in which the sentence is embedded. There might be a whole set of similar aspects of a confusing event that could be described and understood, but could not be fixed in any importantly relevant context. What is so frustrating about such situations is that we are aware of them, aware of some meaning in them, but are somehow prevented from grasping the meaning we feel is actually important, that is relevant to us and our goals. Another way of arguing with the claim that meaning is fundamental to consciousness is to say that basic perceptual experiences might have no real meaning in and of themselves. What, after all, is particularly meaningful about a simple perception of redness? Or of pain? Is it not true, however, that a perception of red entails “there is something red,” or, at the very least, “ there is some redness”? This would be a very minimal kind of meaning, to be sure, but even this minimal form requires explanation if consciousness is to be grasped in its entirety.
Meaning what you do and doing what you mean: The enactive approach The enactive approach has yet to put forward a united front in the literature on consciousness and cognitive science. The term is used here in a somewhat sweeping fashion to refer to a related set of views and beliefs on the mind that have been gathering momentum in cognitive science over the past ten to fifteen years. Though there are differences in the details, and some strong disagreements amongst some of the proponents, certain themes and beliefs
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are common. Chief amongst these, and fundamental to the perspective, is the relationship between mind, body and world. Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991), argue that mind and world are enacted through the interaction between subject and object, observer and world. They reject the possibility of a completely pregiven observer or a completely pregiven world. There can be no conception of one without the other. The structures of the world allow the structures of the observer to exist, while the structures of the observer allow the structures of the world to be conceived and perceived. It is this complex interplay between the world and the subject which gives rise to meaning, the understanding of the world. The enactive approach to cognitive science makes use of a quite different conception of the mind than more traditional information processing models. The mind, rather than receiving information, building representations and producing new knowledge, or outputting commands to the body, is intricately interwoven with its embodiment and its world. The enactive mind is not a passive recipient of information from the world, but actively engages with its environment, unbuffered by separable functions of perception and action (Hurley 1998). This approach would draw upon and endorse a number of different research agendas becoming prevalent across the discipline. Perception, for instance, is not conceived as the transmission of information but more as an exploration of the world by various means (such as the active vision described by O’Regan & Noë 2001). Cognition is not tied into the workings of an “inner mind,” some cognitive core, but occurs in directed interaction between the body and the world it inhabits. The enactive mind is thus also an embodied mind, the enactive approach ties in with the growing literature on the role and value of embodiment. That the cognitive system owes more to its physical instantiation than previously thought is a conception given clear exposition by Clark (1997). He argues that the operation of the cognitive system is not general, and potentially arbitrary, information processing but is grounded in the details of the agent’s embodiment. The enactive view means that thinking and action are radically goal-directed and constrained. This is not a medium-neutral mind. The specifics of embodiment matter for the specifics of cognition. The enactive approach would thus agree with the thinking of Glenberg (1997), when he argues that the human memory system is not for rote learning, but for guiding our actions in a complex three-dimensional and subtly social world. Similarly a change in thinking about working memory is called for, and might be found in the work of Ballard, Hayhoe, Pook, and Rajesh (1997). Under their account, working memory is not necessarily about holding representations active in mind but about selecting and targeting em-
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bodied operations in the service of present goals. Finally, learning a skill is not about learning the relevant facts about the environment, but is about learning to control the dynamics of our relationship with that environment, here again other work in cognitive science finds just that (see Clark’s (1997) analysis of Thelen and Smith’s (1994) work on children learning to get around different kinds of obstacles while crawling, and then later when learning to walk). Many of the cognitive functions, so often seen as requiring detailed “inner” representations need not rely on such representations, but can be successfully guided by the constraints imposed by the world itself (Hutchins 1995; O’Regan 1992; Clark 1997; O’Regan & Noë 2001). The moral of the tale is that the mind is not removed from the world, tucked away inside the body, thinking its thoughts in some private office, receiving reports and sending out instructions. Rather, the mind exists in the interaction between embodiment and world. Its operations may cross the boundaries of the organism, become extended into its environment, and loop back in tighter or looser feedback relationships (Hurley 1998; Clark 1997; Clark & Chalmers, 1998).
Enaction and the importance of perspective The enactive approach binds meaning into the mutual constraint of subject and world, a complex feedback dynamic. Such feedback dynamics, however, cannot be sufficient for descriptions of mental content and thinking. Our intuitions regarding the mind require that the set of systems with complex feedback dynamics be much larger than the set of cognitive systems. The weather cannot think, surely, nor do the dynamics of population densities in predators and their prey deliberate. Hurley (1998) suggests that fundamental to the concept of cognition and consciousness is the concept of a perspective. While meaning may be a function of the complex causal relations in a dynamical system, what fixes that function (what effectively disambiguates the set of relations in some way) is a perspective. Hurley’s purpose in her discussions of perspective (see Hurley 1998, particularly Essays 2, 4, 5 and 9) is an analysis of the interdependence of perception and action in the mind, and she does not commit herself to any particular explanation of the phenomenon of perspective, though she suggests (Hurley 1998: 7) that an evolutionary approach may be employed to get a grip on things. Her purposes simply require that something be capable of fixing the inter-relationship between causal processes at a subpersonal level, and mental content at the personal level at particular times.
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A complete dynamic theory of meaning, built on the likes of Susan Hurley’s approach, accepts an active nature for the cognitive system. It argues for an interdependence between perception, action and cognition and requires some explanation for the existence of perspective to value the complex of feedback that is the embodied organism.
An appeal to evolution, a problem and a solution A simple way of addressing the question of perspective might be to appeal to evolution, claiming that natural selection made it that way. This will in fact be the approach taken in the present paper. However, following a line of argument put forward by John Collier (2000), it can be suggested that to focus on natural selection alone will leave us with an incomplete or at least a less intuitively correct explanation of perspective. Collier (2000) argues that the typical stance taken in dealing with evolution (to trot out the unassailable logic of differential reproduction) misses something important. Under this typical view, function is defined in terms of its ultimate value to differential reproduction. Collier (2000), however, argues that this view focuses broadly on the general case of the lineage and plays down the importance of the individual case, the function in terms of a specific animal. It is at this specific individual level that functions must operate in order to be selected. Collier thus suggests that some evolutionary accounts confuse consequences with causes. The cause is the usefulness to the individual animal, the consequence, selection. Collier claims that etiological accounts of function (those which emphasize pure selection) mostly ignore the organizational requirements of biological entities, even when this organization may play an important role in the function in question. Such purely selectionist accounts can lead us into an erroneous modular account that fails to appreciate the importance of the configuration and flexibility of capacities. Selection acts as a limiting but not determining factor on functionality. In order to be selected, a trait must already be functional - that is why it is selected in the first place. The functionality of a trait can often be determined without any knowledge of the origins of that trait. Thus, the perspective of the individual animal is important in the identification and analysis of characteristics (including, presumably, cognitive characteristics). However, this is not to deny the validity of the evolutionary approach, but simply to shift the focus of its analytical spotlight. Collier’s (2000) point is that functions should be understood within the framework of a set of orga-
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nizational requirements which themselves may be best understood in terms of natural selection. To elide this individual level of value of a trait, and jump straight to the value for the lineage, will be to miss something non-trivial. Collier is thus arguing that an understanding of the emergence of an individual perspective is essential to an understanding of the kinds of functions, cognitive functions, that we are interested in. Collier’s (2000) aim is to provide some means of allowing traits to be valued (and thus considered functional or not functional) in the individual case. To this end, he employs the concept of autonomy. In a 2002 paper, he defines autonomy as follows: A system is autonomous if and only if the organization of internal aspects of system processes is the dominant factor in the system’s self-preservation making itself and the processes that contribute to autonomy functional. (Collier 2002)
This view is informed by Maturana and Varela’s (1980, 1987) concept of autopoiesis, but is less absolute, admitting of gradations where autopoiesis is all or nothing. Nevertheless, Collier’s approach can be put to use, allowing us to drive an individual system into a gauntlet where it must sacrifice its autonomy and become indistinguishable as an entity independent of its environment or risk disintegration in being insensitive and unadaptable to its environment. Life is dynamic, but those dynamics are not open-ended. A system which does not in some way maintain some kind of boundary between itself and the dynamics of the world surrounding it is essentially indistinguishable from that world. The weather is not alive, because its open dynamics do not distinguish it in any real way from the broader physical system in which it is embedded. On the other extreme, however, a rock may have a much more constrained dynamics, but these are constrained almost to the point of non-existence. A rock has no dynamics at a global level of description which might allow us to distinguish it as a entity as anything more then the sum of its physical parts. In such a gauntlet of distinction and unity do life and cognition develop.
The centrality of goals The enactive approach encourages a more holistic view of the mind and cognition than more traditional perspectives, placing cognitive functions in a context of embodiment, evolutionary history, or personal and physical constraint. The cognitive system is conceived as active rather than reactive.1 Meaning
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is bound up in the dynamics of the system and those dynamics, under the enactive approach, describe an agent. These are by implication dynamics of goal-directedness. This is a concept which the different aspects of the enactive literature have orbited, but which has not yet been given the central place in our thinking about thinking that it deserves. The mind is engaged in satisfying the needs, desires and goals of the organism. This simple fact appears to run behind all of the aspects of the enactive approach. In satisfying these needs universal computation and representation are not generally necessary. In order to understand an agent’s behavior you must deal with the specific context of the limits and demands of its embodiment. The fact that these demands and constraints are not arbitrary but directed at some end is skirted continually in enactive writings, but no one, as yet, seems to have driven this point home: To explain what it is the mind does we must offer an explicit account of motivation and goals. More so, as these operate at all levels of cognitive function, this account cannot assume conceptual capacities or representational functions of the kind in which cognitive theories typically traffic. The enactive approach plays down the omnipresence of such representational capacities in cognition.
Conceptions of goals extant in psychology As we have seen, other aspects of the enactive approach were presaged or independently proposed within different domains of cognitive science. Might this be the same for a theory of goals? Psychology, as representative of cognitive scientific work, includes many theories that make reference to motivational states or goals. However, those theories extant within psychology tend to hold definitions of goals as either explicitly representational or implicit and assumed. Social and personality theories such as Bandura’s (1992, 1997), or Mischel and Shoda’s (1995) have increasingly emphasized the manner in which actions are driven and directed by an agent’s goals, but the level of description of these goals tends to be at the level of personhood, self-esteem and self-efficacy. A range of such evaluative concepts are described by these and similar theories, and while they may count as a challenging particular case to a general theory of motivation, they resist easy integration into a perspective on the mind which denies the prevalence of conceptually driven thought. Social and personality theories are description at too high a level, then, for what we need. We might turn to more analytic, cognitive approaches. The torrent of research over the past decade on executive function is much more usefully pitched at a subpersonal level of explanation. However, it appears
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to take the concept of goals as a given, a starting point for theory and experiment. This research has seemed to focus on the processes involved in adopting, following and switching between goals, but the concept of goals themselves is implicit. Selective attention, choosing to focus consciousness on certain stimuli rather than others, is typically evidence of goal-directed cognition (Duncan 2001). However, research on selective attention tends to stipulate or assume the goal to be followed. We have significant control over what we pay attention to, and attention focuses cognitive effort, but precisely what the goal in question is or how it is instantiated in the system is far from clear. Research into selective attention’s counterpart, inhibition (Wegner 1997; Wegner & Wenzlaff 1996), suffers from a similar problem, as do monitoring (Norman & Shallice 1986) and task-switching (Monsell 2003, 1996). These different streams of research highlight the control that we human beings are capable of exerting over our cognitive functions, but either seek a mechanistic account where goals are unnecessary constructs or assume the existence of goals and work at higher levels of description, attempting to explain how they are followed. More venerable research traditions in cognitive science have more to say on goals, but for the main part fail as an adequate explanation in one of these two ways. Newell and Simon’s (1972) problem-space theory of problem solving effectively uses goals as representational reference values. These do not drive the system, but act as data for some comparator function to determine whether or not the goal state is present or absent. The rather rigid contexts required to assess this theory (which appears to remain without significant challenge as a framework for problem solving theory: Hunt 1994, Eysenck & Keane 2000) predetermine the goals of participants. A problem is often presented as a puzzle to solve, where the problem dimensions and valid operations are few. More naturalistic problem solving, in more fluid environments, slides into the arena of naturalistic decision making. A new process-tracing research paradigm (see Crozier & Ranyard 1997) has moved substantially away from normative accounts (such as Tversky & Kahneman’s prospect theory 1979). This new approach has given rise to a change in description of the entire process. No longer is described an early information gathering stage at the end of which some evaluative function divides the best (or least worst) response from the also-rans. Decisions are dynamic negotiations between the agent and world in which some early choice is made and then used as the launch point for a series of interdependent evaluations, option-differentiation and decision-consolidation processes, wrapped in an action-feedback cycle that the new approach considers central to the way decisions are made. Here too, however, goals remain
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described at a fairly personal and intuitive level, with no real means available of analyzing the concept in terms amenable to an enactive perspective.
An enactive framework for understanding goals The enactive approach, under the view presented here, demands a means to understand ends. Contemporary cognitive science can offer some suggestions but few real answers. What follows will roughly sketch the outline of a framework that might be useful in structuring our thinking on this issue, a framework that might successfully bridge the space between a minimal case of enactive potential and the complex self-governed dynamics that we humans seem to enjoy. The minimal case must occur at the origin of perspective. A result of evolution, we might expect this minimal case to be impossible to define precisely, but to be the low end of a gradient of entities for whom the world holds some implication. At this simple level we might expect there to be some system which operates to maintain itself, has autonomy, and therefore impacts on the system from its environment will affect it in positive and negative ways (no simply neutral occurrences here, the world implies something for this system). The system will have basic interests that must be maintained, and if it is not structured in such a way as to serve those interests, it will not survive for long. The minimal case of enaction, then, is governed by interests that are basic concerns of an autonomous living system. Life regulatory processes such as homeostasis might be considered the basic instantiation of interests. Being basic, these values are also immediate and inflexible. A creature that operates only according to interests will have no possibility of either prediction or memory, slaved to the immediate state of its basic motivations. Some simple single cell organisms and some plants can be considered in this category, where the current impact of the environment on the organism controls its movements, but does so in the interests of that organism. Think, for instance, of the manner in which a glucose gradient drives the flagella of a bacterium so that it will move into richer fields of nutrients. Given some flexibility, interests and the actions they produce might become sensitive to context, so that the relationship between stimulus and response is less rigid. Flexibility will be constrained by the fundamental organization of the creature around its interests, but even a limited flexibility may allow contexts and actions to be loosely configurable. Following Susan Hurley (2003), such flexibility may provide for a coarse combinatorial structure between means and ends and the possibility of action in error (hence norma-
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tivity). Hurley argues that these two criteria are sufficient for describing the agent in question as acting according to reasons (and that these reasons are not simply attributed, but exist at the appropriate level of description of the agent). The development of symbol use and voluntary memory allows human beings to control their cognitive context in an ad-hoc and arbitrary manner. The world becomes suffused with meaning layered ever-thicker by every new commitment we make. You may look at your watch and say that it is eight o’clock. This has a number of possible meanings, but if you are intending to catch a plane at half past nine it becomes even more loaded with meaning for you. We weave rich tapestries of habitual goals over our life-span, but it is in the light of having such self-generated goals, purposes, that our world is so rich with implication. This gradient of interests, with limited body-specific implications, to reasons, with context-dependent but flexible action-specific implications, to purposes with context-configurable but commitment-specific implications is offered as a first-step to scaffolding a general understanding of the goal-directed structure of enaction. Goal-directedness, under the enactive approach, is fundamental to and constitutive of the mind. This has dramatic ramifications for consciousness.
What it means for consciousness Theories of consciousness often take awareness to be prior to motivation. Motivation and goals may be accepted as having some organizing and structuring role in consciousness, but play no constitutive part. The radically goal-directed nature of mind, an implication, it is argued here, of the enactive view, turns this view on its head. The meaningfulness that is so central to consciousness depends on a bedrock of motivation. Antonio Damasio (1999) has made emotions the core of his theory of consciousness. His account is integrable within an enactive framework, acknowledging as he does the importance of embodiment (Damasio 1994) and the grounding of consciousness in life regulatory processes (Damasio 1999, 1994). His Descartes’ Error puts forward a theory emphasizing the organizational role of emotions over basic and higher cognitive processes. He developed from this his view of emotions and feelings as underpinning the very basis of consciousness. From an enactive perspective this would seem to be a promising road to follow. Though Damasio has laid the foundation for thinking in these terms his own principal aim has been to identify the neural circuitry respon-
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sible for maintaining these functions. A complete enactive theory of content and consciousness will be broader than this, encompassing all possible forms of instantiating awareness. Damasio also relies on concepts of “maps” and representations which, while not a major difficulty for integration, require some explication in more dynamic terms. Also, the relationship between emotions and goals (which may be one of identity) will need further analysis to follow this line of investigation. There are numerous accounts to choose as a starting point: Damasio’s own, those of Panksepp (1998), Lazarus (1991), Frijda (Frijda & Moffat 1993; Frijda & Swagerman 1987), or Power and Dagleish (1999), to name but a few. Each provides challenges for integration into the enactive framework, but each maintains a prominent role for emotion and motivation in cognitive function and consciousness. This foundation of evaluative and motivational issues underlying consciousness potentially has a more wide-sweeping implication for our investigations, however. Many theories of consciousness in contemporary consciousness studies seem to stress the “how” question of consciousness. It is this determined focus: “how could any physical system be conscious?”, “how can it feel like something to ....?” that stands behind the so-called hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995). The goal-focused enactive approach presented here sidesteps this issue somewhat, suggesting that the more sensible question is not “how?” but “why?”. The points put forward in this paper suggest that the kinds of meaning that are constitutive of our conscious experiences are formed on the basis of sensitivity to relevant relationships between subjects and world. Perspective is formed of dynamic relationships that define a teleological gradient which in turn defines a gradient of implications. Given a system defined by an agent and the implications of the world for that agent, it may seem more appropriate to ask how could it not feel like something. To claim that consciousness can somehow be conceived of independently of this relationship of meaning, steeped in the facts of embodiment and dynamics, challenges the claim that consciousness is meaningful. Such views, attempting to explain how there can be such things as “qualia” or “subjective feels” are forced to make the further step of explaining the relationship between subjective feels and the meaningfulness that consciousness seems to enjoy. If the contents of consciousness are indeed meaningful, an assumption of the arguments of the present paper, then this might be to take a divide-and-conquer strategy to explaining consciousness a step too far. Perhaps there has been a little too much dividing, and not enough conquering. The enactive perspective, then, will find it more productive to focus on why something is experienced in this way rather than that. This will be to move
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the emphasis, as Hurley and Noë (2003) do, from an absolute explanatory gap (“how can physical systems be conscious at all?”) to a comparative one (“how do different forms of consciousness differ from one another?”). Addressing such questions will involve not just a first-person approach to conscious states, but also a richly context sensitive approach in which the interests, reasons and purposes of the subject are given account. The functions of consciousness and its structure are the target of such a context-sensitive approach. Merlin Donald (2001) has argued vehemently for a move to such a “why”-focused view. Donald arrived at this conclusion not from a theoretical standpoint, not via an enactive perspective, but through survey of a wealth of data concerning cognition and neural function. The enactive approach may provide a fresh perspective on old data, and more productive approaches to future research; fresh questions from a new set of assumptions. How we view consciousness, as passive froth on cognitive function, or active and goal-directed “all the way down”; as abstract information processor or grounded in real world embodied constraints: these things are once more in review. The dynamic and deliberate nature of consciousness has been thrown into stark new relief by the enactive approach.
Acknowledgments Both authors are grateful to Dr. Ron Chrisley at COGS, who supervises the first author. A debt of gratitude is also due to the E-Intentionality seminar group, particularly Mike Beaton, Rob Clowes, Tony Morse and Hanne De Jaegher at Sussex for their interest and comments on different issues raised here. The authors are also grateful for discussions with Alva Noë, Evan Thompson and Erik Myin.
Note . Reactive conceptions of mind are prevalent in both behaviorist and many cognitivist accounts. The cognitive system seems often given the job of keeping track of the world in a dispassionate fashion, developing representational perceptions and drawing inferences in algorithmic determinism, driven by data.
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References Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bandura, A. (1992). Self-efficacy mechanisms in psychobiological functioning. In R. Schwarzer (Ed.), Self-efficacy: Thought control of action. Washington, DC: Hemisphere. Chalmers, D. (1995). The conscious mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Reuniting brain, body and world. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58, 7–19. Collier, J. (2002). What is autonomy? International Journal of Anticipatory Systems, 12, 212– 221. Collier, J. (2000). Autonomy and process closure as the basis for functionality. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 901, 280–291. Crozier, R., & Ranyard, R. (1997). Cognitive process models and explanations of decision making. In R. Ranyard, W. R. Crozier, & O. Svenson (Eds.), Decision Making: Cognitive Models and Explanations. London: Routledge. Damasio, A. R. (1999). The feeling of what happens. London: Willian Heineman. Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error. New York: Papermac. Duncan, J. (2001). Frontal lobe function and the control of visual attention. In J. Braun, C. Koch, & J. Davis (Eds.), Visual attention and cortical circuits. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Eysenck, M. J., & Keane, M. T. (2000). Cognitive psychology: A student’s handbook. Hove: Psychology Press. Frijda, N., & Moffat, D. (1994). Modeling emotion. Cognitive studies. Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 1 (2), 5–15. Frijda, N., & Swagerman, J. (1987). Can computers feel? Cognition and Emotion, 1, 235–258. Glenberg, A. (1997). What memory is for. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 1–55. Hunt, E. (1994). Problem solving. In R. Sternberg (Ed.), Thinking and problem solving. Hove: Academic Press. Hurley, S. L. (2003). Animal action in the space of reasons. Mind and Language, 18, 231–256. Hurley, S. L. (1997). Consciousness in action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hurley, S. L., & Noë, A. (2003). Neural plasticity and consciousness. Biology and Philosophy, 18, 131–168. Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision making under risk. Ecomometrica, 47, 263–291. Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston: New Science Library. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition. Boston: D. Reidel. Monsell, S. (2003). Task switching. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 134–140. Monsell, S. (1996). Control of mental processes. In V. Bruce (Ed.), Unsolved mysteries of the mind: Tutorial essays in cognition. Oxford: Erlbaum. Newll, A., & Simon, H. (1972). Human problem solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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Norman, D., & Shallice, T. (1986). Attention to action: Willed and automatic control of behaviour. In R. J. Davidson, G. Schwartz, & D. Shapiro (Eds.), Consciousness and selfregulation. New York: Plenum. Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Power, M., & Dalgleish, T. (1999). Two routes to emotion: Some implications of multi-level theories of emotion. Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 27, 129–141. Thelen, E., & Smith, J. (1994). A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wegner, D. M. (1997). When the antidote is the poison. Psychological Science, 8, 148–150. Wegner, D. M., & Wenzlaff, R. M. (1996). Mental control. In E. T. Higgins & A. Kruglanski (Ed.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles. New York: Guildford Press.
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Anticipatory consciousness, Libet’s veto and a close-enough theory of free will Azim F. Shariff and Jordan B. Peterson University of Toronto
Benjamin Libet concluded that consciousness operates under severe constraints, given its relationship to the timing of neural events. He therefore proposed that the power of consciousness is limited to veto: an action sequence can be stopped, consciously, once unconsciously initiated, but real-time actions cannot be initiated, consciously. However, it is possible that consciousness has the power to initiate the ballistic operation of previously automatized responses. Under such conditions, it could still possess substantial causal power, except at the smallest time-frames. We therefore suggest that conscious attention is typically focused on the future, rather than the present, and that this focus on the future allows it to remain causally effective in real-time, despite the time-lag necessary for the initiation of voluntary actions. This reformulation of the relationship between time and consciousness allows for the existence of free will, within the confines of a model of action that remains in accordance with the tenets of modern neuroscience. Keywords: Free will, conscious volition, Benjamin Libet, time-lag, backwards referral, supervisory attentional system
Introduction The outcome of Benjamin Libet’s experiments on the timing of conscious awareness put a new twist on the long-standing debate about the existence and nature of free will. His most heavily cited experiment (Libet 1985) aimed to determine where in the sequence of a voluntary action conscious awareness enters and acts. Libet demonstrated that awareness of an action (in this specific case, a wrist flick) occurred 250–350 ms after EEG-measured reaction potential technology indicated its onset or preparation. Libet logically concluded that
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consciousness could not be causally involved in such action, since it arises after its initiation: “The initiation of the freely voluntary act appears to begin in the brain unconsciously, well before the person consciously knows he wants to act!” (Libet 1999: 51). If consciousness is acting at all, therefore, it must be doing so at least 350 ms before voluntary acts occur. Further experiments by Libet and others (Libet, Alberts, Wright, & Feinstein 1967; Keller & Heckhausen 1990) have provided support for the concept of a conscious time-lag that would preclude the real-time response of consciously-derived actions. Norretranders (1991) has argued that this time lag is a necessary consequence of the immense amount of stimulus information that must first be processed and then discarded to provide a coherent and concise story that can be consciously grasped. Such conclusions appear logically sound. However, their implications still seem difficult to accept. If we cannot respond in real time with consciously determined actions, then our actions are unconsciously determined, by necessity. Our perception of conscious self-efficacy – conscious free will – is illusory. However, the hypothesis of free will as an illusion appears to inexorably relegate consciousness to the realm of epiphenomenalism. Without any force of its own, consciousness must merely be a parallel phenomenon that occurs alongside our actions – a spectator, not a participant. John Searle (2000) has suggested, nonetheless, that the epiphenomenalist explanation of consciousness is unsatisfying – in no small part because of its incompatibility with what we understand about evolutionary processes. First, consciousness is a complex and metabolically expensive biological process, as revealed by demonstration of the differences in the glucose consumption of unconscious and conscious brain states (Nofzinger, Mintun, Wiseman, Kupfer & Moore 1997). Second, the rapid increase in human brain size likely contributed to emergence of consciousness in humans. This encephalization process has resulted in significant evolutionary costs in the form of danger to both baby and mother during childbirth (Travathan 1987) and the prolongation of infantile dependence. The adaptive value of consciousness would therefore logically need to outweigh the costs that accompany it. But how much adaptive value could a system that is unable to make any changes to the actions of the organism have? As far as survival or reproduction is concerned, an epiphenomenal consciousness must be completely ineffectual. So why incur the costs? Thus the problem remains unsolved and a matter of heated debate. Libet tried to fit the possibility of an active consciousness within his theory by arguing that the purpose of consciousness was its ability to veto any unconsciously derived action. Various members of Libet’s group (for example,
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Libet, Gleason, Wright & Pearl 1983) have shown that it takes 50 ms to deliver a synaptic message to move a peripheral body part, such as the wrist. Conscious awareness of such an action appears to emerge about 200 ms prior to the action. This means that only 150 ms remain for the subject to consciously choose whether or not to proceed with the action. According to Libet’s hypothesis, consciousness serves as a mechanism of last resort, capable of selecting which unconsciously prepared decisions result in action. This veto argument, although influential, is not without its problems. Primarily: shouldn’t this conscious choice, concerning veto, be unconsciously initiated as well? Libet (1999) tries valiantly to indicate that this is not necessary. However, he runs into the following problem: the veto choice is conscious and immediate, and must therefore occur in a window of 100 ms. Other decisions, as described previously, cannot be conscious, because 300 ms are required for awareness of choice. In order to reconcile these seemingly incompatible ideas, Libet constructs a complex logical case, describing the veto as “a control function, different from simply becoming aware of the wish to act” (p. 53). Finding no direct empirical support for this position, he is forced in the end to rely on a lack of counter-evidence: “And, there is no experimental evidence against the possibility that the control process may appear without development by prior unconscious processes” (p. 53). Instead of a conscious intervention that affects the action outcome after it has been initiated, however, it still appears reasonable to posit that the active role of consciousness comes beforehand – the role that temporality plays in the process just has to be clarified further. We therefore propose that consciousness acts in an indirect and more temporally distal role, anticipating and perceiving upcoming stimuli (more than 400 ms into the future), and modulating the subject’s largely unconscious preparatory responses, in accordance with Norman and Shallice’s (1986) model of Supervisory Attention. Norman and Shallice’s model, our contributions to it, and a reinterpretation of Libet’s veto will be subsequently examined in more detail.
The routinization of behaviour Shallice has provided an information-processing model of attention, based on a distinction between automatic and deliberate action that goes back at least as far as James (1890). In Shallice’s view, automatic and deliberate actions are handled by two separate systems: the Contention Scheduling System and the Supervisory Attentional System. Routine, automatic, well-learned be-
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haviours that do not require significant attentional resources are handled by the former system, while novel and non-routine behaviours are facilitated by the latter. The notion of Contention Scheduling is predicated on the assumption that complex motor programs (schemas, in Shallice’s terminology) can be unconsciously initiated. This assumption is also shared by Libet, who holds that all action is initiated without conscious involvement. Direct evidence for unconscious action initiation has come from many sources. Australian physiologists Taylor and McCloskey (1990, 1996) have used backwards masking, for example, to elicit a complex and fully voluntary motor program, without triggering conscious attention of the eliciting stimulus. As the subjects of these experiments were not consciously aware of the stimulus that triggered their behaviour, so the argument proceeds, they could not have consciously initiated their actions. The validity of this argument is predicated on the assumption that the motor program elicited by the trigger must have existed prior to its initiation, as the processes underlying its construction are so complex that they could not occur (1) without conscious mediation and (2) in the interval between stimulation and action. In a follow-up experiment, Taylor & McCloskey (1996) showed that subjects can manifest two pre-programmed (previously learned) voluntary motor responses to two different masked stimuli. Taylor & McCloskey have neither yet established an upper limit to the number of pre-programmed response patterns that could be held in readiness, nor determined how complex these programs might be. However, the authors do suggest a primarily unconscious and pre-programmed interaction with the world, in a manner that would allow for Libet’s time-lag of consciousness: Almost all motor reactions and many other motor performances must occur before conscious perception of their triggering stimulus. Such a model could allow the stimulus to act as a trigger when only a small amount of sensory data has been processed, although conscious perception would require further sensory input. (Taylor & McCloskey 1990: 445)
Recently, Ann Graybiel (1998) has suggested that many motor actions may be grouped – or chunked – together to form structures similar to the schemas described by Shallice.1 This chunking (a term borrowed from Miller’s (1957) description of the compression of discrete bits of information in memory) recodes mental representations of action sequences by reducing the number of distinctively represented units – essentially collapsing several motor programs into one. Thus, these action repertoires, once elicited, run both automatically and ballistically. From Shallice’s perspective, action schemas compete actively
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for activation. When a given schema exceeds a particularly activation threshold, it runs, and laterally inhibits the operation of all related schemas, to avoid output conflict during implementation (see Cooper, Shallice, & Farringdon 1995 for a discussion and simulation of the contention scheduling system). Recent work reviewed by Swanson (2000) lays a plausible hierarchically-structured neurophysiological platform underneath these speculations. Over-learned or reflexive action schemas are neurally instantiated at specialized, lower levels of the nervous system hierarchy. This specialized low level instantiation allows the rapid implementation of well-practiced or reflexive action (at the cost of flexibility, which requires more processing and is therefore slower). Sensory input splits into two main streams, early in the processing chain. Some input is relayed directly to hypothalamic and lower spinal motor control systems, allowing for very rapid but “unconscious” responses. Other input is relayed upwards, into higher order cortical centers concerned primarily with complex but time-consuming high-resolution perception and subsequent action. The more complex but slower processing/action systems are particularly useful in non-routine or novel situations, where deliberate attention is required, or when existing schema produce unexpected errors in outcome. The Supervisory Attentional System, responsible for processing under such conditions, does not directly select actions, according to Norman & Shallice (1986), but applies extra activation or inhibition to the Contention Scheduling system in order to bias the selection of particular schemas. Thus, attention directed towards a certain plan of action greatly increases the likelihood of that plan being selected by the Contention Scheduling system. While at bat in baseball, for example, an individual’s attentional resources are typically directed towards hitting an oncoming pitch, rather than catching it. Simple conscious concentration on this particular goal biases the selection of the automatized “hit the ball” schema, which is itself a hierarchy of efferent muscle commands, controlling aim, step and swing. When one of the automatic sequences proves faulty (in case of “schema malfunction”) it cannot typically be fixed in real time, partly for reasons of time constraint, and partly because the individual components of the sequence have been chunked into a whole and are no longer available to voluntary regulation at the level of detail required. The program must therefore be brought effortfully into voluntary attention and unpacked into its constituent elements for the purposes of repair. The processes underlying playing a musical instrument, such as a guitar, provide a relevant example. Individual muscle movements are chunked into the fingering and plucking or strumming of strings. These notes and chords are themselves chunked into progressions. The underlying motor “macros” operate ballistically, increas-
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ingly, as expertise with the musical piece is developed. Once a bad habit is established, the attempt to modify it requires the unpacking, or unchunking, of the part of the motor hierarchy that is now underneath the conscious level. What this means, in essence, is that “consciousness” moves up the motor hierarchy, as each level of that hierarchy becomes automated. Once automated, however, the level is “unconscious,” and has to be unpacked and re-presented to consciousness before it can be repaired or changed.
Indirect conscious control through the biasing of attentional resources There is strong clinical evidence that conscious willing of actions and the actual execution of those actions are handled separately within the brain. Such evidence has been derived primarily through analysis of “double dissociation” disorders – disorders where one process but not the other appears damaged (see Appendix). Some of this evidence suggests that automatic behavioural “macros” extend beyond motor sequences, into the domain of object perception – which in turn appears as something very much predicated on the pragmatics of use, rather than material or objective feature (see Gibson 1979). Indeed, Shallice and his colleagues (Cooper, Shallice & Farringdon 1995), describe the process of “environmental activation.” Though the presence of a single object or “stimulus” can initiate a specific schema, they explain, it is more likely that complex and sophisticated schemas will be activated by complex and evocative environmental situations (such as combinations or arrays of objects such as a lit match and a dangling cigarette) (see Jeannerod 1997, for a similar discussion). However, the idea that such automated perception-motor spanning processes exist can also be integrated productively with the idea of the Supervisory Attentional System. Selective attention can clearly alter the perception of visual stimuli – from the simple and meticulously studied reversibility of the Necker cube (Orbach, Ehrlich & Haith 1963), to the complex ability to discriminate “objects” from the surrounding sensory clutter. Consider the well-known cocktail party effect (Cherry 1953) or, more recently, the results of fMRI studies conducted on the nature of visual attention by Kastner, De Weerd, Desimone, & Ungerleider (1998). Kastner et al. demonstrated that mental representations of various stimuli in a cluttered array interact in competitive and mutually inhibitory ways. Each stimulus expresses a suppressive effect on other neighbouring stimuli in the visual field. However, the focus of attention on one particular stimulus offsets the competing suppressive effects induced by these neighbour-
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ing stimuli. This mechanism of selective attention appears analogous to the lateral inhibition theoretically characteristic of Shallice’s Contention Scheduling processes (Cooper, Shallice & Farringdon 1995). Thus, the Supervisory Attentional System may also be directed at the sensory field, biasing certain perceptions, in addition to or supplementing activation of their associated motor responses. It does not seem too much to say, in fact, that the act of perception and the process of biasing motor outcome are in some manner inseparable phenomena. Interesting similarities exist between the properties that serve as action cues in the previous accounts and the concept of affordances characteristic of J. J. Gibson’s theory of direct perception (Gibson 1979). According to Gibson, an affordance is what an object in the environment offers an organism – what it invites from the perceiver (a chair, for instance, affords sitting; a glass of water, drinking; air, walking through, and so on). From Gibson’s perspective, the perception of the affordance is integrally linked to the selection of appropriate action. The three fundamental properties of Gibsonian affordances are 1. An affordance exists relative to the action capabilities of a particular actor. 2. The existence of an affordance is independent of the actor’s ability to perceive it. 3. An affordance does not change as the needs and goals of the actor change. Though the idea of affordance offers a useful way of thinking about the action cues offered by the environment, Gibson’s definition appears too limited – particularly with regards to his final two points. In keeping with his over-arching theory of the directness of visual perception, he maintains that affordances are invariant properties of an “object.” However, the direct perception hypothesis, which essentially presumed the absence of any thoroughly mediated perceptual processing, has never gathered mainstream support (see Fodor & Pylyshyn 1981 for an early criticism). If affordances are conceptualized more precisely as emergent properties of the interaction between subject and object, however, the situation may be easily rectified: the affordances of an object can not only change relative to the action capacities of a particular subject (as Gibson suggests), but also change between subjects with the same capabilities and – more importantly – within subjects, as the goals of the perceiving individual change. There is no reason why a knife cannot reveal the affordance of cutting bread, for example, or spreading butter, depending on the current goals and attentional focus of a subject. From such a perspective, voluntary attention serves in part to alter the perceptual interpretation of information. For all intents and purposes, therefore, the “same” sensory information may precipitate into one
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of several potentially “different” objects, with different affordances – linked, as a result, to different action responses. Indeed, what is seen as an “object” may be better understood as a pattern of environmental information that, over time, has distinguished itself from a broader and unspecified background, because of its particular, goal-directed utility (or utilities). A given pattern comes to evoke increasingly automatized attention, from such a perspective, because of its repeated linking through action with a given desired outcome. Furthermore – even in the absence of currently incoming sensory information – “objects” and their affordances experienced in the past can be reinterpreted by directing attention to the standing mental representations accessible in memory. Identified objects or situational patterns, previously understood in a particular context with an associated action, can therefore be re-examined, in abstraction, for further and previously unconsidered implications for behavior. Such re-examination of previously familiar things allows for the reconstrual of their significance and alteration of the motor actions associated with them for future encounters. This process of reconstrual can be done rapidly, at least in principle, but not instantaneously (not under 350 ms). Such complex processes require conscious attention, and conscious attention takes time. It therefore appears plausible, at least, that conscious volitional control might operate indirectly, by modulating the mental environment – by biasing one perceptual interpretation of the current environment over another, or several others. From such a perspective, the motor habits associated with any given perceptual interpretation actually constitute part of that interpretation. Once something is seen in a particular way, therefore (in a manner in accordance with current consciously held goals), the probability that certain patterns of action will be implemented will be increased, as a matter of course. The phenomenon of “utilization behaviour” (Lhermitte et al. 1986), described in the appendix, provides the clearest evidence for the existence of such automated perceptual-motor response. Utilization behaviour is associated with prefrontal damage, sustained in adulthood. Individuals who manifest utilization behaviour react “automatically” with action to the presence of familiar objects, and cannot inhibit that automatic response. Such individuals will, for example, grasp a drinking glass and drink from it, in the absence of expressed or experienced thirst, or will turn through an open door, without conscious desire to take that path. Under normal conditions, the prefrontal cortex, whose inhibitory capacity is well-documented (Fuster 1993) apparently determines which perceptual-motor programs are relevant and appropriate to current voluntary behaviour and specifically disinhibits them, allowing them to pass through a narrow inhibitory gate. Once that decision has been made,
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all other perceptual possibilities and competing affordances are laterally inhibited in to avoid conflicts or perception or action. When the prefrontal cortex sustains a particular sort of damage, the automated actions objects “afford” grip behaviour involuntarily, either because inhibition disappears, or because voluntary goal-direction is no longer extant. Under normal circumstances of subjective thirst, a glass of water elicits a liquid-container perceptual scheme, and a drinking motor-program. Under abnormal conditions, however – such as those obtaining during a sudden and unexpected kitchen fire – the affordance-interpretation of a glass of water might shift to “fire extinguisher,” and activate (disinhibit, more accurately) a very different motor program. Even under more prosaic conditions, the perceptual-motor scheme activated by the pattern that constitutes the glass could manifest itself in a number of different manners. If an uncooperative staple needed to be flattened, or a stack of windblown papers subdued, the perceptual scheme could easily be “manipulable solid heavy surface, near at hand” and the affordance-interpretation “hammer” or “paperweight”, respectively. In this manner, the attentional environment, under the modulation of a goal-directed consciousness, is the determinant of how objects are perceived, and which motor programs are likely to be initiated. The conscious subject needs only to hold his or her goal in consciousness to align automatic perceptions and actions in accordance with that goal.2 Is this free will? If “will” means the ability to elicit certain perceptions and their attendant action patterns as a consequence of directed attention, then the answer is “yes.” If, however, “will” means complete, deliberate, direct control of those perceptions and actions, at the highest-resolution, most detailed level of analysis, then the answer is “no.” In our opinion, the low-resolution capability seems close enough to free will to qualify. As conscious beings, we do not force our own hands. Instead, we whisper suggestions, by modulating our intentions and perceptions. This capacity to suggest and direct appears as one of the primary functions of consciousness, allowing us to interact with the “same” world and “same” situation in multiple ways, given the plethora of perceptual and action programs afforded by the flexibility of attention and the complexity of objects. One problem remains: can consciousness affect real-time activity in any meaningful manner, given the time-lag necessary for complex conscious processing? Shouldn’t the attentional environment necessarily be delayed, in comparison to the real world? Shouldn’t this delay doom the organism towards anachronistic reactions, when consciousness operates? We present a tentative solution to this problem in the next section.
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Conscious attention, detached from and unable to control real-time responses, focuses on events that will occur within a time frame to which it can react In order for us to consciously modulate our responses, we need to be able to process the sensory field, and implement the appropriate actions. However, it takes a relatively long time to elicit conscious sensation – and even more time to consciously plan any relevant response. Doesn’t this necessarily mean that the causal role consciousness plays must be characterized by severe limitations? Not if attention is typically directed to the future, rather than the present. When an individual is involved in a fast-paced sport, such as skiing, is it not probable that he directs attention not to the space immediately in front of his boots (since it is too late to consciously affect any outcome relevant to that space) but to the terrain a few meters ahead? Attention focused on the future, in this manner, could clearly allow for conscious modulation of perception and reaction. A skier looks ahead, and modifies his perception and actions accordingly – for the anticipated future. We learn to take into account how long is required for this time-lagged conscious response. At time-frames smaller than the temporal gap occupied by our consciousness, our responses are already fixed, and we are impotent to change them. Such unconscious responses run automatically. We thus have the capacity for free will, but not over very short durations. In consequence, we fix our conscious attention where we will be, not where we are.3 Eye-tracking studies that examine the gaze of piano players on musical notation have clearly revealed this future-predicated fixation. Skilled pianists consciously observe the musical notation before them to prime, and then elicit, previously automatized, complex repertoires of finger movements (“macros,” as described previously). After a given action repertoire has been initiated, however, any changes to that particular “macro” cannot be implemented – at least in accordance with the theory we are presenting. Thus, attending to information within the temporal span of that macro would be useless. We would therefore predict that pianists would attend to the bars of music suitable for priming the next action macro, instead of the current one. Indeed, skilled pianists look between two and five fixations (the length of a “look”) ahead (Gilman & Underwood 2003; Truit, Clifton, Pollastek & Rayner 1997; Rayner & Pollastek 1997; Goolsby 1994). Furthermore, experienced musicians look farther ahead than inexperienced ones. This is precisely what would be expected if more experienced players likely develop larger-scale and more deeply automatized and therefore unconsciously implementable macros. Simi-
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lar behaviours, modified similarly by skill difference, characterize touch-typists (Inhoff & Wang 1992; Salthouse 1984) Beyond the recognition that consciousness simply attends to the future, we propose – in keeping with Libet’s original suggestion, described later – that our subjective experience construes this future as the present, at least for short-duration decisions. In other words, the anticipated near future is referred backwards, and interpreted as the present. Nijhawan (1994) demonstrated, for example, that experimental subjects can be induced to misperceive a set of moving dots as further ahead of a set of flashing but stationary dots when the two sets were actually aligned. Subjects typically perceive the moving dots on a trajectory line 100 ms ahead of where they actually are. Thus their perception of the present actually reflects their prediction of the near future. This phenomenon, known as the flash-lag effect, has been demonstrated by Nijhawan and his colleagues in a variety of permutations of the original experiment (eg, Khurana, Watanabe & Nijhawan 2003). The phenomenal experience of moving objects truly appears to be predicated on extrapolation of where the object will be (given its current trajectory). This adjustment of temporality makes sense, if perception is considered as anticipatory preparation for action. To account for the time it takes to become aware of useful information and to modulate an appropriate reaction, it is necessary to focus attention on the future. By perceiving the immediate future as the present, we can actually and simply believe that consciousness is acting in real time on the (misconstrued) present, when it is actually preparing for the (likely) future (see Figure 1). This is not a processing error, or a form of self-deception. It is merely the simplest solution to a complex problem (how to respond optimally to the ever-changing flow of environmental patterns or events). Such notions are entirely consistent with Libet’s notion of “backward referral.” Libet posits that the present is interpreted as the past, and has demonstrated that a skin prick, consciously experienced 500 ms later than its occurrence, is then referred back in time in conscious experience to when it actually occurred (so that it appears to the subject that the sensation was consciously experienced just 20 ms after the skin was actually pricked). Thus, in order for consciousness to seem efficacious, despite its time-lag, it appears that the entire subjective interpretation of time is shifted ahead of the actual time. Despite its apparent peculiarity, such time-shifting is neither a process that is rare nor strange. Klein (1999) and Hameroff (1999) explain, for example, that mental juggling of temporal states is a frequent occurrence, necessary for the brain to coordinate sensory information arriving at different times from different parts of the body. The brain is therefore perfectly capable of reor-
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Azim F. Shariff and Jordan B. Peterson Awareness of stimulus
Time of stimulus
Attended to time frame Conscious time Backwards referral of anticipated future
Libet’s backwards referral
Real time Past
Present
Future
Figure 1. The conceptual relation between Libet’s backwards referral and anticipatory consciousness.
ganizing information to create a smooth and consistent experience. Because of our capacity to time-shift, it is indeed possible for us to perceive the predicted future as the present. Because we can predict reasonably accurately, this shift generally causes us no trouble, and functionally simplifies our interactions with the world. However, the cost of the gap between prediction and actuality is a certain vulnerability to error. When the actual present does not match the immediately predicted “future,” we place ourselves at risk. Our accuracy is clearly compromised during situations that are very rapidly and unpredictably changing. Since our conscious attention is directed towards a future that hasn’t happened yet, it can only make predictions to the best of its ability. Ballistic motor programs are selected with slightly dated information, spuriously presented as up-to-date. This is why not all reactions are perfectly accurate, and why that inaccuracy surprises us.
Further implications of this theory for Libet’s notion of the veto So far in this discussion we have borrowed from, expanded upon and modified parts of Libet’s original theory of conscious action and free will. We have also described a number of mechanisms that would allow, hypothetically, for the existence of constrained free will, and dealt with the experimental results that would call the existence of such will into question. We have taken particular issue with Libet’s notion that the causal role of consciousness must necessarily be reduced to that of veto, positing that the direction of attention into the future
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allows consciousness to play a determining role, despite the time necessary for its operation. It is also worth noting that the veto power of consciousness, re-interpreted, may also be broader and more powerful than previously presumed. Ongoing operations may be halted not so much by simple commands of inhibition, but by competition: a new perceptual motor schema, initiated by attention directed consciously to new goals and aims, may over-ride the current schema, rather than merely bringing it to a halt (Cooper, Shallice & Farringdon 1995). Simple inhibition is more likely to be characteristic of “unconscious” veto. More reflexive perceptual schemas and motor reflexes, such as those characterizing startle and freezing, for example, are those that most likely have enough power to rapidly overcome currently initiated macros. The neurocircuitry that mediates such responses is certainly characterized by the underlying structure that would enable such displacement (Swanson 2000). However, even more conscious operations might still produce similar consequences, even if they are implemented unconsciously. To better understand how this could work, you might raise your fist and slam it down on a table top. Do it a second time – but this time stop your fist an inch above the table, just before it strikes the surface. You can do this, but your conscious inhibition of contact with the table does not occur during the downward action. It can’t. There simply isn’t time. Instead, the “inhibition” comes prior to the action: the almost-strike-the-table-schema is biased, through direction of attention, over the strike-the-table-schema. This is not a “veto” in the manner that Libet proposed, since consciousness must offer its input before, rather than after, the initiation of such a rapid action.
Conclusion The concept of anticipatory consciousness – the idea that our conscious perception of the world is shifted forward to take into account the processing timelag – constitutes a reasonably plausible explanation for how a time-intensive consciousness could still remain effective in a world that often progresses faster than the speed of thought. The theory has another non-trivial advantage, too: it allows for the unification in conception of two aspects of consciousness already united in phenomenology – awareness and volition. From our perspective, goal-directed, voluntary direction of attention (awareness) sets the stage for consciously biased selection of ballistic and automatized action patterns. Awareness is thus necessary for free will – and, although that will is limited (because previously automatized actions are not under direct, high-resolution,
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conscious control) it is not trivial. We can still determine what we see, albeit indirectly, and we can still choose the path we will take in the future, although not in the quarter-second just prior to the choice. It is thus clear that the presumption that consciousness has necessary temporal limitations does not necessarily invalidate any claims to its causal efficacy.
Appendix: The clinical neuroanatomy of volitional and automatic action The separation of the willing, initiation and execution of motor action has been well established, mostly as a consequence of the study of clinical disorders, but also from directed animal and human neuroimaging studies. Researchers have attempted to compile this evidence into an anatomical model of the processes involved in such actions. We might well begin by examining some disorders of the basal ganglia, whose analysis sheds particular light on the differentiated phases of motor action. Both Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease involve damage to different parts of the basal ganglia, implicated as physiological key to the execution, but not the conscious selection, of action schemas (Spence & Frith 1999). Huntington’s disease, caused by atrophy of the striatum, impairs the acquisition of new motor skills, and results in unwanted movements (Hiendel, Butters, & Salmon 1988). Hikosaka and colleagues (Hikosaka, Miyashita, Miyachi, Sakai, & Lu 1998) used a GABA-agonist to create reversible lesions in parts of monkey brains in order to observe the differential effects on the acquisition and performance of visuomotor sequences. They found that the pre-supplemental motor area and the caudate in the basal ganglia are likely involved in learning new sequences, while the putamen and the cerebellar dentate nucleus are involved either in the storage or retrieval of these sequences. The differential roles of the caudate and putamen help explain why Huntington’s disease, a disorder of the entire striatum, affects both motor acquisition and performance. Parkinson’s disease, characterized primarily by loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars reticulata, appears to have a more specific consequence. Parkinson’s sufferers often find themselves unable to perform the actions patterns they intend to, although the intention itself remains intact. As Spence and Frith (1999) indicate, a Parkinson’s sufferer often freezes up altogether, knowing “precisely what action he wants to perform, but unable to initiate it” (p. 20). Human functional neuroimaging in the Hikosaka study confirmed the role of the pre-supplemental motor area in learning, and also added evidence for
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the involvement of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the acquisition of novel motor sequences. As sequences became more learned and routinized, however, activation moves posterior, to parietal regions. Hikosaka et al. concluded that the prefrontal cortex, the pre-supplemental motor area, and the anterior regions of the basal ganglia initiate the learning of sequences which, once learned and automatized, involve the posterior basal ganglia, parts of the cerebellum and parietal lobe. Matsumoto and colleagues (Matsumoto, Hanakawa, Maki, Graybiel, & Kimurai 1999) followed up on this research, expanding the role of the striatum to include both the acquisition and retrieval of learned motor programs. They suggested that the nigrostriatal dopamine system played a central role in the entire process of learning, storing and retrieving procedural memory. The dopamine system is certainly capable of strengthening connections reinforced by positive outcome. Frank, Loughery and O’Reilly (2001) built on this cursory model of actionselection with reference to the “gating” nature of the basal ganglia. The projections within the basal ganglia, from the striatum to the globus pallidus internal segment (GPi) or substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) are inhibitory, as are those from the GPi/SNr to the thalamus. In the latter case, it is the constant firing of the GPi/SNr neurons that serves to inhibit the thalamic neurons. Thus, the firing of the striatal neurons inhibits the constantly firing GPi/SNr neurons. This, in turn, disinhibits the thalamus (Chevalier & Deniau 1990). The firing of the striatum has therefore been referred to as something that “releases the brakes” for motor actions. Plans are instantiated in cortical regions projecting to the striatum which, in conjunction with the rest of the basal ganglia, “releases” the motor plan associated with those plans. The thalamus projects to the motor cortex, and the disinhibited plan is run. Spence and Frith (1999) break down the action-selection system into three parts. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, in conjunction with the anterior cingulate cortex, is involved in the selection and creation of action patterns. Both regions were shown to be differentially activated when subjects were asked to pay attention to their actions (Passingham 1997). Ingvar and Philipson (1977) have noted similar activation when subjects were told to simply imagine making movements (incidentally, Shallice (1988) localizes his Supervisory Attentional System squarely in the frontal lobes). Spence and Frith contrast the prefrontal system with the subcortical system comprising the basal ganglia and the cerebellum (which are more involved in the execution than the selection of action). The parietal cortex, in turn, appears responsible for the storage of previously practiced and chunked motor programs.
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These suggestions are consistent with those the idea that there is a distinction between action intention and action execution. Those with Parkinson’s disease suffer an inability to execute, but can still intend. The opposite pattern should logically characterize those with prefrontal damage, but who have intact basal ganglia. Though the frontal regions are much more complex, this expectation is confirmed by clinical evidence derived from at least two prefrontal lobe disorders. Graybiel (1998) describes obsessive-compulsive disorder patients compelled to perform action sequences without their explicit intention. Similarly, patients suffering from Utilization Behaviour (Lhermitte, Pillon, & Serdaru 1986) manifest “stimulus-bound” over-reliance on environmental stimuli for action. Upon exposure to the relevant cues, these patients cannot help performing the associated motor plan, even when that performance is contextually inappropriate. Lhermitte described this process as something stemming from a loss of intellectual control, due to impaired frontal lobe inhibition, resulting in unrestricted release of parietally-mediated motor activities. Norman and Shallice (1986) suggest, similarly, that this disorder involves dysfunction in the Supervisory Attentional System, and review relevant evidence in a more exhaustive fasion (see also Shallice 1988).
Notes . Many terms have been used to describe the collection of motor responses, including behavioral macros (Graybiel 1998), scripts (Schank & Abelson 1977), memory organization packets (MOPs) (Shank 1982) and schemas (Norman & Shallice 1986). These terms can be considered largely synonymous. . A series of experiments by John Bargh and his colleagues (Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar & Trotschel 2001; Chartrand & Bargh 1996) have revealed that even the goal behind a pattern of activity may remain outside of conscious awareness. Subjects were unconsciously primed with certain words that affected their goals and consequent strategies in an ambiguous situation. These results raise an important note: Consciousness is a sufficient but not necessary condition for the occurrence of the attentional biasing. One could just as easily allow attention to be drawn to things automatically, as a result of the current motivation. However, volitional power comes from the ability to purposefully direct this attention, from, for example typing on a computer screen to the paper on my left to the paper’s affordance to be picked up and read. . This conscious biasing can be done more distally and broadly in order to prime certain fast reactions later. This might help explain why mental visualization improves performance in skilled activities. By running a mental “simulation” of a certain activity, attention is primed to be directed at the perceptual-motor macros, hastening their unconscious elicitation and improving accuracy.
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Searle, J. R. (2000). Consciousness, free action, and the brain. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7 (10), 3–22. Schank, R. C. (1982). Dynamic memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals, and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Spence, S. A. & Frith, C. D. (1999). Towards a functional anatomy of volition. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, 11–29. Swanson, L. W. (2000). Cererbral hemisphere regulation of motivated behavior. Brain Research, 886, 113–164. Taylor, J. L. & McCloskey, D. I. (1990). Triggering of preprogrammed movements as reactions to masked stimuli. Journal of Neurophysiology, 63, 439–446. Taylor, J. L. & McCloskey, D. I. (1996). Selection of motor responses on the basis of unperceived stimuli. Experimental Brain Research, 110, 62–66. Trevathan, W. R. (1987). Human birth: An evolutionary perspective. New York: Aldine De Gruyter. Truitt, F. E., Clifton, C., Pollastek, A., & Rayner, K. (1997). The perceptual span and eye-hand span in sight-reading music. Visual Cognition, 4, 143–161.
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Freud’s phenomenology of the emotions Thomas Natsoulas Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis
This article embarks on a close explication of Sigmund Freud’s phenomenology of emotion and an effort to give it a unified expression. Most of the article consists of detailed study of a succession of specific texts of Freud’s and shows how these support and only seem, in places, to contradict what I understand to be Freud’s account of emotional experience from the first-person perspective. Because of my approach, I have space for just three points of access to Freud’s phenomenology of the emotions. I focus especially upon the section of his metapsychological essay “The Unconscious” titled “Unconscious Emotion” and upon parts of The Ego and the Id. Also, before embarking on my main task, I comment on the notion of a phenomenology of unconscious mental occurrences and related matters. Freud (but not William James) would strongly oppose the idea of such a phenomenology: in his view, inner awareness of any unconscious mental occurrence is impossible, whether repressed or merely descriptively unconscious (i.e., preconscious). Keywords: emotion, phenomenology, Sigmund Freud, conscious mental occurrences, unconscious mental occurrences, inner awareness, repression, “misconstrued” emotions, affect, cognitive content, William James
Introduction Sigmund Freud’s phenomenology of emotion is the main topic of the present article. My sources are very largely Freud’s writings in an English translation, namely, the twenty-three volumes, of his articles, books, and letters, edited by James Strachey for the Hogarth Press. Phenomenology, the word, is not included in the additional, index volume of this Standard Edition, nor did I come upon the word elsewhere in Freud’s works. Nevertheless, in that sense which I have in mind (see below), his writings do contain a sophisticated phenomenology of emotion. The main purpose of this article is to start to show
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the latter is the case. Another purpose is to increase the currency of Freud’s phenomenology of the emotions by rendering it more accessible.
A definition of phenomenology The sense of phenomenology I have in mind is the one that the prominent American philosopher and phenomenologist David Woodruff Smith explicates in The Circle of Acquaintance (1989). Here is his definition, not including a qualification that he appends and to which I shall come to very soon. What is phenomenology? Phenomenology may be defined as the study of the structures of consciousness or experience, including the “ways” things “appear” or are presented in consciousness (“phenomena,” in one technical sense of the term). The study of intentional characters, or contents, of experiences is thus a part of phenomenology. Phenomenology is sometimes taken to be a movement, featuring the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre and others – an historical definition that allows for wide differences in theory and method within the movement. Or sometimes phenomenology is itself identified with a philosophic method, especially Husserl’s method of epoché or Heidegger’s hermeneutic method. However, I prefer to take phenomenology to be a field of study defined by its subject matter, which is human experience, or consciousness. The differences between, say, Husserl and Heidegger I see as deep differences about how even to refer to the subject matter. (Woodruff Smith 1989: 13–14)
The above definition appears in a book of phenomenological investigations into perception, consciousness, and empathy. Effectively distinguished therein are experience, phenomenology, and metaphenomenology. None other than experience per se is the monograph’s subject matter. To consider the volume, rather, as a study of the logic of phenomenological description would be error. Woodruff Smith emphasizes that the book reports an extended piece of phenomenological research, an empirical study of experience from the first-person perspective. His interest lies here in the accurate description of experience; explication of the phenomenological structures of basic kinds of experience is his aim. Woodruff Smith’s method includes, perforce, verbal expression of contents and other features of typical experiences of certain sorts. But he does not attempt in this place to identify what phenomenology involves logically, linguistically, and so on. Below are four brief comments on Woodruff Smith’s definition of phenomenology. The first comment brings William James into the picture. The
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second distinguishes phenomenology from a kind of research on experience that would not be phenomenological. The third comment states a qualification which Woodruff Smith himself appends to his definition of phenomenology. The fourth is an objection of mine to his qualification. Following these four comments, the rest of this Introduction introduces aspects of Freud’s and James’s thought that pertain to Woodruff Smith’s qualification of his definition of phenomenology. 1. In the field of consciousness, giving some attention to James’s (1890/1950) views often can help one to bring clarification to the matter under consideration. He is an excellent example of a leading psychologist who engaged in phenomenology in a self-conscious and sophisticated way. His famous account of the stream of consciousness from the subject’s perspective preceded the phenomenological movement to which Woodruff Smith adverts. Indeed, James’s subjectively based characterizations of the states of consciousness were a major, acknowledged influence upon that movement. 2. Woodruff Smith’s definition may be taken to imply the following proposition: “Anyone who is engaged in empirical research on experience, its nature or character, is ipso facto engaged in phenomenology.” However, this proposition is neither implied nor factually the case. Thus, a scientist engaged in brain research who fails to examine the experiences of his or her subjects is not involved therein in any kind of phenomenological research, even if (a) every experience that transpires is a brain process, and (b) the specific brain processes under study are in fact identical to experiences. A completely objective phenomenology is impossible because it would perforce omit how the experiences are subjectively. As Woodruff Smith rightly asserts, phenomenology’s subject matter (i.e., the structures of experience) encompasses the way that things are presented or appear to consciousness. And this “way” is not just one part of what gets studied, implying it might be ignored in studying another part of the total subject matter. Rather, an essential concern of every piece of phenomenological research is how things are presented to the consciousness of one or more subjects. 3. A certain aspect of Woodruff Smith’s understanding of phenomenology as field of study will surely be judged as incompatible with the first-person requirement I am emphasizing. It will soon be seen that Freud, for one, would so judge; for Freud insisted that the unconscious mental occurrences are never objects of inner awareness. The questionable feature of Woodruff Smith’s conception of phenomenology comes along with his justified conviction that unconscious mental occurrences do take place and are no less mental than the
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conscious mental occurrences to which he refers in his definition. In further claiming that the unconscious mental occurrences, too, are a part of the subject matter of phenomenology, Woodruff Smith carries well beyond his definition: What about unconscious mental activities, which are so central in psychoanalytic theory, cognitive psychology and neuropsychology? Basically, phenomenology is intentional psychology, dealing with meaningful structures of mental activity, so the term “phenomenology” would be well extended to cover unconscious as well as conscious mental activities – “surface” phenomenology dealing with the conscious and “depth” phenomenology with the unconscious. (Woodruff Smith 1989: 14)
4. My objection to the above is this: Even though phenomenology is certainly as Woodruff Smith asserts – “intentional psychology, dealing with meaningful structures of mental activity” – it is not the case, as well, that all intentional psychology is phenomenological. Many cognitive psychologists assume that a mental occurrence has content whether or not it is an object of inner awareness; and an unconscious occurrence’s having content is not owed to its appearing before a second consciousness, as James is readily understood to hold. Moreover, some research that is currently proceeding in cognitive psychology is not occupied with “the ‘ways’ things ‘appear’ or are presented in consciousness”; some cognitive psychologists seek to explain behavior through reference to cognitive processes that are going on externally to the stream of consciousness.
Freud’s unconscious mental occurrences Freud holds that all the unconscious mental occurrences are intrinsically so that none of their instances can ever be conscious (Natsoulas 2001c, and references to Freud given there). This is a general statement that has reference to both the repressed, or dynamically unconscious, and the preconscious, or merely descriptively unconscious. As will be seen, these two subcategories of Freud’s unconscious mental occurrences do not differ with respect to instantiating in themselves the property of consciousness. Neither of them ever does. In order for an instance of any one of the unconscious mental occurrences to be conscious, the mental occurrence would have to be, per impossibile, a different kind of mental occurrence, an intrinsically conscious mental occurrence. Contrary to how it may at first appear, this denial of consciousness to both the preconscious and the repressed mental occurrences is wholly consistent
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with the familiar Freudian thesis that an unconscious occurrence may “become conscious.” The latter phrase has a special, technical sense. Because, according to Freud, no instance of an unconscious mental occurrence can itself literally come to consciousness, I insert a hyphen whenever I use becomes conscious in Freud’s special sense. I next explain that special sense. Consider the preconscious mental occurrences. Let me state, first, a conception of them that is not consistent with Freud’s: Thus, it is frequently thought that, when instances of a preconscious mental occurrence take place, they may be objects of inner awareness. That is, frequently, there exist conditions in which the instances of a preconscious mental occurrence are conscious in the same sense the instances of a conscious mental occurrence are conscious. According to this non-Freudian conception, a preconscious mental occurrence transpires unconsciously at some times and at some times consciously. A conscious mental occurrence, in contrast, takes place consciously on every occasion of its occurrence. And a repressed mental occurrence, whenever it takes place, does so unconsciously unless it becomes transformed, via psychoanalytic therapy or in another way, into a preconscious mental occurrence.
This is not how Freud conceives of the property of preconsciousness. What then is it in Freud for a preconscious mental occurrence to become-conscious, if it is not that one or more instances of it transpire consciously? Freud defines “the preconscious” to consist of those many unconscious mental occurrences that readily can become-conscious in a different sense from that of the view described in the preceding paragraph. Whereas it is true that any preconscious mental occurrence can become-conscious, its doing so is always in the form of a certain kind of proximate effect of an instance of that preconscious occurrence, an effect that is distinct from the instance itself. On all such occasions, both transpire, the preconscious instance and its special, distinct effect. This effect is an instance of a conscious occurrence and matches a specific description that reflects its cause. In Freud’s theory, a preconscious mental occurrence does not, as frequently is supposed, somehow itself become transformed into a conscious mental occurrence. Nor does it get altered so that it resembles a conscious occurrence by occurring consciously, albeit only sometimes. The distinct, occurrent effect that is a preconscious mental occurrence’s becoming-conscious for the moment takes place in a different subsystem of the mental apparatus from there where the preconscious-occurrence instance transpires that is its cause. The special effect, being conscious, must take place in the perception–consciousness subsystem. According to Freud’s theory, this is the only mental-apparatus subsystem in which the instances of any conscious
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mental occurrence transpire. A preconscious occurrence’s becoming-conscious is the taking place of an instance of it and this instance’s evoking a conscious counterpart of itself with corresponding content. Some of the implications of this view are the following. 1. It means, inter alia, that no conditions ever come about that would permit an unconscious mental occurrence of either kind (dynamically or just descriptively unconscious) to be an object of inner awareness. The latter point is expressible as follows using some terms from Woodruff Smith’s definition of phenomenology: According to Freud, in the case of all of the unconscious mental occurrences, an appearance or presence to consciousness is impossible; there is no way in which such a mental occurrence, whether it is dynamically unconscious or preconscious, may so appear. Thus, the sense in which an unconscious wish or an unconscious thought instantiates the property of having a content or meaningful structure does not include that the wish or thought is itself directly apprehended. Freud’s unconscious processes are not to be understood as states of a secondary consciousness, which James (1890/1950) would want to propose that they are. 2. Of course, thinking and believing correctly that a certain mental occurrence is now taking place in oneself is not equivalent to its appearing to one’s consciousness. It was not Freud’s view that, if a patient accepts that a certain unconscious wish is significantly responsible for certain of his or her actions, then this wish has gotten itself transformed into a conscious occurrence. In this regard, the most that can happen is this: Owing to the success of the psychotherapeutic process, the patient may come consciously to wish in a way well resembling in content that unconscious wish which is responsible for the occurrence of the conscious wish. 3. And surely, it cannot be successfully maintained that a conscious effect of a preconscious mental occurrence is the latter’s conscious presence, in the same sense as a conscious occurrence is said to appear to consciousness. Someone may want to argue along such lines, but this would mean putting a metaphorical sense of “conscious presence” to use, a sense allowing that, under certain conditions, something (X) is present to consciousness if there is something else (Y) that has such presence and Y adequately resembles X.
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Relevancies from James The unconscious mental occurrences are not experiences; none of them are components of a stream of consciousness – unless, instead, they are conceived of, along with James (1890/1950) and contrary to Freud’s explicit refusal to do so, as the basic durational components of a second stream of consciousness proceeding in the same person. As James characterized such “secondary personal selves,” they are able, inter alia, to “form conscious unities” and to possess “continuous memories.” The form of a secondary self “tends to personality, and the later thoughts pertaining to it [i.e., the states of consciousness that constitute it] remember the earlier ones and adopt them as their own” (James 1890/1950: 227). Clearly, James has in mind, as Freud does not, states of consciousness that are much like the basic durational components of the primary stream. Those secondary states, being components of a stream of states of consciousness, can be the objects of inner awareness in the form of states of consciousness following them in their stream. As does not exist between streams, there is some “insight,” so to speak, among the states of the same stream. Given James’s theory, an inner awareness can suitably be called an “appendage” to the state of consciousness that is its object. Appendage was the word Freud (1895/1966) used to contrast his own understanding of consciousness to the alternative sort of view of consciousness as being something appended to, associated with, not an intrinsic feature of any conscious occurrence as it always is according to Freud. Assume that James’s appendage account of inner awareness is true. A recent paper of mine (Natsoulas 2003) claims it would be consistent with his account to expect inner awareness of an experience sometimes to occur before the experience itself does. In the interest of bringing out the main features of that account, I explain, in two steps, how this surprising implication follows. 1. According to James’s view of the normal case, the total brain process on its own is what directly produces any inner awareness that occurs, just as it is the total brain process that brings any other experience into being.1 This includes, of course, any experience of which one has inner awareness. Although it can affect the course of the brain process, an experience is not necessarily related causally to the inner awareness that apprehends it. Insofar as an experience does serve as such a cause, it is through that experience’s affecting the brain process.
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2. Thus, since the ongoing total brain process contains all of the “information” that is needed to produce both experience and inner awareness of the latter, these two could come into being in either order relative to each other. For that matter, it is unclear why James insists inner awareness must be in the form of a distinct state of consciousness; that is, he holds that inner awareness cannot be intrinsically a feature of the state of consciousness that is its object, although it can be such a feature of a subsequent state and have the earlier state as its object. After all, James conceives of every state of consciousness as a unitary awareness and each such state typically possesses, in his view, several intentional objects. All of the above also apply to the Jamesian secondary streams that I have mentioned except that, of course, the presence of two streams in the one individual requires that the total brain process gets divided up into two large brain processes that respectively produce two distinct successions of states of consciousness.
An intrinsic theory of inner awareness Freud’s posited unconscious mental occurrences resemble conscious mental occurrences in possessing contents and being meaningful. But, as is the case for any feature of an unconscious mental process, these features of theirs are themselves not “knowable” except indirectly, through inference from something or other else that itself does have a presence to consciousness. Thus, the effects that an unconscious mental occurrence may have on occurrences in the perception–consciousness subsystem are not to be construed as having the unconscious mental occurrence as their object. Indeed, any conscious mental occurrence that is evoked by an unconscious mental occurrence, however similar the conscious mental occurrence may be to its unconscious cause, the conscious mental occurrence is not an inner awareness of this cause. Nor is this conscious mental occurrence an inner awareness of any other mental occurrence, the sole exception being itself, since it is a conscious mental occurrence. For, in clear contrast to James, Freud’s view of inner awareness is of the intrinsic sort (Natsoulas 2001c). This means that Freud would tend to hold as Woodruff Smith (1989) does: A conscious mental event must include an occurrent awareness of its own transpiring; the subject must experience the event as it transpires. Furthermore, this awareness must be an occurrent part of the given mental event itself, for reasons that will emerge [cf. Natsoulas 2001a, b, and other installments in that
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series]. Thus, it is an inner awareness, a constituent awareness of a part of the subject’s own stream of consciousness. Evidently, the “immediate knowledge” required for consciousness will be some kind of acquaintance: a direct cognitive awareness of the given mental event , though not a separate presentation thereof. The awareness will be cognitive in that it itself justifies a claim to know the mental event is occurring. It will be epistemically direct, involving no inference. (p. 81)
Already, from this passage’s first sentence, the contrast to James is noticeable. The sentence says that a conscious mental event of one’s own cannot occur without one’s experiencing it and experiencing it involves having inner awareness of it. In James’s contrasting view, experiencing a conscious mental event does not require having inner awareness of it. Whether awareness of it accompanies a state of consciousness or not, the state is an experience. Such an accompaniment does not entail, according to James’s appendage theory, any difference in its object from how the latter would be if no awareness of it accompanied it. That the above is the case with respect to James’s view can readily be seen if one considers a stream of consciousness that has come to a sudden, complete stop. This stream ceased its flow; its last component state (socL ) went out of existence without being succeeded by another state of consciousness, as did occur to the states that comprised the stream in an uninterrupted period of flow. Thus, socL took place without its becoming an object of inner awareness. In order for socL to have been such an object, a state of consciousness with socL for one of its intentional objects would have had to follow socL in its stream. Based upon James’s (1890/1950) discussion of the specious present, it would seem inner awareness transpires either immediately or very soon after its object comes and goes. But, as we have seen, an inner awareness of a state of consciousness cannot be a feature of the state itself that is the object of inner awareness; more accurately stated, a state cannot be an inner awareness of itself. For James, then, “inner” awareness is a kind of “outer” awareness, whereas for Freud, a state of consciousness has itself among its objects in every instance of its occurrence. And it is not an error to hold that, for James, those mental occurrences transpiring within one without being parts of one’s primary stream would be included in phenomenology’s subject matter, since those, too, are states belonging to a (secondary) stream of consciousness. They are experiences and objects of inner awareness. Freud held otherwise: There is only one stream of consciousness per human being. It flows, as it were, through the perception–consciousness subsystem of the mental apparatus in the brain. No preconscious or dynamically
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unconscious mental occurrence is a component of any stream of consciousness. Unconscious mental occurrences are not experiences in any of their instances of occurrence. They are not objects of inner awareness. They have, as it were, no phenomenology. The unconscious mental occurrences are purely objective. There is no “way” that they are for the subject, for consciousness. They do not have presence to consciousness, although they resemble the conscious mental occurrences in having intentionality and meaning. The unconscious mental occurrences resemble the conscious occurrences in content, but they differ from the conscious in being non-qualitative. In all of their instances, the conscious mental occurrences are qualitative; their contents are not merely meaningful; there is also somehow these mental occurrences “feel.” Our inner awarenesses apprehend them as having a particular qualitative character, which James, too, attributed to all of our experiences, to every state of consciousness, to every basic durational component of any stream of consciousness.
Close examination of relevant texts In this article, my mode of achieving access to Freud’s phenomenology of the emotions consists in the close examination of texts. My exposition here is, I believe, more explicit than frequently encountered. From this point on, each of my subsections is focused on a relevantly enlightening section from Freud’s work. The reader will thereby become well informed concerning the bases of my interpretations, and he or she will be more prepared to evaluate them than is usual. Thus, I do not limit myself to stating conclusions that I have reached and appending selected, supporting quotations and paraphrases. For example, I give explicit attention to sentences that some readers may understand to contradict my account of Freud’s theory. However, some of the usual must go on as well. I must apply conclusions that I have reached from other portions of Freud’s works to the passage that I am currently explicating.
Access Point No. 1 One point of access to Freud’s phenomenology of emotion begins on page 21 of The Ego and the Id (1923/1961).2 In the last full paragraph on the page, he embarks on a discussion of “sensations and feelings.” For now, let me just assert that much of what Freud tells us concerning the mental occurrences which he includes under sensation and feeling is pertinent to grasping his conception of the emotions qua experiences. Although argument will be forthcoming in subsequent articles, it appears safe to state at this point that, for Freud, the
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emotions are kinds of feeling, whereas, of course, in his view, not every feeling qualifies as an emotion. On page 21, Freud asks whether he has been right to hold that, whenever a conscious mental occurrence transpires, it does so only in perception– consciousness. Doubt may develop regarding consciousness’s unilocular nature, as Freud proceeds to consider how the sensations and feelings come to take place owing to “internal perceptions.” Freud has already stated, in the same chapter, that the sensations and feelings – which are “received from within” the mental apparatus – are among the conscious mental occurrences. In their instantiation of the property of consciousness, they are like the perceptual experiences – which are “received from without” – and unlike the thoughts that occur externally to the perception–consciousness subsystem. All the latter thoughts are unconscious mental occurrences, whereas thoughts that are among the conscious do exist too. In contrast, the sensations, the feelings, and the perceptual experiences are not ever unconscious mental occurrences. If Freud were to accept the thesis that sensations and feelings sometimes do take place outside perception–consciousness, then his theory of the mental apparatus would have to be fundamentally revised. Just before Freud turns to sensations and feelings, he is saying how unconscious occurrences such as thoughts become-conscious. Because of this account, question might arise as to whether every instance of a conscious mental occurrence occurs in perception–consciousness. According to Freud, an unconscious thought, if it becomes preconscious, may become-conscious – that is, it may readily evoke adequate conscious counterparts of itself. While sensations and feelings are consequences, too, of certain unconscious mental occurrences, they travel, as it were, a different causal path to their evocation within perception–consciousness. Indeed, many mental paths exist by which the sensations or feelings come to occur; “processes . . . in the most diverse and certainly also in the deepest strata of the mental apparatus” (Freud 1923/1961: 21–22) produce them. As is true of the perceptual experiences, sensations and feelings “may come from different places simultaneously and may thus have different or even opposite qualities” (p. 22). Freud says they are “multilocular,” but he means how they come to occur, not their transpiring in a subsystem of the mental apparatus other than perception–consciousness. Freud again asks: Might the unconscious mental determinants of sensations and feelings be sensations and feelings themselves? Might they cause sensations and feelings to arise right there where the determinants themselves take place? Thus, sensations and feelings could transpire sans their unconscious determinants “reaching” perception–consciousness. Freud poses his rhetori-
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cal question in terms of that unconscious “something” which becomes conscious; he must mean here becomes-conscious, in that special sense identified in the Introduction of the present article, just as he does when he speaks of the becoming conscious of unconscious thoughts. In both cases, his posited “somethings” cannot literally become conscious. If they cannot evoke in the perception–consciousness subsystem a conscious mental occurrence that corresponds to them, they may yet, and at most, get to be preconscious through psychoanalysis or the like. Freud’s clinical experience leads him to avow only conscious occurrences of sensations and feelings. He claims, on the basis of this work, that the unconscious determinant of a sensation or of a feeling “behaves like a repressed impulse [or] compulsion” (p. 22), or like tensions owing to physical need that remain unconscious. That is, the unconscious “something,” whereof one has no inner awareness, may “exert driving force.” And can therefore contribute to the explanation of behavior (action and bodily reaction) as well as certain sensations or feelings in the perception–consciousness subsystem. Accordingly, it is by “reaching” the latter subsystem that the unconscious determinants of a feeling become-conscious. Reaching there and the like (e.g., their being blocked from reaching there) are, of course, figurative expressions for their causing (or their failing to cause) conscious counterparts of themselves in the mental-apparatus locus where all conscious mental occurrences transpire. Much the same is proposed for the relation of conscious thoughts (and wishes) to their proximate unconscious determinants. In the course of this discussion, Freud mentions “pain” as an example of “something” which can remain unconscious and behave like a repressed compulsion. However, from the context, it is evident that he means not the pain experience but the unconscious “something” that normally produces that experience; it does not produce the experience if it remains repressed. Those who attribute to Freud the thesis that emotions can occur unconsciously, as well as consciously, fail to take fully into account in their interpretations important statements of Freud’s such as this one: If the way forward [to consciousness] is barred, they do not come into being as sensations, although the “something” that corresponds to them in the course of excitation is the same as if they did. We then come to speak, in a condensed and not entirely correct manner, of “unconscious feelings,” keeping up the analogy with unconscious ideas which is not altogether justifiable. (p. 22)
But, analogously to Freud’s account of unconscious thoughts, a feeling’s proximate unconscious mental cause, if not repressed, may justifiably be thought
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of as “preconscious” if one means that this mental cause readily becomesconscious, readily evokes the corresponding feeling. When its way forward is barred, it is prevented from performing its normal function as otherwise it would. If no longer repressed, the cause has a certain specific feeling kind of effect. A repressed mental cause’s way may not be completely barred, according to Freud, and thus it excites a different feeling effect in perception–consciousness. An unconscious compulsion that is obstructed in its normal effects will, instead, “become conscious as unpleasure” (p. 22). This is a kind of feeling and, therefore, a conscious mental occurrence. But note: the repressed mental occurrence cannot, based on the unpleasure it produces in consciousness, be rightly described as becoming-conscious, in the sense that something preconscious becomes-conscious. Our experiences of unpleasure frequently are, according to the theory, conscious effects of repressed mental occurrences. Indeed, unconscious mental occurrences have many effects on the perception–consciousness subsystem. Not all of these, however, are of the kind that qualify their respective unconscious causes as becoming-conscious. Not all their conscious effects are cases of what Freud spoke of as an unconscious occurrence’s “reaching” the perception–consciousness subsystem. Indeed, as it produces the unpleasure of which Freud speaks, the unconscious mental occurrence remains repressed. So long as it remains repressed, it does not, as Freud expresses it, “come into being as feeling.” For an unconscious mental occurrence to “reach” consciousness is not for it to arrive their literally, nor is it for it simply to make a difference in what is going on in the perception–consciousness subsystem. From Freud’s perspective, what is it that is unjustifiable and not correct regarding the notion of unconscious feelings? Answer: the referents of the notion are not actually themselves feelings. Feelings transpire only in perception–consciousness and, as are all of the mental occurrences that transpire there, they are conscious in every instance of their occurrence. As we have seen, while “unconscious feelings” are not feelings, they do evoke real feelings. First, under repression, they evoke unpleasure. And, second, if they are not dynamically prevented from doing so, they evoke feelings specifically corresponding to them. Even when their way to consciousness is not barred, it is not possible for such mental causes as the “unconscious feelings” to become converted into conscious mental occurrences. Then they merely become-conscious; that is, they unconsciously cause to transpire a corresponding feeling in perception– consciousness. This feeling “corresponds” to its unconscious mental cause in
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the sense of its being what is naturally to be expected when its causal relationship to the perception–consciousness subsystem has not been distorted by the intervention of other unconscious mental causes. Unconscious thoughts and wishes do take place, but feelings and the like are intrinsically such as to require what only perception–consciousness can provide among the subsystems of the mental apparatus. By way of stating how the unconscious thoughts and the “unconscious feelings” differ from each other, the analogy between them being a significantly limited one, the above indented quote from Freud (1923/1961: 22) continues as follows: Whereas with Ucs. ideas [i.e., unconscious thoughts] connecting links must be created before they can be brought into the Cs. [i.e., become-conscious], with feelings, which are themselves transmitted directly, this does not occur. In other words: the distinction between Cs. and Pcs. has no meaning where feelings are concerned; the Pcs. here drops out – and feelings are either conscious or unconscious. Even when they are attached to word-presentations, their becoming conscious is not due to that circumstance, but they become so directly. (pp. 22–23)
As seen from the just preceding portion of this passage, it would be error to understand Freud to be speaking here literally of unconscious feelings. When he states “feelings are either conscious or unconscious,” he must mean that either they occur or, because of repression, they do not occur notwithstanding that their normal unconscious cause is now operative. There is no contradiction of his thesis that unconscious feelings do not exist. Rather, he is talking loosely here, in the very “condensed and not entirely correct manner” that he has just stated is “not altogether justifiable” (p. 22). The sense in which the “unconscious feelings” become conscious “directly,” as Freud states they do, is by unmediatedly causing the corresponding feeling within perception–consciousness. Comparing all repressed feelings with all repressed thoughts, one can say the kind of mediation the repressed thoughts require to be capable of becoming-conscious, namely, transformation into preconscious mental occurrences, is not necessary for the unconscious mental cause of a feeling. Simply owing to the lifting of repression, an “unconscious feeling” becomes preconscious in the sense of its now readily producing the corresponding feeling. In the above indented quotation, the sense of the epithet “preconscious” includes more than just the described mental occurrence’s causal relation to perception–consciousness, namely, an unconscious thought’s connection with
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word presentations. Such connection is essential in order for an unconscious thought to “reach” consciousness, whereas word presentations are not needed in order for an “unconscious feeling” to “come into being as feeling.” There are two modes of expression that Freud uses in the passage under scrutiny that could lead to an understanding of his conception of consciousness that would be erroneous. He makes reference at the start to certain “internal perceptions” of certain unconscious mental occurrences as being that which gives rise in consciousness to the sensations and feelings. And at the end of the passage, he speaks of the “unconscious feelings” as “becoming conscious directly.” These statements may tempt a reader to take an alternative view to mine. According to the alternative view, unconscious mental occurrences can be for Freud objects of a kind of direct apprehension. However, the first page of Freud’s chapter contains a rejection of this sort of conception of the unconscious mental occurrences. He states that an accurate understanding of the unconscious mental occurrences’ relation to consciousness calls for a “third alternative” to their advancing to consciousness or consciousnesss’s making its way to them. Both are “equally unimaginable” for “those internal processes which we may – roughly and inexactly – sum up under the name of thought-processes” (p. 19). Notwithstanding Freud’s application of the latter name, he means his reference to be to all unconscious mental occurrences. Both the “unconscious feelings” and the unconscious thoughts “represent displacements of mental energy which are effected somewhere in the interior of the [mental] apparatus as this energy proceeds on its way toward action” (p. 19). An “unconscious feeling” is no more capable than an unconscious thought of “advanc[ing] to the surface, which causes consciousness to be generated”; nor can it ever become an object of direct apprehension. Whether repressed or not, the “unconscious feelings” are what they are, not something else such as an actual feeling. Those unconscious mental “somethings” that correspond to feelings and bring them about in the absence of repression are “the same” whether they are repressed or not (p. 22). Part of their being the same is being unconscious mental occurrences whether or not they succeed in causing a corresponding feeling to occur. Freud concludes his comments about the becoming-conscious of unconscious thoughts as follows: “Consciousness remains where it is, therefore; but, on the other hand, the Ucs. does not rise into the Cs.” (p. 20). Then, immediately, he moves on to the sensations and the feelings with respect to, as seen in this subsection, whether their unconscious mental causes might themselves be sensations and feelings although they occur in a different subsystem of the mental apparatus.
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Access Point No. 2 In the final paragraph of his chapter, Freud (pp. 26–27) mentions a “strange” phenomenon which his work with psychoanalytic patients has forced upon his attention, and expresses bewilderment, for the reason that the phenomenon “compels us, in spite of our better critical judgment, to speak of an ‘unconscious sense of guilt”’ (p. 27). Even such higher mental functions as selfcriticism and conscience can go on entirely outside perception–consciousness. But some discussants (e.g., Schur 1969) interpret Freud’s reaction to be a consequence, rather, of the evident necessity that he include in his account of the mental apparatus unconscious guilt feelings, which is contrary to his thesis that all feelings are conscious mental occurrences. In a later chapter, Freud comes back to the concept of an unconscious sense of guilt. Given the present purpose, a passage there requires close attention. When Freud states the following, he is attributing the negative therapeutic reaction of some of his patients largely to their unconscious sense of guilt: But as far as the patient is concerned this sense of guilt is dumb; it does not tell him he is guilty; he doe not feel guilty; he feels ill. This sense of guilt expresses itself only as a resistance to recovery which it is extremely difficult to overcome. It is also particularly difficult to convince the patient that this motive lies behind his continuing to be ill. (pp. 49–50)
Finding Freud’s explanation of these patients’ behavior convincing is, of course, not necessary to a comprehension of his concept. Our interest lies in determining the sort of mental occurrence an unconscious sense of guilt is proposed to be. Does it consist of guilt feelings? Evidently not, judging from Freud’s observation that such a patient does not feel guilty. However, a reader could understand Freud’s statement to mean: only conscious guilt feelings, not all guilt feelings, are missing. For the context of Freud’s statement is the patient’s lack of an awareness. It could be suggested that a patient who sincerely reports not feeling guilt may still be unconsciously undergoing feelings of guilt. If it is repressed, a sense of guilt cannot elicit, as it otherwise could, corresponding feelings in the perception–consciousness subsystem, wherein the patient would have inner awareness of feeling guilty. Those are the lines along which a reader may reason. In what, according to Freud, does an unconscious sense of guilt consist? Freud states that a patient with such a sense feels ill, not guilty. This statement refers, surely, to that unpleasure he mentions earlier in the book. It will be recalled about repressed occurrences whose way forward is not wholly barred
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that, among their other effects upon the perception–consciousness subsytem, they produce unpleasure. Thus, they are causes of some conscious effects but not the same such effects as they cause to occur when not repressed, for example, those conscious counterparts that qualify them as preconscious. And where it is an unconscious sense of guilt that is producing the feelings of unpleasure, these are not to be confused with their cause, which, as argued, does not consist of feelings. At this point, Freud appends a footnote concerning his efforts to deal with the obstruction of therapeutic progress which arises from an unconscious sense of guilt. The only method available to him for this purpose, he states, is “the slow procedure of unmasking its unconscious repressed roots, and thus gradually changing it into a conscious sense of guilt” (p. 50). I must suggest that Freud is expressing himself in an abbreviated manner that he would consider incorrect if it were meant literally. As we have seen, no unconscious mental occurrence can ever, in his view, rise up to perception–consciousness and occur there. The gradual change Freud refers to in the passage (pp. 26–27) is the sense of guilt’s becoming such as to evoke readily a conscious counterpart of itself, as transpires when an unconscious sense of guilt occurs that is not repressed. Yet, such statements as the above one from Freud are used (e.g., Green 1977) to argue that Freud’s unconscious sense of guilt does involve unconscious guilt feelings, feelings of which the person has no inner awareness. This interpretation would mean Freud was contradicting himself in the same short book. And one has to wonder, if indeed unconscious guilt feelings did seem to Freud, as Green states, “incontestable,” then why Freud does not say, “These patients are feeling guilty but have no inner awareness of so feeling,” just as he does frequently assert our inability to apprehend firsthand our unconscious thoughts and desires. Not only does Freud (1923/1961) say nothing like this, but in a paper which he published the next year (Freud 1924/1961), he does not modify his treatment of the unconscious sense of guilt, his treatment of it as being something that fails to qualify as a feeling or emotion. Thus, Freud (1924/1961) mentions his prior discussion and describes the patients who show that negative therapeutic reaction as unable to accept the idea of their having a sense of guilt sans any awareness of it. About them, he reports, “They know only too well by what torments – the pangs of conscience – a conscious sense of guilt, a consciousness of guilt, expresses itself ” (p. 166). Their current condition seems to them not to include guilt feelings. Interestingly, Freud is prepared to meet their objection; they are correct to insist they do not feel guilty; he is willing to replace the term unconscious sense of guilt with need for punishment. Freud again states that the former term is not psycholog-
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ically correct; and adds that the latter term will serve just as well for referring to the mental occurrences of interest. At the same time, he insists this unconscious need must be understood to be much like a conscious sense of guilt. As we have seen, the unconscious need for punishment differs from a conscious sense of guilt in, at least, two respects: (a) It is not an instance of feeling. (b) When it is not repressed, it is a mental cause of guilt feelings. Schur (1969) argues that unconscious guilt feelings are part of Freud’s theory. To show that this is true, Schur calls the reader’s attention to a paragraph from Civilization and its discontents (Freud 1930/1961: 134–136). But only if the paragraph can rightly be construed as drawing relevant differences between unconscious anxiety and unconscious guilt does it support Schur’s claim. In fact, the paragraph brings out, instead, certain similarities between these two kinds of unconscious happenings, in the process of seeking to demonstrate that a better understanding of the unconscious sense of guilt can be reached by treating of it as being strongly analogous to that which is loosely describable as anxiety that is unconscious. Here is part of what Freud states in the paragraph: Anxiety is always present somewhere or other behind every symptom; but at one time it takes noisy possession of the whole of consciousness, while at another time it conceals itself so completely that we are obliged to speak of unconscious anxiety or, if we want to have a clearer psychological conscience, since anxiety is in the first instance simply a feeling, of possibilities of anxiety. Consequently it is very conceivable that the sense of guilt produced by civilization is not perceived as such either, and remains to a large extent unconscious, or appears as a sort of malaise, a dissatisfaction for which people seek other motivations. (p. 135)
Note two things: 1. The concept of unconscious anxiety is not theoretically acceptable. The socalled unconscious anxiety does not consist of feelings. Rather, it is a mental cause of the sort of conscious mental occurrence that we call anxiety with a clear psychological conscience. 2. The “malaise” Freud mentions would seem to be equivalent to the unpleasure he attributes as an effect to unconscious mental causes that are repressed but not completely. A repressed sense of guilt may cause one to feel dissatisfied, even to feel ill, without its thereby revealing anything of what the matter is. In the same paragraph, Freud also speaks of a “tormenting uneasiness” that some of his patients with a repressed sense of guilt suffer if they are prevented from carrying out certain actions. As evidenced by inner awareness, neither of
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these sets of feelings has a cognitive content which conforms to its respective unconscious mental cause.
Access Point No. 3 The next text to be examined, for what it tells us about Freud’s phenomenology of the emotions, is “Unconscious Emotions,” the third section of his essay “The Unconscious”(1915/1957b). He starts this section by inquiring as to whether, in addition to unconscious thoughts, there also exist unconscious instinctual impulses, unconscious emotions, and unconscious feelings. Freud deals with the instincts first, proposing about them that “the antithesis of conscious and unconscious is not applicable”(p. 177). That is, while instinctual impulses surely exist, it is meaningless to use the phrase unconscious instinct or unconscious instinctual impulse because this would imply that there are conscious instinctual impulses as well. If a conscious instinctual impulse did occur, it would be, by virtue of its nature, an object of consciousness (i.e., inner awareness). But, an instinctual impulse is intrinsically a different kind of occurrence which always takes place in the mental apparatus externally to the perception– consciousness subsystem. Therefore, it is not a conscious mental occurrence and cannot ever be transformed into a conscious mental occurrence. All instinctual impulses and mental occurrences that transpire in the unconscious are by their intrinsic nature not conscious. Their transformation into conscious mental occurrences would require fundamental change in what they are. Without an instinctive impulse’s relations to other sorts of mental occurrences, we could not know anything at all about it. (Freud would revise this view could he witness current advances in neurophysiological observation and measurement.) Moreover, the instinctual impulses are unable to becomeconscious either. They cannot, as unconscious thoughts can if they are not repressed, evoke in the perception–consciousness subsystem a (conscious) counterpart of themselves. Only the unconscious thought can become-conscious to which an instinctual impulse is attached. Of course, it is entirely possible to have conscious thoughts concerning one or more of one’s instinctual impulses, even conscious thoughts concerning an instinctual impulse that is right now active within one, perforce outside perception–consciousness. However, having such thoughts is not to be confused with inner awareness of an instinctual impulse. Compare thinking about one’s instinctual impulses with conscious thoughts concerning processes transpiring now in one’s liver. Surely, the occurrence of such thoughts would not support the thesis that the liver’s processes are conscious occurrences. X’s being accompanied by a conscious thought about X is surely not the equivalent of X’s
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being a conscious occurrence. So too, no matter how much or in what way one thinks about any instinctual impulse, it is not transformed into a conscious mental occurrence. It remains what it is: something that occurs where nothing conscious ever happens, namely, within the unconscious system of the mental apparatus. From the Freudian perspective, it would be mistaken to conceive of the emotions or feelings, in any instance, as instinctual impulses. As the instinctual impulses are not, the emotions and the feelings are qualitative (affective) occurrences; and, therefore, they are all necessarily conscious occurrences. In contrast to thoughts, there does not exist any unconscious version of an emotion or feeling. One way that Freud puts this point is to say that “affects and emotions correspond to processes of discharge, the final manifestation of which are feelings”(p. 178). The emotions and affects are outcomes of certain processes arising elsewhere in the mental apparatus and yielding specific excitations of, mental occurrences within, the perception–consciousness subsystem. And these excitations are mental occurrences that are consciously experienced as feelings. Thus, the “correspondence” to which Freud makes reference above is a relation existing between two quite distinct items: as effects, certain conscious occurrences and, as their causes, certain occurrences in the same mental apparatus that are not conscious, namely, instinctual impulses. Here is another way in which Freud puts the point that, unlike the case of thoughts, there are no unconscious versions of the emotions or feelings: “Unconscious ideas continue to exist after repression as actual structures in the system Ucs., whereas all that corresponds to unconscious affects is a potential beginning which is prevented from developing” (p. 178). When conscious affects are prevented by repression from occurring, no unconscious affects exist. What does exist at such times in the unconscious is the corresponding instinctual impulse which otherwise would have brought those conscious affects into existence in the perception–consciousness subsystem. Instinctual impulses contrast with unconscious thoughts. The latter can become-conscious; they evoke conscious thoughts with cognitive content that they themselves possess. In contrast, an instinctual impulse cannot evoke, analogously, a conscious instinctual impulse; no instinctual impulse exists that is conscious, according to Freud. With respect to consciousness, instinctual impulses are capable of producing (a) emotions or feelings, which are always conscious, and (b) unconscious thoughts, which can become-conscious in that technical sense that I have identified in the present article. Thus, Freud (1915/1957b) states, “When we. . .speak of a repressed instinctual impulse. . .we can only mean an instinctual impulse the ideational
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representative of which is unconscious, for nothing else comes into consideration” (p. 177). The sense of unconscious in the latter statement is the same as repressed; the unconscious thought associated with a repressed instinctual impulse is repressed. However, this is not the only matter that is altered by the repression of an instinctual impulse. On the next page, Freud expresses the following about the vicissitudes undergone, in consequence of repression, by the quantitative factor in the instinctual impulse. We know that three such vicissitudes are possible: either the affect remains, wholly or in part, as it is; or it is transformed into a qualitatively different quota of affect, above all into anxiety; or it is suppressed, i.e., it is prevented from developing at all. (p. 178)
The quantitative factor in the instinctual impulse is its energy, which produces feeling or affect in the perception–consciousness subsystem. Repression prevents entirely, partially, or not at all the conscious expression of this energy in the form of conscious affect. And it may cause the energy of the instinctual impulse to operate upon the perception–consciousness subsystem in such a way that there is produced affect qualitatively different from what it would produce in the absence of this repression. With reference to this instinctual vicissitude, Freud (1915/1957a: 153) speaks of the “transformation” of instinctual energy into affects, and he suggests, in the section of “The Unconscious” which we are scrutinizing here, that this transformation frequently depends upon the “substitutive idea,” that is, the unconscious thought which the repressed instinctual impulse gets itself attached to instead of the unconscious thought that would be the instinctual impulse’s “representative” absent the repression. Freud (1915/1957b) states, “The nature of that substitute determines the qualitative character of the affect” (p. 179). For Freud it is of the essence of the emotions, feelings, and affects, evoked by the instinctive impulses, that the one in whom they occur has awareness of them; these mental occurrences must become known to consciousness. In every instance of emotion, feeling, or affect, “the possibility of the attribute of unconsciousness” is “completely excluded.” Intrinsically, all of these mental occurrences are such that, per impossibile, to expunge their property of consciousness would be to expunge the occurrences themselves. Freud continues: But in psycho-analytic practice we are accustomed to speak of unconscious love, hate, anger, etc., and find it impossible to avoid even the paradoxical conjunction, “unconscious consciousness of guilt,” or a paradoxical “unconscious anxiety.” Is there more meaning in these terms than speaking of “unconscious instincts”? (p. 177)
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Freud’s acknowledgment at this point of “misconstrued” emotions, feelings, and affects suggests that there might be forthcoming from him an affirmative answer to his latter question. However, in Freud’s theory, the so-called “misconstrued,” too, are no less conscious mental occurrences. The repression involved in their case, which is responsible for their “misconstrual,” has not prevented their occurring. The consequence of repression is, rather, a difference between the mental occurrence that they are and the mental occurrence they would be without repression. The present kind of “misconstrued” occurrence can be just as it would be except for its cognitive content. Its quota of affect is the same qualitatively as it would be without the repression, and it may be the same in degree or quantity. Freud holds that no more than an emotion’s “idea” need be repressed in the instances he calls “misconstrued.” But he does not mean a “misconstrued” emotion, feeling, or affect does not possess a cognitive content; rather, it does not have its proper such content. At this point, Freud seems to imply that an emotion or affect must have a cognitive content. He states, “It may happen that an affective or emotional impulse is perceived, but misconstrued. Owing to the repression of its proper representative it has been forced to become connected with another idea, and is now regarded by consciousness as the manifestation of that idea” (p. 178). Of course, Freud is speaking of the emotion or affect; this, not the instinctual impulse, is the object of consciousness; the instinctual impulse is never conscious. Freud has in mind, it would seem, that evoking a misconstrued emotion or affect involves as key causes both an instinctual impulse and an unconscious (preconscious) thought substituting for a repressed thought. A very short digression is needed at this point, pertaining to the question implicitly raised in the paragraph right before this one, although this question concerning Freud’s phenomenology of the emotions shall not be pursued in the present article. The question is whether for Freud all of the occurrences of emotion possess cognitive content. If emotions are, as Freud holds, necessarily conscious, then every occurrent instance of any emotion must have a content that has reference to the instance itself. But, setting this category of cognitive content aside, we need to inquire into whether an occurrent emotion always possesses an intentional object not counting itself, or the emotion is, at least, as though it does possess such an intentional object, the latter in those cases in which its apparent object does not possess any actual existence. Relevantly to the question, Freud states, “It is possible for the development of affect to proceed directly from the system Ucs.; in that case the affect always has the character of anxiety, for which all
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‘repressed’ affects are exchanged” (p. 178). He adds that the more frequent case is (“as a rule”) the one in which a repressed instinctual impulse gets itself connected with a preconscious thought that substitutes for the normal but now repressed thought. But what if it does not? What is the content like of the anxiety which is produced by a repressed instinctual impulse on its own? Such questions must be pursued in other textual loci than those chosen for scrutiny in the present article. Repression can be such that an emotion or affect does not occur, but a misconstrued emotion is an occurrent emotion no less so than the emotion that would have transpired consciously were it not for the operation of repression. It is not the same emotion; it should be called a “substitute” emotion. It possesses both cognitive (ideational) and qualitative (feeling, affective) content, just as those emotions do whose occurrences involve no repression. In my opinion, the emotions that Freud calls “misconstrued” should not be so described, for the adjective suggests erroneous inner awareness. The “error” in this case precedes consciousness; it does not take place in perception–consciousness; it takes place unconsciously, specifically, where the instinctual impulse is forced to connect with an unconscious thought that is not its “proper representative.” At the same time, in the perception–consciousness subsystem, both the “misconstrued” emotion’s qualitative and cognitive contents are taken by inner awareness to be as they actually are. Of course, this is not to say that they are apprehended with reference to their unconscious causes. It is to say, simply, that they are apprehended as they themselves are, their actual qualitative and cognitive content. Non-cognizance of unconscious mental causes is not the equivalent of misconstruing conscious effects of theirs. I need also to bring out that the present Freudian notion of “misconstrual” should not lead to the understanding that the very undergoing of any emotion involves a process of interpretation, a construing of its affective component perhaps. This is further good reason to view the emotions Freud calls misconstrued as being, in my term, substitute emotions. Their becoming “connected with an idea” is a characterization of their unconscious causes, not something transpiring within consciousness. Like other emotions, a misconstrued or substitute emotion emerges in the stream of consciousness with a certain qualitative and cognitive content. Rejecting the existence of unconscious affects, contrasting them with the actual occurrence unconsciously of unconscious thoughts, Freud adds, “But there may very well be in the system Ucs. affective structures, which, like others, become conscious” (p. 178). This statement should not be taken to include the notion of the presence outside of perception–consciousness but
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in the mental apparatus of something affective and analogous to unconscious thoughts. Those affective structures to which Freud is referring are not emotions, feelings, or affects. And their becoming conscious is not a matter of their producing in consciousness a counterpart of themselves having similar content. Freud goes on to say that the affective structures mentioned are “processes of discharge,” whereas unconscious thoughts are “cathexes–basically of memory-traces.” As such, unconscious thoughts are capable of becomingconscious in Freud’s technical sense. In contrast, the becoming conscious of an unconscious affective structure is this: its producing in perception– consciousness certain feelings combined with cognitive content that is owed to the becoming-conscious of an unconscious thought which “represents” that affective structure. As I mentioned at the start, my present article only begins to lay out Freud’s phenomenology of the emotions. Some loose ends left for later will certainly have been noticed. In addition, much more than I have been able to investigate here is contained in Freud’s work and bears upon my topic. I plan to return to these matters in subsequent articles.
Notes . I speak here of experiences rather than of states of consciousness merely to make exposition of James’s conception a little easier. But, in his view, every state of consciousness is an experience, albeit often a very complex one with many objects. Any state of consciousness that takes place is the total experience of the moment, assuming no secondary consciousness stream is also flowing. Whenever two streams of consciousness flow simultaneously within a single individual, there are produced for that duration two distinct total experiences of the moment, as it were. . From here on in the text, bare page references will be to this same source, until I make it clear that I have now turned to a new text of Freud’s. This practice will continue for the remainder of the article as further texts are considered.
References Freud, S. (1957a). Repression. In S. Freud, Standard Edition, Vol. 14 (pp. 141–158). London: Hogarth. (Original work published 1915) Freud, S. (1957b). The unconscious. In S. Freud, Standard Edition, Vol. 14 (pp. 166–204). London: Hogarth. (Original work published 1915) Freud, S. (1961). The ego and the id. In S. Freud, Standard Edition, Vol. 19 (pp. 12–66). London: Hogarth. (Original work published 1923)
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Freud, S. (1961). The economic problem of masochism. Standard Edition, Vol. 19 (pp. 159– 170). London: Hogarth. (Original work published 1924) Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and its discontents. In S. Freud, Standard Edition, Vol. 21 (pp. 64–145). London: Hogarth. (Original work published 1930) Freud, S. (1966). Project for a scientific psychology. In S. Freud, Standard Edition, Vol. 1 (pp. 295–387). London: Hogarth. (Original work published 1895) Green, A. (1977). Conceptions of affect. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 58, 120– 156. James, W. (1950). The principles of psychology (Volume 1). New York: Dover. (Original work published in 1890) Natsoulas, T. (2001a). The case for intrinsic theory: V. Some arguments from James’s Varieties. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 22, 41–68. Natsoulas, T. (2001b). The case for intrinsic theory: VI. Incompatibilities within the stream of consciousness. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 22, 119–146. Natsoulas, T. (2001c). The Freudian conscious. Consciousness & Emotion, 2, 1–28. Natsoulas, T. (2003). The case for intrinsic theory: VIII. The experiential in acquiring knowledge firsthand of one’s experiences. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 24, 284– 316. Schur, M. (1969). Affects and cognitions. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 50, 647– 653. Woodruff Smith, D. (1989). The circle of acquaintance: Perception, consciousness, and empathy. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.
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Verbal expressions of self and emotions A taxonomy with implications for Alexithymia and related disorders Louise Sundararajan and Lenhart K. Schubert Regional Forensic Unit, Rochester, NY / Computer Science, University of Rochester
A taxonomy of verbal expressions of self and emotions is proposed and tested empirically with a computerized language analysis program, SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count). As an extension of the semiotics of Charles Peirce, this taxonomy is based on the following hypothesis: there is a “reflexive undertow” inherent in any sign or thought that fulfills the triadic relations of the sign as delineated by Peirce. Lack of reflexivity is therefore the liability of signs that fail to traverse the triadic path of its development. This liability can be assessed on the basis of the distinctions made by Peirce between sufficiently complete and incomplete signs and their corresponding cognitive styles. The sufficiently complete sign corresponds to the consciousness of Thirdness, which is characterized by thought processes that are representational and reflexive. The incomplete signs correspond to the consciousness of Secondness, which is reactive, and non-reflexive. This hypothesis is applied to the alexithymia construct, on the one hand; and on the other, tested by two empirical studies that analyze over 700 writing samples with SSWC. Preliminary results show that the proposed taxonomy has not only construct validity but also potential for making a contribution to research in individual differences. Keywords: taxonomy of affective lexicon, semiotics, Charles Perice, reflexivity, Secondness, Thirdness, alexithymia, lack of introspection, language analysis programs, individual differences in information processing
This paper proposes and offers empirical support for a taxonomy of verbal expressions of self and emotions. Theoretical foundation of this taxonomy rests upon the semiotics of Charles Peirce. The advantages of the Peircean
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framework lie in its systematic approach to self and thought as signs, and in its clear delineation of the triadic relations of the sign. By assessing whether and where a verbal expression is arrested in the triadic path of its development as sign, a taxonomy of affective lexicon and personal pronouns can be developed. This hypothesis is presented in four parts. Part one gives a brief exposition of the ideal toward which and the norms by which sign/thought develops, according to the Peircean semiotics – the triadic relations of the sign with corresponding modes of consciousnesses; the difference between sufficiently complete and incomplete signs, and the application of this analysis to alexithymia. Part two presents a pattern matching language analysis program, the SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count), that translates this taxonomy into 15 scales of verbal expressions of self and emotions. Part three presents two empirical studies of SSWC to provide supporting evidence for the construct validity of the proposed taxonomy. Directions for future research will be explored in the final section.
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Peircean semiotics and its application to Alexithymia
Triadic Relations of the Sign What is a sign? According to Peirce, anything that represents another thing to a mind is a sign: “A sign is an object which stands for another to some mind” (Peirce in Fisch 1982, Vol. 3: 66). This perspective differs from the usual dyadic signifier-signified formulation of signs by the inclusion of a third element, the interpretation of signs by a mind. This third element – the “mind” – is referred to by Peirce as the “Interpretant.” Thus we have the triadic relations of signs: Object (signified)→ Sign (signifier)→ Interpretant (interpretation)
The third element, the mind, is pivotal in the Peircean semiotics: it is through the medium of the mind that connections between the signifier and the signified are established. Furthermore, in the Peircean analysis, the development of the sign and that of thought have coalesced: “Thought is in signs that attain meaning through the triadic relation: object sign interpretant” (Hoopes 1991: 8). This Peircean equation of sign and thought (which includes feelings) has important methodological implications for our purposes. It makes it possible for us to understand different types of signs in terms of the corresponding cognitive styles, or “modes of consciousness” in the Peircean parlance. Corresponding to the three elements of the sign, there are three modes of consciousness: firstness, secondness, and thirdness. “Firstness is the sheer
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thisness, or existence, of things. Secondness is dyadic, or reactive, relations between things. And thirdness is triadic, or representational, relations among things” (Hoopes 1991: 10). Since firstness – which corresponds to the signified (Object) – is the ineffable experience, the burden of further developments of thought rests with Secondness and Thirdness. The Peircean Secondness and Thirdness correspond roughly to Pennebaker’s low level and high level thinking (1989). The Peircean distinction between Secondness and Thirdness also parallels with what is known in consciousness literature as the difference between first-order experience and second-order awareness. The first-order experience lacks the mental distance of reflection – it is a state of immersion in the here and now factuality such that one’s affectivity is absorbed in action and may not be recognized as emotion, as Frijda (in press) points out. This state of immersion corresponds to the Peircean Secondness, which is a dualistic state of consciousness, in which the third element – the Interpretant – is lacking. In contrast is the second-order awareness, also known as “reflexive consciousness,” which refers to a state of reflection and elaboration in feeling and thought. It is awareness of awareness, a detached reflection that converts experiences into thoughts (Lambie & Marcel 2002). This corresponds to the Peircean Thirdness. But Peirce has much more to say about the reflexive consciousness. Indeed, the Peircian framework can shed some light on the seemingly paradoxical observation of Lambie and Marcel (2002) and others (Bucci 1995; Rosen 2004) that whereas the first-order consciousness is that of immersion, the second-order consciousness is capable of both detached and immersed intentional stance at once. Peirce shows that the difference between levels of consciousness can best be understood in terms of levels of complexity in structure – structures of higher complexity can encompass that of lower complexity, but not vice versa. Thus Peirce differentiates between Secondness (first-order experience) and Thirdness (the second-order awareness) in terms of whether the triadic path of the sign has been traversed or not, which is another way of asking whether a sign has the third dimension (Interpretant) or not. The three dimensional consciousness (Thirdness) and two dimensional consciousness (Secondness) can be differentiated along the following registers – continuity, representation, and reflexivity – which we discuss in turn.
Continuity A sign is “Anything which determines something else (its interpretant) to refer to an object to which itself refers (its object) in the same way, the interpretant becoming in turn a sign, and so on ad infinitum” (Peirce in Hoopes 1991: 239). This condensed, but precise, formulation is rich in implications:
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a. It explains why the ideal thought process (thirdness) is referred to as “synthetic consciousness,” because thought that traverses the triadic path of the sign necessarily brings two facts (Object and Interpretant) into one single fact (Sign) (Hoope: 182). b. Thirdness is necessarily constructive and generative, because the Interpretant in turn becomes a sign to be interpreted by another Interpretant, and the triadic process continues ad infinitum. In other words, the movement of thought is a potentially unbroken cycle of signs and their interpretations. Thus Peirce claims that the mind is a sign generator. This observation is consistent with the reportability of experience in second-order awareness, as Frijda (in press) points out that attending to one’s experiences tends to boost the impetus to categorize and use words. c. In the meaning making process, it is essential for a feeling or thought to be followed by another thought, as Hoopes points out, “A feeling is a mere sign, awaiting interpretation in its relation with a subsequent thought or feeling before it can have meaning” (Hoopes 1991: 10). To put it metaphorically, in the forest of signification, a tree (thought) that falls without being heard (presented to and interpreted) by another mind (thought) falls in vain. In sharp contrast is Secondness, which is a stagnant thought process, because it lacks the Interpretant, the interpreting thought that generates new interpretations/signs. In this respect, the difference between the Peircean Thirdness and Secondness corresponds to some extent to that between “substantive processing” which is constructive and generative, and closed information search strategies which apply existing rules but do not generate new ones (Forgas 2001). This “substantive processing” in Thirdness is referred to by Peirce as a “sense of learning” or simply “thought.” The synthetic or integrative nature of thought also has been noted by other theorists as “high level thinking” (Pennebaker 1989) or as a high level of “referential activity” (Bucci 1995).
Representation Besides the generation of interpretations, the third element of sign – the mind – is necessary for representation, for Peirce insists that representation is always representation to a mind. Thus in the universe of Thirdness, all relations are mediated (with the signs serving as medium). In contrast, Secondness is the “dual consciousness” that governs relations without mediation, such as the “process of action and reaction when one object strikes a second” (Hoopes 1991: 10). Or as Lambie and Marcel (2002) point out with regard to the first order experience that the emotional states experienced in an immersed (unmediated) way is a world of sensations and objects, of “affected self,” and “affecting world” (p. 244).
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An example of reactive or unmediated relation (Secondness) is a simple action such as “I moved the table.” In contrast is the command of the officer “Ground arms!” which entails the mediated (representational) relation of Thirdness. “The command mediates between the officer and the soldiers in such a way as to put the conduct of the soldiers in line with the intention of the officer. Just as we might say that the piece of music represents the thoughts of the composer, we might say that the command represents the will of the officer [to the soldiers]” (Colapietro 1989: 13–14). Persons who move the table need not appeal (via a representation of their intention, i.e., sign) to the “mind” of the table for their action to be effected. Thus relations in Secondness are dichotomous: subject versus object; activity versus passivity; agent versus patient, etc. Only one of the terms of this binary opposition has agency; and a lack thereof inevitably marks the object of action (such as the table). This dichotomy does not hold in the mediated relation of Thirdness, where agency is not confined to the subject alone. The command “Ground arms!” is dependent on the soldiers to exercise their agency to interpret it. Imagine the unlikely scenario of the officer resorting to direct action such as drugging the soldiers to disarm them, and we can see how the “language of forces” referred to by Peirce is characteristic of Secondness, a frame of mind that approaches the object of action as something mindless, something that “forms material for the exercise of my will” (Peirce cited in Hoopes 1991: 190). Particularly pertinent to our discussion is the fact that the notion of emotion as passion is susceptible to the language of forces. Peirce notes that in the language of motives and desires, the self is rendered an object being compelled from within: “we speak of allurements and motives in the language of forces, as though a man suffered compulsion from within” (Peirce cited in Hoopes 1991: 195). Furthermore, when emotions are represented as actions, they also fall under the category of Secondness. More precisely, such cases are considered by Peirce as “degenerate secondness” or “internal” seconds in contrast to “external seconds, which are constituted by external fact, and are true actions of one thing upon another” (Peirce cited in Hoopes 1991: 195). A case in point is the verb form of words such as love or hate, known as “noncausative verbs” (Clore, Ortony, & Foss 1987: 756). These “noncausative verbs” have one peculiar feature, namely, that they function as emotion terms only in the active voice such as “I hate winter,” and not in the passive voice such as “I was hated.” This subject-object, or activity-passivity dichotomy is characteristic of the “dual consciousness” of Secondness, where one is either the subject acting on an object, or the object being acted upon, as we may recall.
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Reflexivity Finally, thinking at the level of thirdness is intrinsically dialogical – thinking is thought talking to itself, as Peirce and others have noted – hence reflexive. Consider the scenario of a child touching the hot stove, a scenario given by Peirce himself (1931–58, Vol. 5, paragraph 233): When the child feels the pain, “ he becomes aware of ignorance, and it is necessary to suppose a self in which this ignorance can inhere” (Fisch 1982, Vol. 2: 202). Hoopes (1991) explains: “From the resulting feeling (sign), the child arrives at the conclusion (Interpretant) that there is such a thing as error that it inheres in its self (Object)” (p. 8). The development of thought in this scenario can be captured by the triadic sign relations: Object (signified)
Sign (signifier)
Interpreptant (interpretation)
Thus: Object (tissue damage)
Sign (burn sensation)
Intrepretant (error)
Object (updated self)
Wiley (1994) has noted the “reflexive undertow” of communication (p. 27), in which the speaker is “counted twice, once as communicator and once as reflexive communicatee” (p. 27). Applied to the intrasubjective communication, the “speaker”(Object of the sign) is the self that first communicates through the sign (the burning sensation) to the mind (Interpretant) for an interpretation, which in turn feeds back to the self, resulting in a revised version of the self as one capable of ignorance. Note that the self (Object) is constructed along the way, with elements of novelty (revisions) not found before the signifying process. Lambie and Marcel (2002) have also pointed out that awareness/representation of emotion and that of the self go hand in glove: “what is fully meant by awareness of emotion is awareness of it as part of oneself ” (p. 253). Furthermore, self-reflexivity has a moral dimension: it is the self to self or thought to thought dialogue that makes self control possible. More on this later. Self-reflexivity is precisely what is missing in the unmediated relation of Secondness. Peirce has noted that: When a child wants to move a table, he is likely to be so absorbed in what he wills as to be oblivious to himself: “Does he think of himself as desiring, or only of the table as fit to be moved?” (1931–1958, Vol. 5, paragraph 230)
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The same applies, when emotion is processed in an immersed (unmediated) mode. For instance, in “I hate him,” the emoter is not self-reflexive, as his or her attention is absorbed by the qualities of the person as “fit” to be hated, no less than a table as “fit to be moved.” Frijda (in press) has made a similar observation concerning infatuation as an instance of the first-order experience, where one is enthralled by a person’s attractiveness, and considers “I love her” as an objective fact. Frijda goes on to say that in the immersed consciousness of the first-order experience, no subjectivity, no reference to the self is involved.
Application to Alexithymia Alexithymia is a “multifaceted personality construct that has been associated with various medical and psychiatric disorders (Taylor 2000: 134). The salient features of alexithymia are: 1. “difficulty identifying and describing subjective feelings,” 2. “difficulty distinguishing between feelings and bodily sensations of emotional arousal,” 3. “constricted imaginal capacities, as evidenced by a paucity of fantasies,” and 4. “an externally oriented cognitive style” (Taylor 2000: 135). These deficits may be understood as a lack, in varying degrees, of “inwardness”: 1 pertains to difficulty with processing one type of internal stimuli–subjective feelings; 2 pertains to difficulty in differentiating between two types of internal stimuli – physical sensations versus emotional arousal; 3 pertains to the inability to inhabit an inward–mental, symbolic–space; and 4 refers to a “lack of introspection” (Taylor et al. 1997: 56). This lack of inwardness has been described in various terms ranging from a lack of “psychological mindedness” (Conte et al. 1990; Fonagy et al. 1991; Taylor & Bagby 2000), to a “bypass of the psychic” (Greco 1998: 133). Such descriptions are too vague for further development in theory and measurement. The semiotics of Peirce can help us with more precise formulations of both “inwardness” and its lack thereof. As Sartre points out, humans differ from objects in that whereas the latter are being in itself, humans are being for itself. This self-reflexivity (for itself) of the human consciousness is reflected in the dialogical nature of thought (thought talking to itself). One consequence of self-reflexivity is a “subjectivity” rich in “inner life” in which the self is sustained by an ongoing internal dialogue, rather than dictated by external circumstances. This ongoing dialogue between self and self, or thought and thought, opens up a region of freedom, a “psychological waystation” which allows possibilities and constraints to be negotiated such that the individual is able to respond rather than simply react to any stimuli. This inwardness plays an important role in the thinking of Peirce, who explains its importance in terms of consciousness (cited in Colapi-
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etro 1989: 114): “the true definition of consciousness is connection with the internal world”; and “ the function of consciousness is to render self-control possible and efficient.” These advantages of the “inner space” or “subjectivity” are denied the consciousness of Secondness. Not mediated by the dialogue of thought, transactions of self to self as well as self to other in the universe of Secondness become rigid and mechanical, as if facts are knocking upon facts with little room for negotiation. This “object mode” is characteristic of the so-called “Pensée opératoire” (Marty & de M’Uzan 1963), which refers to the tendency for alexithymics to approach self and other as objects (Taylor et al. 1997; Krystal 1988). Greco notes that: . . . the alexithymic apprehends society . . . as a system of determinisms rather than a system of constraints . . . because one pole of the dialectic which allows for negotiation with society itself, the pole of subjectivity, is absent. There is no margin for negotiation because the two poles of the relationship are indistinguished. This indistinction, and the lack of a margin for negotiation, means that no response-ability is possible: what responds is the autonomic nervous system left to its own devices, unable to discriminate between an actual need or value and a symbolic one, between the organic self and the psychological self. (1998: 142)
The self in this “object mode” is the victim of circumstances, a condition consistent with Marty and de M’Uzan’s observation of alexithymia (1963): “Everything happens as if it were imposed on these individuals” (p. 348). As much as they perceive themselves as being acted upon like objects, alexithymics tend to perceive others as objects as well. Krystal observes that these patients tend to use people as objects for “manipulative or exploitative purposes . . . . there is no personal investment in these objects as unique individuals . . . ” (1988: 247). This tendency of the alexithymics to perceive self and other in the same light as objects finds an elegant, i.e., parsimonious, explanation in the framework of Peircean semiotics. In his stipulation of the “Interpretant,” Peirce insists on the sign being read/interpreted by “a certain mind,” without making any distinction between the mind of other’s or that of one’s own. This equation would predict the self to self and self to other transactions to be based on similar schemas. Those who ignore their own thoughts and feelings can be expected to fail in acknowledging the subjective “inner space” in others as well. This is borne out by the “Pensée opératoire” phenomena in alexithymia. Taylor cites clinical observations of “brittle” diabetics who “fail to create mental representations of [both] the self and primary caretakers as thinking, feeling, and experiencing persons” (Taylor et al. 1997: 237).
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. A taxonomy of self and emotions and its implementation by SSWC Based on the foregoing analysis, we have developed a taxonomy of personal pronouns and affective lexicon to categorize verbal expressions of self and emotions. This taxonomy capitalizes on two practical implications derived from the Peircean semiotics: a. self-reflexivity, the feedback loop that helps to update the experiencing self, is a hallmark of the fully developed signs; and conversely, b. lack of reflexivity is characteristic of signs or thought that fail to complete the triadic/reflexive path of its development. Using self-reflexivity as the gold standard for the representation of personal experiences (see Sundaratrajan 2001), verbal expressions of self and emotions can be categorized on the basis of their varying degrees of deficiency in self-reflexivity. We have accordingly developed a pattern matching language analysis program SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count) with 15 scales, to be presented below. Three additional scales – one redundant (the Arousal scale combining the High Activation and the Low Activation scales) and two ad hoc scales – will not be considered here. In compiling the dictionaries for each scale, we have incorporated the affective lexicon in Ortony et al. (1987), Averill (1975), and Johnson-Laird and Oatley (1989). We have also consulted Lane’s LEAS Scoring Manual and Glossary (1991).
A taxonomy of personal pronouns The self is from the start implicated in the sign relation – it is the Object (the signified), as Hoopes points out, “the self is the sign relation, since feeling is meaningless unless it is interpreted as the sign of an object” (1991: 8). Thus various signs of the self – personal pronouns – can be categorized according to their implied distance from the experiencing self (in descending order), as follows: Detached Self, Affected Self, Focal Self, and Reflexive Self. Detached self : this scale – marked by terms such as “everyone” or “they” – is an index of the third person perspective, which reflects a detached intentional stance toward personal experiences. Affected self : Marked by words and expressions such as “me,” and “make me feel,” this scale indexes the perception of the self not as doer, but as being done to. It reflects an immersed intentional stance, in which “what one experiences is an affected self or an affecting world” (Lambie & Marcel 2002: 244). Focal self : this scale consists of three terms – “I,” “myself,” and “my own.” It is indicative of focal attention to the self. The focal self is not to be confused with the experiencing self–the ultimate point of reference of all emotions (see Dorsey 1971). Used in moderation, self-focus is associated with self-reflection, a definitely self-reflexive turn. However, heightened self-focus tends to objec-
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tify the self, rendering it “an object in the world distinct from others, an object with boundaries, fixed properties, and the capacity to be controlled” (Silvia & Gendolla 2001: 243). This tendency to turn the self into an object of experience is antithetical to the reflexive awareness of the self as origin and subject of experience. Reflexive self : The reflexive self refers to an awareness of the experiencing self (Sundararajan 2001), which unfortunately cannot be represented directly. The experiencing self is a perceptually recessive self embedded in action and experience (Gallagher and Marcel 1999). Silvia and Gendolla (2001) refer to this perceptually recessive self as “subjective self awareness . . . when attention is focused away from the self and the person experiences himself as the source of perception and action. The person in this state feels active and agentic, experiential, and unified with the environment through the medium of activity” (p. 243, emphasis added). Thus the experiencing self is the de-centered self that is theoretically antithetical to the focal self (the “I”). Furthermore, since reflexivity is dialogical (thought talking to itself), the reflexive self is not an “I” so much as a “we” (see Wiley 1994). This is evident in the interpersonal context: the officer may derive a sense of “we” when the soldiers show their understanding (Interpretant) of his intention (Object) conveyed through his command (Sign) “ground arms!” The same is true with communication in the intrapersonal context: The self reaches a sense of coherence, analogous to the sense of “we” in social exchange (Wiley 1994), when tissue damage (Object), its Sign (pain), and its Interpretant (error) are in good accord with one another, as is the case with the scenario of the child touching the stove. That the sense of “we” applies to both the intra- as well as interpersonal community of thought finds an eloquent expression in the equation that Peirce draws between self as society and society as self: on the one hand, an individual’s “ thoughts are what he is ‘saying to himself,’ that is, is saying to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of time. . . .” On the other hand, “the man’s circle of society . . . is a sort of loosely compacted person, in some respects of higher rank than the person of an individual organism” (Peirce 1931–1958, Vol. 5: paragraph 421). This sense of “we,” however, cannot be directly represented by the linguistic “we.” The “we” in English has been co-opted often times to mean just the opposite – an impersonal stance. The scale of Reflexive Self, therefore, excludes “we” but includes expressions such as “our own.” Also included in this scale are expressions of self-referentiality such as “oneself,” or “ourselves.” Excluded again is “myself ” which, with its heightened self focus as an atomic self, is antithetical to the extended self behind the sense of “we.”
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Table 1. Taxonomy of affective lexicon and corresponding sign deficiencies Modes of Consciousness
Deficiencies in sign function in descending order
SSWC Categories
Secondness
Infidelity in reporting
Iconic use of affective lexicon: Words in a dictionary Denial (“Doesn’t bother me.”) Violent Words (kill, profanities)
Object mode–deficiency in symbolic elaboration
Emotion as Event (“I hate . . .”) Somatic (breathless) Thirdness
Potentially complete signs with varying degrees of deficiency in inward attention Externally oriented interpretation Emotion management Attention to affect
External Attribution (sexy) Suffering (insulted) Affect Non-Focal (confused) Low Activation (relaxed) High Activation (nervous) Valence Focus (miserable) Affect-Focal (happy, sad)
Note. In parenthesis are token expressions.
A taxonomy of affective lexicon To reiterate the proposed gold standard of signs in the domain of affective expressions, a sufficiently complete sign (signifier) is one in which the interpretation (Interpretant) refers back reflexively to the emotional experience (the signified or Object). Thus the more a verbal expression of emotion approximates this ideal, the higher degree of fidelity it will have as a representation/sign of the emotional experience. The notion of fidelity can be further broken down into different requirements at each phase of the triadic trajectory of the sign. The path from Object to Sign requires fidelity in reporting; that from the Sign to the Interpretant requires symbolic elaborations to turn events or physical sensations into mental representations; and that from the Interpretant to the Object requires inward attention to complete the reflexive feedback loop. On the basis of this understanding, we propose a taxonomy of affective words and expressions in terms of their deficiency in fulfilling the essential functions of the sign (see Table 1). In the following discussions, each type of deficiency, in descending order, is illustrated with a diagram of the triadic relation, with an “x” indicating where the development of the sign is arrested.
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1. Signs that are de-coupled from the signified: Object
x
Sign
Interpretant
Denial: The scale of Denial is composed of expressions such as “doesn’t bother me,” or “feel numb.” It refers to signs that fail to meet the requirement of fidelity in representation by minimizing or repressing the impact of the experience (the Object or signified). 2. Signs characteristic of Secondness Object
Sign
x
Interpretant
Signs in this category are characteristic of Secondness, the universe of facts and actions, and are generally deficient in their impetus toward symbolic elaborations. Violent words: This scale is composed of words of violent action, such as “kill,” “rape,” obscenities (which are verbally acting out behaviors), and words denoting the notion of emotion as energy and discharge, such as “letting off steam.” As signs, the referential focus of these words is on action and reaction – the universe of Secondness – thereby detracting the emoter from the “inner space” of feelings and interpretations. Emotion as event: Dictionary for this scale consists of 21 “noncausative verbs” (such as love, hate, used as verb, in active, not passive, voice) from Clore et al. (1987: 763–765). Statements such as “I love her” are non-reflective, because the experience is reported as a fact or event. Otherwise put, the emoter is immersed in the experience such that his or her affect is absorbed by the event, leaving little impetus for symbolic elaboration. What does it mean or what is it like to love someone? “My love is like a red red rose.” Note that this symbolic elaboration of experience is possible only when one leaves the world of facts and actions and enters the world of concepts (as denoted by the noun form of love here). Thus the noun and adjective forms of the terms in this scale belong elsewhere – they fall under the scale of Affect-Focal words instead (see below). Somatic: Dictionary for this scale is based primarily on the word list of “physical and bodily states” in Clore et al. (1987). We also added psychosomatic expressions such as “heart racing.” Words under this category are instances where the referential focus is primarily on the physical rather than mental or psychological conditions. Such signs are what Peirce refers to as indices. “An index is a sign which would, at once, lose the character which makes it a sign if its Object were removed, but would not lose that character if there were no Interpretant” (Peirce cited in Hoopes 1991: 239). Peirce
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gives the examples of the bullet-hole as a sign of a gun shot to show that indices have direct physical connections to the signified, a connection independent of an Interpretant: “for without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole there, whether anybody has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not” (Peirce cited in Hoopes 1991: 240). By the same token, the assumption behind somatic complaints such as “fatigue” is that they are indications of some physiological change, a condition that “truly” exists, regardless of whether it is recognized/interpreted as such or not. From the Peircean perspective, this alleged independence from the Interpretant explains why words denoting somatic concerns are usually deficient in their impetus for symbolic elaborations. 3. Signs with external referential focus Object
Sign
Interpretant x
Signs in this category are interpretations with an external orientation that detracts them from the inward attention required for the completion of the feedback loop from the Interpretant to the Object. External attribution: This scale is based primarily on terms referred to by Clore et al. (1987) as “external conditions.” These are words that refer to either (a) “opinions, evaluations, or reactions that the person elicits in others” (p. 348), such as “sexy,” or (b) “the described person’s state of being in the world” (p. 350), such as “abandoned.” The referential focus of these words is on the external attributions of the emotional states, rather than the emotional states per se. Suffering: This is a subscale of External Attribution. It consists of verbs in passive voice, such as “violated” or “insulted,” words that designate the extreme pole of the affected self – the victim stance. Words in the suffering scale lack self-reflexivity, as their referential focus is on the cause of the emotion (being insulted), rather than the emotion itself (anger, etc.). 4. Signs with potential for thirdness Object Object
Sign
Interpretant
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Signs in this last category have the potential to traverse the triadic path of the sign. Verbal expressions in this category can be further divided into two types of signs showing either inattention or attention to affect. 4a. Signs focusing on management of emotion Affect non-focal: Dictionary for this scale is based primarily on the affect non-focal terms in Clore et al. (1987). Words such as “understanding,” or “cry” are signs in which the referential focus has shifted from affectivity to cognitive and behavioral components of the experience. Also included in this scale are clichés, such as “depressed.” As Clore et al. (1987) have pointed out, affect non-focal and affect-focal expressions are not always sharply differentiated, the former can be expected to be found in the penumbra of affect focal lexicon as its spillover. However, we hypothesize that a preponderance of affect non-focal terms are the result of heuristic information search strategies and motivated processing as an attempt to control and limit the scope and impact of one’s affective experience (Forgas 2001). Low activation: This scale is based primarily on the word list of deactivated state in Barrett and Russell (1998). It consists of words such as “relaxed,” words that denote the absence of affective arousal. Elevation of this scale is hypothesized to be indicative of motivated processing to keep emotional stimulation at the minimum. 4b. Signs showing attention to affect High activation: This scale is composed of words that denote an arousal focus with high activation, such as “nervous.” Dictionary for this scale is based primarily on the word list of activated affect in Barrett and Russell (1998). Valence focus: Words such as “miserable” are signs that show a referential focus on the pleasant-unpleasant aspect of the experience. Dictionary for this scale consists of the word list of pleasant and unpleasant affect in Barrett and Russell (1998). Also included are word lists with highest scores on the Depth and Evaluation dimensions in Averill (1975: 17). Affect focal: This scale is based primarily on the affect-focal scale of Clore et al. (1987). Words such as “happy” and “sad” meet the conditions for bona fide emotion words, according to clore et al. (1987): “the best examples of emotion words would be ones that refer to internal (as opposed to external) conditions, those that refer to mental (as opposed to physical) conditions, and those that have a significant focus on affect [as opposed to cognition or behavior]” (p. 752). Items for inclusion in this scale also meet Lane’s criteria (1991) for level three emotional awareness. Because of their referential focus on the mental
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and internal, Affect Focal words have the best potential to traverse the triadic path of the sign. However, possibilities for short-circuiting the triadic trajectory always exist. Affective terms lose their reflexivity when used as icons. An icon is a representation that is independent of its Object. According to Peirce, “An icon is a sign which would possess the character which renders it significant, even though its Object had no existence” (cited in Hoopes 1991: 239), for instance a diagram of something that does not exist. The iconic representation corresponds to What Gendlin refers to as “conceptualization”: “When symbols conceptualize or represent, they themselves ‘mean’ what they represent. We might say that they mean independently” (Gendlin 1997: 96, emphasis in the original). Because of its tendency to mean “independently,” the icon can become de-coupled from its Object, and thereby losing its reflexive thrust. A case in point is the way “semantic construers” process emotion concepts (Robinson et al. 2002; Robinson et al. 2003). In contrast to “episodic construers”, for whom emotion concepts depend for their meaning on accessibility to personal experiences, semantic construers seem to approach the same as icons that have meaning independent of experience. Thus semantic construers may not be able to differentiate between affect-laden words–which require the reflexive awareness of the match between the signifier (word) and the signified (personal experience), and neutral words–which can say what they mean independent of personal experiences. This has been found to be the case with psychopaths (Herpertz, & Sass 2000; Williamson, Harpur, & Hare, 1991). The fact that it is possible for some individuals to crank out affective lexicon as if reading off the dictionary has methodological implications for emotion research, an issue which will be addressed later.
. Two empirical studies of SSWC
Study 1 In Study 1, a total of 586 texts were collected for analysis by SSWC (SundararajanSchubert Word Count) from 121 participants recruited from 3 different populations: college students, psychiatric inpatients, and professionals. The samples were chosen to provide a wide spectrum of age, race and gender distribution, and educational background. The purpose of the study was to test construct validity of the SSWC categories.
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Louise Sundararajan and Lenhart K. Schubert
Method
Participants A total of 121 participants were recruited from 3 different populations: Sample1 consisted of 69 undergraduate and graduate students from local colleges, (55% female), with a mean age of 22.5 years (SD = 4.0) and 15.4 years (SD = 1.6) of education completed. There were 1 (1.45%) African American, 1 (1.45%) Native American, and 67 (97.1%) Caucasians. Five dropped out from the initial pool of 74. Sample 2 consisted of 42 inpatients from a psychiatric hospital (33% female), with a mean age of 38.36 years (SD = 13.47), and mean years of education 11.21 (SD = 2.72). There were 1 (2.38%) Asian,18 ( 42.86%) African Americans, and 23 (54.76%) Caucasians. Majority of the patients were diagnosed with schizophrenia; referral was based on alexithymia-related symptoms, such as eating disorder (7.14%), substance abuse (71.43%), problems with impulse control (52.38%), sexual offense (7.14%), PTSD (4.76%), and borderline personality disorder (2.38%). Out of 70 referrals, 28 either dropped out or were disqualified due to their mental status. Sample 3 consisted of 10 humanistically oriented professionals–9 psychotherapists at the doctoral level (except for one at the master’s level), and 1 philosophy professor. This group had equal distribution of gender (5 men and 5 women), with a mean age of 49 years (SD = 11.3). There were 1 (10%) Asian, and 9 (90%) Caucasians. One dropped out from the initial pool of 11. The humanistically oriented professionals were recruited because of their alleged potential for “self-introspection.” None of the participants in this group were familiar with the measures used in the study. Due to the small sample size, data from this group will not be used for separate analysis. Materials and procedure Participants completed a battery of questionnaires and writing tasks in 4 to 5 thirty-minute sessions, which were spread out in 2 to 3 weeks. Order of presentation of the measures was randomized within each session. Samples 1 and 2 completed the study in groups; sample 3 did it individually via the internet. Voluntary participation and confidentiality of the data were reiterated in the informed consent, which was signed by all participants. Sample 2 received payment ($3.00 dollars per session) for their participation; samples 1 and 3 did not.
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Battery of questionnaires: TAS-20, LEAS-A, APRQ, SCS. TAS-20: Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor 1994; Bagby, Taylor, & Parker 1994) has three subscales: EOT (Externally-Oriented Thinking), DIF (Difficulty Identifying Feelings), DDF (Difficulty Describing Feelings). The TAS-20 is the standard measurement of alexithymia. LEAS-A (Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale-A) (Lane et al. 1990). This is a performance based measure of emotional awareness, which is relevant to alexithymia but not a direct measure of it. LEAS-A is the shorter form of LEAS with 10 items instead of the original 20. The shorter form was used in order to accommodate the limited attention span of the psychiatric inpatients (sample 2). LEAS-A was scored by 2 raters, with inter-rater correlations at r = .97, p < .000. APRQ: The Alexithymia Provoked Response Questionnaire (Krystal et al., 1986). This is a performance based measurement of alexithymia. The use of APRQ was modified from its standard use as structured interview in a one to one setting to a paper and pencil questionnaire administered in groups (Samples 1 and 2), and individually via the internet (Sample 3). APRQ was scored by 2 raters, with inter-rater correlations at r = .85, p < .000. SCS: Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein et al. 1975), and one of its subscales, P-SCS (Private Self-Consciousness Scale). The SCS total and P-SCS scores were included to see if “self consciousness” had any overlap with the varieties of self concepts covered by our model. Four essay writings, 10 minutes each: Each testing session was randomly assigned one of the following writing tasks: a. the most stressful event, b. the most enjoyable event, c. gender differences, d. feelings about the war with Iraq. Feeling words: Each testing session ended with the task of writing 6 feeling words to indicate the current mood, with a total of 24 terms produced by each participant who attended all sessions. Participants were given a word list from which to choose 6 feeling words, except for the last session in which no word list was provided. The word list consisted of 33 words based on PANAS mood scale (Watson et al. 1988) and valence and arousal terms adapted from Barrett & Russell (1998). The feeling words generated by the participants were meant to measure not their actual mood states, so much as their cognitive style – whether the individual preferred to use “upset” (an Affect Non-Focal term) or “disappointed” (an Affect Focal term) in describing his or her mood state.
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Two language analysis programs: Written texts of the participants were collected from the sessions, transcribed into computer text files, and processed by two language analysis programs, LIWC and SSWC. LIWC 2001: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (Pennebaker et al. 2001). This program contains multiple word category dimensions, and calculates the percentage of total words represented in each category. SSWC: Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count (Sundararajan & Schubert 2002, 2003). This pattern matching language analysis program counts occurrences of words and phrases in a dictionary of close to 2000 entries. Technically, the allowable occurrence patterns follow a regular-expression syntax whose primitives are words, word stems, and parts of speech, with allowance for negation. The word count gives percentage of production of any SSWC category out of the total words of a particular text. For instance, if “happy” appears in a text of 100 words, the Affect Focal score of that text would be .01; whereas in the case of the same term in a text of 10 words, the Affect Focal score would be .10. The rationale behind this calculation is based on the assumption (see “componential analysis” in Ortony et al. 1987) that different components of the semantic universe compete for expression – the percentage gives an indication of the extent to which one particular component has out-competed others for the cognitive resources allotted to the production of a text of certain length, be it 100 or 10 words. Results and discussion Pearson correlational analyses were performed to assess the relationship among all the measures. SCS showed no significant correlation with measures of emotion, as can be expected, but was correlated with some of the SSWC categories of self expression. APRQ showed no significant correlation with SSWC variables, probably due to our modification of its format from interview to paper and pencil test. LEAS correlated highly and positively with APRQ (r = .61, p < .0001), and moderately and negatively with TAS-20 total (r = –.34, p < .0001), but had few correlations with SSWC variables. TAS-20 had significant correlations with SSWC variables in some but not all samples. The correlations between LIWC and majority of SSWC variables, in contrast, were robust across samples. Table 2 is a summary of the correlations with relevant LIWC variables across all samples, including Study 2 to be examined later. The following SSWC correlations with external measures will focus primarily on the LIWC variables; other external measures will be included when appropriate.
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Table 2. SSWC and LIWC Correlations: Study 1 (A, B) and Study 2 (C) combined SSWC Categories Affective Lexicon
Relevant LIWC Categories I
We
OTHREF
POSEMO
NEGEMO
Denial
A, B, C
Violent Words
A B C
.28*
–.33**
.47****
Emotion as Event
A B C
.46****
.42*** .27*
.25*
Somatic
AFFECT
A B C
.34** .38**
Suffering
A B C
Affect Non-focal
A B C
.30*
Low Activation
A B C
High Activation
A B C
–.30**
Valence Focus
A B C
.43***
Affect Focal
A B C
.74****
.47**** .49****
.25*
.64**** .28* .44***
.41***
.55**** .39*** .37**
SWEAR
.29** .38** .30**
.51***
SENSES
.35**
A B C
External Attribution
BODY
.31**
.36**
.27*
.38** .39*** .46****
.37**
.46****
.48*** .47**** .33* .49**** .27* .35* .47**** .28*
.40** .47****
.46** .45**** .56****
.57**** .58**** .54****
.51*** .50****
.30**
.25* .42***
.40***
.26*
.27* .37* .39**
–.31** –.24*
Personal Pronoun Detached A Self B C
.56**** .50**** .31* .40*** .73****
.24* .26*
.55***
Affected Self
A B C
.62**** .36** .31**
Focal Self
A B C
.79**** .85**** .88****
–.39***
–.30*
–.26*
Reflexive Self
A B C
–.34*
.75**** .52**** .56****
.46** .35** .40***
.26*
.30**
–.29*
Note. A = Study 1, patients (n = 42); B = Study 1, students (n = 69); C = Study 2, prison inmates (n = 65). *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001; ****p < .0001, two-tailed; empty cells = no significant correlations.
–.25*
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Correlations with LIWC and other External measures Denial: This scale had no correlation with any LIWC scales under consideration. Violent words: This scale had no correlation with any LIWC scales under consideration. Significant and negative correlation between Violent Words and LEAS was found in the patient sample (r = –.31, p < .05). This is consistent with the finding of Barrett (unpublished data, cited in Lundh 2002) that LEAS correlated positively with self restraint and impulse control. Emotion as event: In the student sample this scale had multiple positive correlations with the LIWC scales of positive emotion (POSEMO), affect, and feelings and sensations ( SENSES). Somatic: This category in the patient sample correlated positively with body states and symptoms (BODY), and similarly in the student sample with both BODY and feelings and sensations (SENSES). External attribution: In the patient sample this scale had strong correlations with positive emotion (POSEMO), and affect (r = 64, p < .0001). In contrast, student sample showed a weaker correlation with affect (r = .28, p < .05). In addition to the LIWC, positive correlations were found in the student sample with Private Self Consciousness (r = .27, p < .05), and Self Consciousness total scores (r = .29, p < .05), suggesting that, for the student sample at least, an external referential focus can result in looking at the self through the eyes of the other, resulting in heightened self consciousness. Suffering: This category in the patient sample showed positive correlation with sensations and feelings (SENSES), and affect. No correlation was found in the student sample. Affect non-focal: This category in both patient and student samples showed positive correlations with positive emotions (POSEMO), and affect. In addition, student sample showed a positive correlation with feelings and sensations (SENSES). In addition to the LIWC, the Affect Non-focal category in the student sample correlated negatively with TAS-20 scores: TAS total(r = –.27, p < .05), DIF (r = –.25, p < .05), and DDF(r = –.25, p < .05). To the extent that, as Lundh et al. (2002) suggested, the DIF (Difficulty Identifying Feelings) and DDF (Difficulty Describing Feelings) “measure something like the lack of meta-emotional self-efficacy concerning the identification and communication of emotion” (p. 376), negative correlations with these two factors of TAS-20 are consistent with our hypothesis that Affect Non-Focal is an aspect of emotion management, which necessarily contributes to one’s “meta-emotional self-efficacy.”
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Low activation: This category in the patient sample showed positive correlation with AFFECT , but in the student sample it was correlated with physical sensations and feelings (SENSES). High activation: Patient sample showed positive correlations with negative emotion (NEGEMO), and sensations and feelings (SENSES); student sample showed positive correlation with negative emotion, and negative correlation with positive emotion, thus contributing to discriminant construct validity. Valence focus: Patient and student samples showed positive correlations with affect, and sensations and feelings (SENSES). In addition, student sample showed positive correlation with positive emotion (POSEMO). Affect focal: Patient and student samples showed comparable positive correlations with AFFECT, sensations and feelings (SENSES), and negative emotion (NEGEMO). In addition, patient sample showed positive correlation with “I”; and student sample showed negative correlation with “WE.” In addition to the LIWC, P-SCS (Private Self Consciousness) correlated negatively with Affect-Focal in the patient sample (r = –. 31, p < .05). This is consistent with our hypothesis that attention to emotion entails a diffused sense of the self, which is antithetical to the preoccupation of the self as measured by the P-SCS scale. Detached self : Patient sample showed positive correlation with reference to others (OTHREF). Student sample showed equally strong correlation with OTHREF, and in addition positive correlations with positive emotion (POSEMO), and AFFECT. Affected self : This category has a dual referential foci, the self as being done to and the other as affecting me. As expected, both patient and student samples showed correlations with the LIWC scales of “I” and reference to others (OTHREF). Focal self : This category showed strong correlations with “I” in both patient and student samples. In addition to LIWC, this category correlated positively in the patient sample with a subscale of TAS-20, Difficulty Describing Feelings (DDF r = .37, p < .05), suggesting that impairment in expressing emotions may be accompanied by heightened self focus. Yet, this heightened self focus may not be the same as self consciousness as measured by SCS. In fact the patient sample showed a negative correlation between Focal Self and Private Self Consciousness (r = –.35, p < .05). Reflexive self : This scale showed strong correlation, as predicted, with “WE” in both patient and student samples. It also correlated with reference to others (OTHREF) in both patient and student samples. In addition, student sample showed negative correlations with sensations and feelings (SENSES r =
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–.29, p < .05), and with SWEAR (r = –.25, p < .05). This is consistent with our hypothesis that the Reflexive Self resides in meaning and coherence of the extended self, rather than in feelings and sensations of the isolated self, let alone acting out behaviors (swear).
Factor structure of SSWC We conducted an exploratory factor analysis on the SSWC category means from the written texts pooled across the three samples. The principal factor method was used to extract the factors. Next, a varimax (orthogonal) rotation revealed 5 factors that accounted for 55% of the total variance: Affect Focal, Somatization, Object Mode, Emotion Management, and Denial of Emotion. The first factor names the attention to affect dimension, while the other four factors pertain to different modalities of inattention to emotion. In addition to the orthogonal rotation, an oblique rotation was performed, yielding similar results. The factors are not significantly correlated–no inter-factor correlations greater than .18 (which pertained to the correlation between Affect Focal and Somatization). Orthogonal rotated factor loadings are presented in Table 3. Factor correlations with relevant LIWC categories are presented in Table 4. In the following paragraphs, we examine each factor and its correlation with external measures. Affect focal: This factor has to do with attention to affect. As shown in Table 3, it had high loadings on the following scales of SSWC, in descending order: Affect Focal, Valence Focus, High Activation, Suffering, and Affect non-Focal. Consistent with the construct, this factor correlated positively and significantly with the following scales of LIWC (see Table 4): AFFECT, SENSES (sensations, feelings), NEGEMO (negative emotions), POSEMO (positive emotions), and attention to the here and now (PRESENT). Interestingly, Affect Focal also correlated positively with inhibition of thoughts and impulses (INHIB, r = .22, p < .05). This is consistent with the Peircean framework that posits a dimension of inwardness (as evidenced by attention to affect) as necessary condition for self control. Somatization: This factor names the somatic consequences as a result of inattention to emotion. It had high loadings on somatic concerns (Somatic), and heightened self focus (Focal Self), both being states of high arousal. Surprisingly however the highest loading on somatization was Low Activation (r = .83), suggesting the possibility of motivated processing which can frequently produce an opposite, affect-incongruent outcome (Forgas 2001). This possibility is borne out by the high loading (r = .58) of External Attribution, which with its externally focused processing may have contributed to the incongruence
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Table 3. Rotated Orthogonal Factor Loadings: Study 1 (n = 121) SSWC Categories Affective Lexicon Denial Violent words Emotion as event Somatic External Attribution Suffering Affect Non-Focal Low Activation High Activation Valence Focus Affect Focal Personal Pronoun Detached Self Affected Self Focal Self Reflexive Self % Common Variance Explained
Affect Focal
Somatization
Object Mode
Emotion Management
Denial of Emotion
.09 .04 .26
.17 .12 –.06
–.02 .03 .78
.06 –.53 .05
.73 –.16 –.12
.26 –.05
.66 .58
.10 .21
–.10 –.12
.32 –.13
.35 .30
.26 .08
.01 –.17
–.05 .54
–.55 –.12
.03 .63 .73 .85
.83 –.14 .19 .04
–.13 .13 .02 –.03
.21 –.34 .13 .14
.15 .32 –.08 .09
–.18 –.09 .15 –.21
.23 0 .38 –.08
.77 .40 .03 .13
–.03 .69 .43 –.07
–.04 .24 –.11 –.35
25.62%
22.28%
18.15%
17.60%
16.35%
Note. Boldfaced values are correlations greater than .30.
Table 4. Factor Correlations with LIWC Categories: Study 1 (n = 121) Relevant LIWC Scales PRONOUN I POSEMO NEGEMO SENSES AFFECT BODY SWEAR INHIB PRESENT
Affect Focal
.24** .33*** .49**** .50****
Somatization
Object Mode
Emotion Management
.20* .22*
.48**** .18* .28**
.41**** .44**** .27** –.18*
.22* .32***
.24**
Denial of Emotion
.36**** .22* .24**
.22**
–.23** .41****
–.21*
Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001; ****p < .0001, two-tailed
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in awareness. Kitayama and Howard have suggested that attentive processing of target code results in accurate and efficient perception, whereas attentive processing “misdirected” to nontarget perceptual code will result in invalid information and impairment in the “efficiency of correct perception” (1994: 47). The mood incongruence in turn can be expected to further contribute to somatization. Not surprisingly, the somatization factor correlated negatively with Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS r = –.19, p < .05). Correlations with LIWC: As shown in Table 4, the Somatization factor had positive correlations with the following LIWC scales: Affect, sensations and feelings (SENSES), positive emotions (POSEMO), the here and now perspective (PRESENT), and “I.” The correlation of this factor with positive and not negative emotions is consistent with our speculation of motivated processing behind somatization. Object mode: This factor names the mode of thinking referred to as “Pensée opératoire” in the literature of alexithymia. As shown in Table 3, it had high loading on an immersed mode of information processing – Emotion as Event (r = .78). Other ramifications of the object mode include objectification of one’s experiences by looking at them from the third person perspective, thus high loading on Detached Self (r = .77), as well as perceiving oneself as being the object of other’s actions, consistent with moderate loading on Affected Self (r = .40). As predicted, this factor correlated positively with TAS-20 total scores (r = .27, p < .01), and with the subscales of Difficulty Identifying Feelings (DIF r = .24, p < .01), and Externally-Oriented Thinking (EOT r = .25, p < .01). Correlations with LIWC: As shown in Table 4, The factor of Object Mode correlated positively and strongly with the use of personal pronouns (PRONOUN, r = 48, p < .0001), but only modestly with the focal self (I r = .18, p < .05). This is consistent with the finding of Masley et al. (2002) that “externally oriented thinking” were outwardly focused with a corresponding trend toward less self focus. This factor also correlated positively and strongly with immersion in the here and now (Present, r = .41, p < .0001). Its correlation with affective categories were of lower magnitude by comparison (Affect r = .24, p < .01; positive emotion r = .28, p < .01). It is interesting to note the negative correlation with inhibition (INHIB r = –.23, p < .01), which is consistent with the claims of Peirce and others that psychological “inwardness” is needed for self control. Emotion management: This factor names an assortment of motivated processing to control and limit the impact of affective experiences. The particular version of emotion management that emerges here seems to be self control. As shown in Table 3, this version of emotion management had high loadings
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on Affect Non-Focal , and on perceptions of the self both as patient, and as agent. The negative loadings of Violent Words (r = –.53) and High Activation (r = –.34) are consistent with the profile of emotion management through self control. Correlations with LIWC: As shown in Table 4, this factor correlated positively and significantly with both Pronoun, and “I.” Consistent with the motivated processing of emotion management is its positive correlation with positive emotion (POSEMO) and negative correlation with negative emotion (NEGEMO). The negative correlation between Emotion Management and inhibition of thoughts and impulses (INHIB r = –.21, p < .05) is instructive: it helps to clarify the distinction between the Emotion Management version of self control, which is deficient in “inwardness,” and the Peircean notion of self control which depends on psychological inwardness for its efficacy. Denial of emotion: This factor concerns denial of emotion and its consequences. It had positive loading on Denial, and negative loading on Suffering , which is consistent with the minimizing tendency of denial. The negative loading on the Reflexive Self (r = –.35) is also consistent with our definition of denial of emotion as lacking in reflexivity. Moderate and positive loadings on Somatic (r = .32) and High Activation (r = .32) are consistent with the subtype of alexithymia known as externalizing, which is characterized by arousability on the one hand and denial of stress on the other (Masley et al. 2002). This is borne out by the positive correlations between the Denial factor and the TAS20 total score (r = .21, p < .05), as well as its subscale, Externally-Oriented Thinking (EOT r = .20, p < .05). Correlations with LIWC: As shown in Table 4, the Denial factor correlated positively and significantly with the LIWC scale of body states and symptoms (BODY r = .36, p < .0001), which adds convergent validity to the alexithymia connection mentioned above.
Study 2 Study 2 consisted of an analysis by SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count) and LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count ) of 192 writing samples from a published study of psychiatric prison inmates (Richards, Beal, Seagal & Pennebaker 2000), in which participants were randomly assigned to experimental condition of trauma writing for three days. Sex offenders, in comparison to non sex-offenders, were found to be more responsive to the writing intervention, as measured by decreased infirmary visits post trauma writing.
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Method
Participants Participants were a subset of 65 male psychiatric prison inmates from the original sample of 98 inmates. With demographic information missing on two participants, this subset had the mean age of 35.06 years, (SD = 9.38), and 12.00 years (SD = 2.13) of education completed. Of the 65 participants, 30 were serving terms for sex-related crimes (rape, etc.), whereas the other 35 were being held on non sex-related violent crimes (murder, robbery, etc.). Materials and Procedure Participants were randomly assigned to write for three consecutive days about either personal traumatic experiences (n = 36) or superficial topics (n = 29) for 20 minutes per day. These texts were analyzed by two language analysis programs, LWC and SSWC, as in Study 1. Results and discussion Correlations between SSWC and LIWC Pearson correlations between the two language analysis programs are presented in Table 2, under “C”. Denial of emotion: As in Study 1, no correlation with identified LIWC variables. Violent words: In contrast to Study 1 which showed no correlation with relevant LIWC variables, Study 2 showed multiple correlations, possibly due to higher productivity of this category among the prison inmate population. A strong and positive correlation was found between Violent Words and SWEAR (r = .74, p < .0001), as can be expected; other correlations include Body, reference to others (OTHREF), and positive correlation with negative emotion (NEGEMO) with corresponding negative correlation with positive emotion (MOSEMO). Emotion as event: Comparable correlations with LIWC categories as in Study 1, except for the additional positive correlation with reference to others (OTHREF), and with negative emotion. Somatic: Similar and positive correlation with feelings and sensations (SENSES) as in Study 1. In addition, positive correlation with SWEAR (r = .25, p < .05). This connection between somatic concerns and verbally acting out behaviors such as swear is well supported by the alexithymia literature. For instance, Masley et al. (2002) reported a correlation of .30 (p < .05) between SWEAR and TAS-20 total scores.
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External attribution: similar positive correlations with positive emotion (POSEMO) and AFFECT as Study 1. Suffering: similar positive correlation with AFFECT as Study 1, with an additional positive correlation with negative emotion (NEGEMO). Affect non-focal: similar positive correlations with Affect and positive emotion (POSEMO) as Study 1, with an additional positive correlation with negative emotion (NEGEMO). Low activation: unlike Study 1, no correlations with identified LIWC variables. High activation: positive correlation with negative emotion (NEGEMO) as in Study 1. Valence focus: positive correlation with Affect as in Study 1, with an additional positive correlation with self reference (I ). Affect focal: similar to Study 1, with positive correlations with AFFECT, negative emotion (NEGEMO), and self reference (I), and negative correlation with WE. Both studies 1 and 2 suggest that Affect Focal expressions tend to be those of negative emotions and associated with the atomic, rather than communal, sense of the self. Detached self : This category behaved differently than in Study 1. Instead of showing positive correlation with reference to others (Study 1), the Detached Self in Study 2 was positively correlated with affective categories of LIWC: Affect, negative emotion (NEGEMO), and positive emotion (POSEMO). This connection between emotion concepts (Affect) and taking the third person perspective (the Detached Self) is consistent with the observation of Lambie and Marcel (2002) that “a reflective or detached stance is an attentional modulation that converts experiences into thoughts” (p. 223). Affected self : similar positive correlations with self reference (I ) and other reference (OTHREF) as in Study 1, but with a difference in emphasis: whereas the patient sample in Study 1 showed higher correlation with self reference than with other reference, Study 2 was the other way around. In addition, this category in Study 2 had correlations not found in Study 1: negative emotion (NEGEMO), Affect, and SWEAR . Focal self : besides replicating the positive correlation in Study 1 with self reference (I), this category in Study 2 showed three negative correlations: with WE, reference to others (OTHREF), and body states and symptoms (BODY). Reflexive self : Besides replicating the positive correlations in Study 1 with We and OTHREF, this category in Study 2 showed negative correlation with self reference (I r = –.34, p < .01), which is consistent with our construct of the Reflexive Self as an extended rather than the atomic self. Its positive correlation
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with physical states (BODY r = .26, p < .05) is also consistent with the construct of reflexivity – both the Reflexive Self and awareness of physical states have in common an inward orientation, a correlation that helps to underline the notion that the experiencing/reflexive self is the “embodied” self. Overall, results in Study 1 were replicated in Study 2, except that the latter showed more correlations with negative emotion (NEGEMO), reference to others (OTHREF), and SWEAR. Even the lack of correlation with LIWC in certain categories – Violent Words in study 1; Low Activation in Study 2; Emotion as Event (immersion in the world of facts and action) in the (predominantly schizophrenic) patient sample of Study 1; Suffering in the student sample of Study 1 – seem to make sense in light of the demographics of the particular samples. Lastly, the prison population in Study 2 was relatively more articulate with pronouns, resulting in multiple correlations between the self concepts and the affective categories of LIWC.
SSWC: Factor Structure and Correlations with LIWC Exploratory factor analysis revealed 5 factors that accounted for 58% of the variance. Orthogonal (varimax) rotation of these factors yielded the loadings presented in Table 5. An oblique rotation yielded similar results. These factors had correlations no greater than .15: the same modest correlation (r = .15) between Somatization and Emotion Management was maintained as in Study 1. Factor correlations with relevant LIWC categories are presented in Table 6, and will be examined along with each factor in the following discussion. Affect focal: Same high loadings as in Study 1 on Affect Focal, (r = .78) and Valence Focus (r = .77), and moderate loading on Affect Non-Focal (r = .28). But this factor in Study 2 was the mirror image of that in Study 1. Study 2 presented a detached mode of attention to affect–evidenced by high loading on the Detached Self (r = .73), and a significant and negative loading on High Activation (r = –.21) – as opposed to the immersed mode of its counterpart in Study 1 with high loadings on High Activation and Suffering. The two studies are mirror images of each other in another sense: consistent with the significant and positive correlation in Study 1 of Affect Focal with the inhibition category in LIWC (INHIB, r = .22, p < .05), the same factor in Study 2 had a modest and negative loading on Violent Words (r = –.18). Correlations with LIWC scales: As shown in Table 6, this factor had similar positive correlations with the affective scales of LIWC (AFFECT, NEGEMO, and POSEMO) as in Study 1. In addition, it showed positive correlation with
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Table 5. Rotated Orthogonal Factor Loadings: Study 2 (n = 65) SSWC Categories Affective Lexicon Denial Violent words Emotion as Event Somatic External Attribution Suffering Affect Non-Focal Low Activation High Activation Valence Focus Affect Focal Personal Pronoun Detached Self Affected Self Focal Self Reflexive Self % Common Variance Explained
Affect Focal
Object Mode
Somatization
Emotion Management
Denial of Emotion
.16 –.18 .08
.01 .57 .64
–.10 .22 –.26
–.09 –.18 .24
.84 .36 –.12
–.13 –.14
.15 –.21
.56 .13
.09 .78
.35 .08
.13 .28
.05 .25
0 –.25
.68 .55
–.10 0
.12 –.21 .77 .78
–.01 .44 –.20 .30
–.08 .45 .27 .17
–.03 .04 –.07 .09
–.47 –.16 –.14 –.14
.73 .09 .21 –.18
–.05 .88 .02 .21
–.15 0 .67 –.63
.15 –.08 –.30 –.12
.13 .08 –.06 –.02
23.58%
23.14%
19.51%
18.83%
14.94%
Note. Boldfaced values are correlations greater than .30.
Table 6. Factor Correlations with LIWC Categories: Study 2 (n = 65) Relevant LIWC Scales
Affect Focal
Object Mode
PRONOUN I POSEMO NEGEMO SENSES AFFECT BODY SWEAR INHIB PRESENT
.26*
.68**** .27*
.26* .33**
Somatization
Emotion Management
.68**** .43*** .32**
.52**** .27*
.44*** –.30*
Denial of Emotion
.36**
.29* .55****
.42***
.26*
.43***
.33**
Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001; ****p < .0001, two-tailed
.30*
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Pronoun use (r = .26, p < .05), and negative correlation with body states and symptoms (Body r = –.30, p < .05). Object mode: Same high loadings as in Study 1 on Emotion as Event , and Affected Self . Negative connotations of the Object Mode are more accentuated in Study 2, as evidenced by high loadings on Violent Words (r = .57), High Activation (r = .44), and moderate loading on Affect Focal expressions (r = .30), which consisted primarily of negative emotions as correlations with LIWC make clear, below. Correlations with LIWC scales: As shown in Table 6, this factor had similar pattern of correlations with Pronoun, I, Affect, and Present as in Study 1. In addition, it had a positive correlation with SWEAR (r = .42, p < .001). Masley et al. (2002) found a comparable positive correlation (.42, p < .01) between SWEAR and the DIF (Difficulty Identifying Feelings) subscale of TAS-20, suggesting the possibility of an overlap between DIF and Object Mode. This is consistent with the results of Study 1, which showed multiple positive correlations between the Object Mode and TAS-20 scores, including DIF. The positive correlation between Object Mode and SWEAR is the direct corollary of the negative correlation between this factor and inhibition (INHIB r = –.23, p < .01) in Study 1. The two studies differed in the valence of this factor: Study 2 had positive correlation with negative emotion (NEGEMO r = .52, p < .0001), whereas Study 1 had positive correlation with positive emotion (POSEMO r = .28, p < .01). Somatization: Same high loadings as in Study 1 on Focal Self, and Somatic. Negative loading on Reflexive Self (r = .–.63) is consistent with our hypothesis that somatic expressions of emotions belong to the reactive consciousness of Secondness in contrast to the reflexive consciousness of Thirdness, which is characteristic of the Reflexive Self. Also consistent with the usual co-occurrence of somatic concerns and high arousal is the high loading on High Activation (r = .45). Correlations with LIWC scales: As shown in Table 6, correlations with I, SENSES, and Present were essentially the same as in Study 1. The only difference is that Study 1 had positive correlation with positive emotion, whereas Study 2 showed positive correlation with SWEAR. This is consistent with the Low Activation loading in Study 1 in contrast to High Activation loading of Study 2. The lack of significant correlation between Somatization and Body in both studies 1 (Table 4) and 2 (Table 6) is instructive: in spite of considerable overlap between the two concepts, the Somatic in SSWC and the BODY in LIWC differ in emphasis – the former accentuates the psychosomatic aspects of the physical state such as “heart racing,” whereas the latter, the less pathological
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and more neutral physical states, such as “cough.” This is consistent with the fact that the Reflexive Self was correlated positively with the BODY (Table 2), but negatively with Somatization (Table 5). Emotion management: Very similar loading on Affect Non-Focal as in Study 1. In contrast to the self control version of emotion management in Study 1, Study 2 presented an externalizing coping style, in which one takes the victim stance by shifting the appraisal of blameworthiness from the self to the affecting environment. Thus high loadings on External Attribution (r = .78) and Suffering (r = .68), and corresponding negative loading on Focal self (r = –.30). Correlations with LIWC scales: As shown in Table 6, Study 2 shared with Study 1 the positive correlation with positive emotion. The two studies correlated differently with the negative emotion category (NEGEMO), consistent with their difference in coping strategies: Study 1, which profiled self control, showed negative correlation with NEGEMO (r = –.18, p < .05), whereas Study 2, which profiled a victim stance, showed positive correlation with the same (r = .32, p < .01). The fact that Emotion Management more than Affect Focal had relatively higher correlations with Affect (r = .55, p < .0001) and its subscales of POSEMO and NEGEMO requires explanation. Our definition of Affect Focal is not based on the affective connotation of verbal expressions, so much as on the dimension of reflexivity (awareness of awareness). Thus “I am sad” is an Affect Focal statement, because of its implication of self avowal (I own my sadness), whereas the statement “it is tragic” falls under the category of External Attribution (which had high loading on Emotion Management), because of the lack of self avowal. But both statements are replete with affectivity, hence would score equally well on the LIWC categories of Affect and negative emotion (NEGEMO). Denial of emotion: Same high loadings as in Study 1 on Denial, and Somatic. It’s negative loading on Low Activation (r = –.47) is compatible with the positive loading in Study 1 on High Activation (r = .32). One additional flavor that Study 2 contributed to this factor was the positive loading on Violent Words (r = .36). Correlations with LIWC scales: As shown in Table 6, correlation with feelings and sensations (SENSES) is compatible with the correlation with BODY in Study 1. Positive correlation with SWEAR (r = .30, p < .05) adds another ramification to the denial of emotions.
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General discussion Over 700 writing samples by 186 participants were collected, and analyzed with the SSWC, from two separate studies: Of the 3 samples in Study 1, the professionals (n = 10) produced a mean of 1179.20 words (SD = 334.23); the psychiatric inpatients (n = 42) produced less than half the amount (Mean = 577.98, SD = 208.72); and college students (n = 69) wrote slightly more than patients, with a Mean of 662.21 words (SD = 204.03). The prison inmates in Study 2 (n = 65) wrote more than the students, but less than the professionals, with a Mean of 763.15 words ( SD = 553.68). Despite the heterogeneity of the writing samples, and despite even larger differences in demographics and research methodology, the two studies revealed essentially the same factor structure that organized the semantic space of the texts analyzed by SSWC. In both studies the loadings of the SSWC categories were consistent with expectations, and all items loaded above .30 with their appropriate factor. The high number of statistically significant correlations across all samples with the affective categories of the standard language analysis program, LIWC, confirms our hypothesis that all SSWC categories fall within the purview of the affective domain. Supporting discriminant validity of the construct is one important exception to the rule – the scale of Denial of Emotion had no correlations with LIWC’s affective categories in either study. Furthermore, the factor patterns in the two studies were mirror images of one another in a twofold sense, one study either dovetailed the other or was its antipode and complement. On Object Mode and Denial of Emotion, arousal and disinhibition were the two flavors that were implicit in one study and explicit in the other. As for the rest of the factors, the two studies presented variations that fell along the divide of internal versus external focus, a divide fundamental to cognitive attention (Lambie & Marcel 2002), and probably has a neurophysiological basis (Lane et al. 1997; Gusnard et al. 2001). Thus along the internal focus axis was the immersed version of Affect Focal (Study 1), the high arousal version of Somatic (Study 2), and the self control version of Emotion Management (Study 1); and along the external focus axis, the detached version of Affect Focal (Study 2), the low arousal version of Somatic (Study 1), and the externalizing version of Emotion Management (Study 2). These variations of the themes were consistent with the finding that the inmate population of Study 2 used relatively more externally focused strategies in processing emotional information, expressed more negative emotions, and used more swear words than the non-criminal populations of Study 1.
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Can the Peircean semiotics be translated into a diagnostic tool of individual differences? Peirce is encouraging when he claims that “the word or sign which man uses is the man himself. . . . Thus my language is the sum total of myself ” (1931–1958, Vol.5, paragraph 314, emphasis in the original). A similar sentiment has been expressed by Pennebaker and King (1999), who demonstrated empirically that “language use is a reliable individual difference” (p. 1300). In the next section, we explore these possibilities by examining the group differences in Study 2.
. Application to individual differences To recapitulate the context for Study 2, the study of Richards et al. (2000) found that, as measured by decrease in infirmary visits after the writing intervention, the sex-offenders showed more health improvement than the non sex-offenders in response to trauma writing for 3 consecutive days. Can this be explained by group differences? To find out how the two groups differed, we conducted oneway ANOVAs on the SSWC categories. The contrasts compared the trauma writing condition with the trivial writing, and sex offenders versus non sex-offenders.
Comparison between conditions Results for the comparison between writing conditions are presented in Table 7. As shown in Table 7, the Experimental and Control conditions differed along the following SSWC dimensions: Affected self : Both sex-offenders and non sex-offenders had relatively more output on this variable in the experimental than the control condition. Affect focal: Overall, the experimental condition generated more output on this variable than the control condition; this is especially true with sex offenders who had more output on this variable in the experimental condition . Violent words: Overall, both groups had more output on this variable in the experimental than the control condition. The increase in victim role taking (Affected Self), affect-focal words, and violent and swear words in the experimental condition, in comparison to the control condition, is to be expected, especially with the prison inmate population. Comparison between groups Results on group comparison are presented in Table 8.
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Table 7. Difference in writing between experimental and control conditions as measured by SSWC: Study 2 (n = 65) SSWC Categories Affected Self Main Effect Non Sex Offender Sex Offender Affect Focal Main Effect Non Sex Offender Sex Offender Violent Words Main effect Non Sex Offender Sex Offender
Experimental N Mean SD
N
Control Mean SD
36 17 19
3.23 3.30 3.17
1.68 2.02 1.36
29 18 11
1.48 1.55 1.36
1.55 1.49 1.72
F(1,63) = 18.56 **** F(1,33) = 8.46** F(1,28) = 10.14**
36 17 19
1.26 1.10 1.41
0.68 0.72 0.63
29 18 11
0.85 0.90 0.77
0.78 0.70 0.93
F(1,63) = 5.22* F(1,33) = 0.68 ns F(1,28) = 5.17*
36 17 19
0.48 0.54 0.43
0.50 0.54 0.47
29 18 11
0.19 0.21 0.14
0.41 0.49 0.24
F(1,63) = 6.62 ** F(1,33) = 3.52† F(1,28) = 3.58 †
Note. † p < .07; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001; ****p < .0001
Table 8. Difference in writing between sex offenders and non sex offenders as measured by SSWC: Study 2 (n = 65) SSWC Categories Emotion as Event Main Effect Experimental Control External Attribution Main Effect Experimental Control Valence Focus Main effect Experimental Control
Non Sex Offender N Mean SD
Sex Offender N Mean SD
35 17 18
.57 .74 .40
.55 .58 .47
30 19 11
.22 .27 .23 .20 .20 .38
35 17 18
1.17 1.08 1.26
.73 .71 .76
30 19 11
.93 .51 1.08 .50 .67 .44
F(1,63) = 2.30 ns F(1,34) = 0.00 ns F(1,27) = 5.39 *
35 17 18
.12 .05 .19
.25 .09 .34
30 19 11
.29 .40 .31 .35 .26 .50
F(1,63) = 4.34 * F(1,34) = 8.79 ** F(1,27) = 0.24 ns
F(1,63) = 9.97 ** F(1,34) = 13.29 *** F(1,27) = 1.34 ns
Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001
As shown in Table 8, the non sex- and sex-offenders differed along the following SSWC dimensions: Emotion as event: the non sex offenders had relatively more output on this variable in general, and especially in the experimental condition.
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External attribution: The non sex offenders had relatively more output on this variable only in the control condition, whereas in the experimental condition the two groups did not differ significantly. Valence focus: Sex offenders had relatively more output on this variable in general, and especially in the experimental condition. In sum, the non sex-offenders seemed to have a baseline (the control condition) that was relatively more externally oriented in their referential focus, and, in the experimental condition, seemed to operate in an immersed mode in processing emotionally laden information, as evidenced by their increased output on Emotion as Event and Violent Words. The sex offenders, in contrast, tended to be more valence-focused in their articulation of affect. Even though in the experimental condition, sex-offenders increased verbal expressions of a victim stance as readily as the non sex-offenders, the former’s baseline was to make relatively less external attributions than the latter. Otherwise put, as evidenced by their relatively less output on categories that concerned the world of facts and actions, the sex offenders seemed to be less inclined to process emotional information in the immersed mode of Secondness. Instead, they outperformed the non sex offenders in production of affective lexicon that had the potential for being sufficiently complete signs (Thirdness), such as Affect Focal and Valence Focus terms. So, why did the sex-offenders benefit from the trauma writing more than the non sex-offenders? Richards et al. (2000) speculated that due to social stigma the sex-offenders might be more inhibited than the non sex-offenders, and hence benefited more from the disclosure writing paradigm. Our findings offer a complementary interpretation in terms of individual differences: the sex offenders might benefit more from social interventions, because of their valence focus, which was found to be related to “emotional responsivity to the social environment” (Barrett 1998: 595). Yet, there is much more information that can be gleaned from the language analysis. One important source of information on individual differences is linguistic profiles. An overview of their respective performance on the 15 SSWC variables gives us contrasting profiles of the two groups – the sex- versus non sex-offenders, as presented in Figures 1 and 1a. As Figures 1 shows graphically, when processing emotional information, the non sex-offenders tended to use incomplete signs – signs higher on the hierarchy of inefficiency (to the left of the SSWC category axis in Figure 1), whereas the sex offenders used sufficiently complete signs – such as Affect Focal and Valence Focus words – at relatively higher frequency. This leads to the interesting question as to whether sufficiently complete and incomplete signs
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Percent
1.25 1.00 0.75 0.50 0.25 0.00 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Category Non Sex-Offenders (n=35)
Sex Offenders (n=30)
Note. SSWC categories: 1. Denial; 2. Violent Words; 3. Emotion as Event; 4. Somatic; 5. External Attribution; 6. Suffering; 7. Affect Non-Focal; 8. Low Activation; 9. High Activation; 10. Valence Focus; 11. Affect-Focal.
Figure 1. Sex- and non sex-offenders’ mean scores on SSWC categories (affective lexicon) (Study 2)
are differentially promoted or inhibited by different individuals or groups. In Study 2 the difference between health improvement after trauma writing seemed to coincide with this differential use of signs: sex offenders who were more responsive to the writing intervention were also the ones who promoted sufficiently complete signs, as evidenced by relatively higher frequency, and inhibited incomplete signs, as evidenced by relatively lower frequency, in their trauma writings, whereas non sex-offenders who were relatively less responsive to the intervention showed the reverse pattern of sign use. Another approach to the question concerning individual differences in sign use is to examine the variability of the text from day to day, instead of averaging the means across days as we have done so far. Indeed, from the Peircean perspective, the single most important indicator of the quality of a sign is its variability. Variability has to do with the fact that “it is of the very nature of thought to grow” (Colapietro 1989: 67). Or in the words of Peirce, “The highest kind of symbol is one which signifies a growth, or self-development” (1931–1958, Vol. 4, paragraph 10). One way to approach the variability question is to understand it as an index of cognitive flexibility and to measure accordingly the change in content of texts produced sequentially (Campbell & Pennebaker 2003). Another alternative is structural instead of content analysis. From the structural perspective, variability can be indexed by the fluctuation
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Percent
6.00 4.00 2.00 0.00 12
13
14
15
Category Non Sex-Offenders (n=35)
Sex Offenders (n=30)
Note. SSWC categories: 12. Detached Self; 13. Affected Self; 14. Focal Self; 15. Reflexive Self.
Figure 1a. Sex- and non sex-offenders’ mean scores on SSWC categories (personal pronoun) (Study 2).
in frequency of a sign. This variability in frequency has to do with the reflexive nature of thought: since thought is “dialogical” (thought talking to itself), sign use involves a dynamic process of thought inhibiting and/or promoting thought, resulting in fluctuation in the frequency of a sign. Figure 2 shows how this structural approach to variability can be illuminating. Figure 2 shows a comparison of the day to day fluctuation of the frequency of Affect Focal words between sex- and non sex-offenders in the experimental condition. Consistent with our prediction of the connection between reflexive thought and variability in verbal expressions of emotions, relatively more fluctuation was exhibited by the sex offenders than the non sex offenders. The non sex-offenders’ relative lack of fluctuation in sign use is indicative of a stagnant thought process characteristic of closed information search strategies (Fogas 2001). This is consistent with our speculation of the possibility of turning potentially complete signs (symbols), such as Affect Focal words, into incomplete ones, such as icons (dictionary entries), as a result of direct access to semantic memory (Fogas 2001). Thus the question concerning alexithymia related phenomena is not necessarily what – can the individual produce affect focal words, so much as how – the way an affective term is used, by direct access to semantic memory or substantive processing of emotional information (Forgas 2001)? Due to limitation of space, fluctuations on other SSWC variables will be examined elsewhere (Sundararajan 2004, July). Suffice it here simply
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Percent
1.5
1
0.5 1
2
3
Day Non Sex-Offenders (n=17)
Sex Offenders (n=19)
Figure 2. Sex- and non sex-offenders’ mean scores on the Affect Focal category of SSWC for each day of the three-day traumata writing by psychiatric prison inmates (Study 2).
to offer for future research the testable hypothesis that the variables of SSWC change as a function of the individual’s cognitive style in processing emotional information.
. Summary and conclusion In this paper we proposed and tested empirically a taxonomy of verbal expressions of self and emotions. Based on the semiotics of Charles Peirce, our proposition states that emotion and self expressions are signs with varying degrees of liability to fail to traverse the triadic path of their development, and thus can be categorized accordingly. We further developed a computerized language analysis program, SSWC, that translated this taxonomy into 15 or so scales of pronouns and affective lexicon. Then we conducted two empirical studies of SSWC to test the construct validity of our taxonomy and explore its potential contributions to research on individual differences. Preliminary findings suggest that the categories of SSWC mapped out the affective domain in semantic space in a logically consistent and intelligible manner. Demonstrating good internal consistency for these categories, factor analysis revealed 5 factors with a factor pattern that had simple structure and conceptual meaningful-
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ness, and that was replicable across independent samples. Reasonable external validity was also demonstrated with moderate correlations with TAS-20 and its subscales, and robust correlations with the standard language analysis program, LIWC. To explore possibilities of its application to research in individual differences, we used SSWC to create linguistic profiles of the writing samples, and demonstrated that our taxonomy rendered visible subtle differences in information processing strategies between comparison groups. In conclusion, our semiotics based taxonomy has the potential to extend our understanding of certain key concepts in the alexithymia literature – such as “lack of introspection” or “externally-oriented thinking” – beyond the three factor structure of the alexithymia construct, by offering a coherent theoretical framework and a more fine grained analysis of language use that can give us more nuanced information of individual differences in their verbal expressions of self and emotions.
Acknowledgements We thank the following individuals for their help with Study 1: Deborah Hall, Ph.D., Chair, IRB; Chief Psychologist, Rochester Psychiatric Center; Professors K. R. Sundararajan and Craig Zuckerman of St. Bonaventure University; Professor Susan F. Roxin of Nazareth University; Emily Krenichyn, M. S., Nazareth University; Jeffrey Richards, MA., University of Colorado; Mary M. Fox, Ph.D., University of Rochester; Mary Swift, Ph.D., University of Rochester. We thank Professor James W. Pennebaker for providing data for our analysis in Study 2.
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Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Oatley, K. (1989). The language of emotions: An analysis of a semantic field. Cognition and Emotion, 3 (2), 81–123. Kitayama, S., & Howard, S. (1994). Affective regulation of perception and comprehension: Amplification and semantic priming. In S. Kitayama & S. Howard (Eds.), The heart’s eye: Emotional influences in perception and attention (pp. 41–65). New York: Academic. Krystal, H. (1988). Integration and self-healing: Affect, trauma, alexithymia. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press. Krystal, J. H., Giller, E. L. Jr., & Cicchetti, D. V. (1986). Assessment of alexithymia in posttraumatic stress disorder and somatic illness: Introduction of a reliable measure. Psychosomatic Medicine, 48 (1/2), 84–94. Lambie, J. A., & Marcel, A. J. (2002). Consciousness and the varieties of emotion experience: A theoretical framework. Psychological Review, 109 (2), 219–259. Lane, R. D. (1991). LEAS scoring manual & glossary. Department of Psychiatry, University of Arizona Health Sciences Center. Lane, R. D., Quinlan, D., Schwartz, G.E., Walker, P., & Zeitlin, S. (1990). The levels of emotional awareness scale: A cognitive-developmental measure of emotion. Journal of Personality Assessment, 55, 124–134. Lane, R. D., Fink, G. R., Chau, P. M. L., & Dolan, R. J. (1997). Neural activation during selective attention to subjective emotional responses. NeuroReport, 8, 3969–3972. Lundh, L.-G, Johnsson, A, Sundqvist, K, Olsson, H. (2002). Alexithymia, memory of emotion, emotional awareness, and perfectionism. Emotion, 2 (4), 361–379. Marty, P., & de M’Uzan, M. (1963). La ‘Pensée opératoire’. Revue Francaise de Psychanalyse, 27 (suppl.), 1345–1356. Masley, C., Lumley, M. A., D’Souza, P., & Roberson, T. (March, 2002). Alexithymia and language use in written disclosure: The importance of subscale analysis. Presented at the meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society, Barcelona, Spain. Abstract published in Psychosomatic Medicine, 64, 102. Ortony, A., Clore, G., & Foss, M. A. (1987). The referential structure of the affective lexicon. Cognitive Science, 11, 341–364. Ortony, A., Clore, G., & Collins, A. (1988). The cognitive structure of emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Peirce, C. S. (1931–1958). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (8 Vols, edited by C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss). Cambridge: Harvard University. Pennebaker, J. W. (1989). Stream of consciousness and stress: Levels of thinking. In J. S. Uleman & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), Unintended thought (pp. 327–350). New York: Guilford. Pennebaker, J. W., & King, L. A. (1999). Linguistic styles: Language use as an individual difference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77 (6), 1296–1312. Pennebaker, J. W., Francis, M. E., & Booth, R. J. (2001). Linguistic inquiry and word count/LIWC2001. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Richards, J. M., Beal, W. E., Seagal, J. D., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2000). Effects of disclosure of traumatic events on illness behavior among psychiatric prison inmates. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109 (1), 156–160. Robinson, M. D., & Clore, G. L. (2002). Belief and feeling: An accessibility model of emotional self-report. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 934–960.
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Robinson, M. D., Solberg, E. C., Vargas, P., & Tamir, M. (2003). Trait as default: Extraversion, subjective well-being, and the distinction between neutral and positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 517–527. Rosen, S. M. (2004). Dimensions of apeiron/A topological phenomenology of space, time, and individuation. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Silvia, P. J., & Gendolla, G. H. E. (2001). On introspection and self-perception: Does selffocused attention enable accurate self-knowledge? Review of General Psychology, 5 (3), 241–269. Sundararajan, L. (2001). Alexithymia and the reflexive self: Implications of congruence theory for treatment of the emotionally impaired. The Humanistic Psychologist, 29 (1–3), 223–248. Sundararajan, L., & Schubert, L. K. (2002). The Externalizing Scale: A pattern matching word count program. Computer Science Department, University of Rochester. Sundararajan, L., & Schubert, L. K. (2003, August). “Lack of introspection” in alexithymia: Psycholinguistic markers. In L. Sundararajan (chair), Alexithymia – new developments in theory and research. Symposium conducted at the 111th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Toronto. Sundararajan, L. (2004, July). The anatomy of change in writings about trauma: A Psycholinguistic analysis. Poster to be presented at the Annual Conference of the International Society for Research on Emotions, New York. Taylor, G. J., Bagby, R. M., Parker, & J. D. A. (1997). Disorders of affect regulation/Alexithymia in medical and psychiatric illness. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Taylor, G. J., & Bagby, R. M. (2000). An overview of the alexithymia construct. In R. BarOn & J. Parker (Eds.), Handbook of Emotional Intelligence (pp. 40–67). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Taylor, G. J. (2000). Recent developments in alexithymia theory and research. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 45, (2), 134–142. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54 (6), 1063–1070. Wiley, N. (1994). The semiotic self. Chicago: University of Chicago. Williamson, S., Harpur, T. J., & Hare, R. D. (1991). Abnormal processing of affective words by psychopaths. Psychophysiology, 28 (3), 260–273.
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Agency and moral value
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Apt affect Moral concept mastery and the phenomenology of emotions Elisa A. Hurley Georgetown University
It is now widely agreed that being a good moral agent requires being emotionally attuned to the world. The claim that emotions play such a role typically centers around their cognitive components. The phenomenal elements of emotions, their distinct feelings, are either relegated to supporting roles, on the one hand, or explained away, on the other. It is my suggestion that these standard options for understanding the epistemic role of emotional feelings are unjustifiably impoverished, and that a proper grasp of the emotions’ phenomenal elements suggests that the latter play a critical and independent epistemic role in our practices of moral evaluation. Following some strands of post-Wittgensteinian philosophy of mind and epistemology, I identify the single misunderstanding at the root of these two impoverished views, and suggest an alternative in which the phenomenal elements are understood as concept-involving and therefore norm-governed. I argue that if the phenomenal constituents of emotions are so understood, then it becomes plausible to claim that there is an epistemically privileged connection between an agent’s capacity for phenomenal emotional responses and her mastery of moral concepts. Keywords: Emotions, feelings, affect, norms, holism, cognitivism, moral concepts, moral epistemology, Wittgenstein, evaluative judgments
It is by now commonplace to suggest that the emotions play a significant role in moral epistemology. These days, only the most orthodox (and perhaps misguided) student of Kant would deny that at least part of what it is to be a good moral agent is to be emotionally attuned to the world in the right sorts of ways. The claim that emotions play such a role typically centers around their cognitive components, which are identified as either evaluative judgments about, or
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evaluatively loaded construals of, the world. (Calhoun 1984, 2003; Elgin 1996; Greenspan 1989; Gordon 1987; Nussbaum 2001; Solomon 1976/1983; Sorabji 2000). The phenomenal elements of emotions, their distinct feelings, are either relegated to supporting roles as contingent, causal capacities which often happen to “signal” circumstances of moral salience, or explained away by reducing them to the endorsement of distinct propositional contents. It is my suggestion that these standard options for understanding the epistemic role of emotions are unjustifiably impoverished, and that a proper grasp of the emotions’ phenomenal dimensions suggests that they might play a critical and independent epistemic role in our practices of moral evaluation.1 In what follows I will briefly develop these two impoverished views, and suggest that both ultimately stem from a single source: a certain (mis)understanding of the emotions’ phenomenal elements which entails that they can play only a contingent, causal role in our interactions with the world. Borrowing familiar arguments from other areas of philosophy of mind and epistemology, I will diagnose the problem with this understanding and suggest an alternative in which the phenomenal elements are properly understood as situated in the space of reasons, that is, as conceptual and therefore normgoverned. I will argue that if the phenomenal constituents of emotions are so understood, then it is plausible to suggest that there is an epistemically privileged connection between an agent’s capacity for phenomenal emotional responses and her mastery of moral concepts.2 I will conclude by proposing that emotional affect – i.e., the phenomenal dimension of an emotion – so understood, might function epistemically in two distinct ways: as noninferential entitlement to certain value judgments and as a uniquely placed capacity for discerning instances in which moral concepts apply. What I hope to show, then, is that being a good moral agent requires being not just emotionally, but, more precisely, affectively engaged in the world in the right sorts of ways. Colloquially, we might say that the phenomenal elements in question are the “oomphings” that give our emotions a certain affective “flavoring.” They are what it feels like to be angry, sad, proud, ashamed, scared and the like. Now, before moving on with the argument, it is important to pause and address the question of whether all emotions carry such a phenomenal “feel,” or whether we think they must in order to be identified as emotions in the first place. While it is not my task in this paper to give the necessary and sufficient conditions for the presence of an emotion state, I do want to offer the following by way of answer to this question. The first is that the phenomenology I am speaking of is not a physiological or bodily disturbance, although such disturbances may in many cases of emotion be part of that emotion’s phenomenology. So the
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suggestion that emotions have a phenomenological feel all their own is not the demand that each and every emotion be accompanied by some identifiable bodily state that is introspectively of otherwise available to the agent. My suggestion is rather that it is typical of emotions that there is something that it feels like to have them, in the sense that the agent is conscious of feeling a certain way. Secondly, I certainly want to leave open the possibility that, on occasion, we might accurately be said to be having an emotion without experiencing it phenomenologically even in this latter sense, that is, without registering the presence of an emotion state at all. In other words, I think we ought to say that, ceteris paribus, emotions have a phenomenal feel or affective experiential quality, with the understanding that those emotions states which do not involve phenomenal feelings or experiences are conceptually parasitic upon those cases in which there is something that it feels like to be in that state. It is the latter which are paradigmatic emotion states; there is, therefore, some privileged or essential connection between being in an emotion state and that state’s having a particular affective feeling or flavor, even if not every case of emotion involves having such feelings. Returning to the main argument, then: on one standard philosophical view of the phenomenal dimensions of emotions, originating with Descartes, they are brute inner sensations to which we have infallible, introspectible access, and which are only contingently and merely causally connected with both the objects at which they are directed and the behavior through which they are manifested. I think it is clear that so understood, these elements can have no independent epistemic status. As Wilfrid Sellars’ arguments against the Myth of the Given have shown, those entities which are only causal are not the right kinds of things to play a role in epistemic justification (Sellars 1956/1997). Justificatory practice is concerned with our claims to knowledge. Knowledge claims must be assessable for correctness – that is, they must be subject to conceptual norms which are intersubjectively sustained. Causes, however, are not conceptual, and are therefore not norm-governed in this way. Things that stand in only causal relations, then, can have no bearing on our knowledge claims’ status as justified or warranted. To suggest that phenomenal emotion states, understood as brutely causal, could play such an epistemic role is to fall into the affective equivalent of the Myth of the Given. Now, of course, noncognitivists wholeheartedly embrace the view that emotional affect is brutely causal in this way (Locke 1689/1978: 229–233; Hume 1740/2000: 181–290; James 1890/1950: 442–485.). In fact, they claim that emotions are entirely constituted by such affect. According to such views, emotions
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have no intentional contents of their own. Emotions as a class are “inner sensations” only contingently related to a conceptual content which is itself embodied in beliefs and other cognitive states. As such, emotional responses might in fact be “triggered” in a causal sense by the presence of certain moral features, but it is our other “properly” cognitive or rational faculties which actually evaluate those features as morally significant. That is, the emotions themselves are wholly outside the space of reasons. Cognitivists about emotions, however, hold that they properly belong within the space of reasons. The cognitivist approach – which currently dominates the philosophical and psychological literature on the emotions – is characterized most generally by the conviction that the concept of each emotiontype restricts what can logically be the object of any token emotion of that type, i.e., it circumscribes the range of things any particular instance of that emotion can be directed toward or about. The object of fear, for instance, must be something that either does, or is seen as, threatening harm. Part of what it means to be the emotion of fear, to be identified and individuated as such, is to be about or directed at an object of (perceived) danger or harm. And similarly with other emotions – they are conceptually linked to the sorts of things that are or can be their objects, and it is by means of these links that we identify them as the emotions that they are (Kenny 1963: 52–75). The cognitivist picture, then, entails that emotions have intentional contents, that these contents are conceptual and that it is in virtue of these contents that emotions are identified and individuated. It is, furthermore, this concept-involvement that in turn entails that emotions, like other intentional states,3 are norm-governed, and therefore publicly available. The insistence, then, on an ineliminable phenomenal component, understood along the lines of the standard view presented above, seems to undermine the emotions’ claim to these very features. Phenomenal elements, understood as brutely causal, could accompany the intentional elements only in some contingent way. Cognitivists who want to countenance such elements, then, are committed to a “hybrid” view of emotions in which they are made up of two distinct components – one properly cognitive, the other noncognitive – with the latter component equipped to play only a supporting epistemic role along the lines sketched above. Such a picture seems to create an irresolvable tension between the solipsistic nature of such phenomenological experiences and the epistemic authority that the deliverances of concept-involving emotions would be thought to enjoy. Of course, some cognitivists have attempted to revalue the emotions in their entirety by reducing their phenomenal components to the endorsement of
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the particular value judgments which are the emotions’ intentional contents.4 So, for instance, Martha Nussbaum, proposing a sophisticated neo-Stoic account of emotions, holds that the particular “feel” of an emotion is nothing more than the vivacity or detail with which we grasp its particular evaluative content. Because, according to her view, that evaluative content usually involves those things that are central to my well-being, embracing such content just is the upheaval of an emotion (Nussbaum 2001: 45). In this way, then, the threatened solipsism in avoided – the phenomenal elements are reduced to intentional elements that are uncontroversially in the space of reasons, that is, with whose concept-involvement, and therefore epistemic import, we are already familiar. The phenomenal, then, falls out of the picture altogether. It seems, then, that the cognitivist’s two options for understanding the phenomenal dimensions of emotions – i.e., hybridization on the one hand, reductionism on the other – are motivated by the same basic assumption that drives the noncognitivist to deny that the emotions carry any epistemic import whatsoever: the assumption that the phenomenal elements of emotions can be plausibly understood only along a causal picture of brute, private sensations. While according to the first line of thinking, this entails that emotions, properly construed as wholly phenomenal, can play no independent epistemic role, according to the second, it entails that the phenomenal elements must be reducible to some properly conceptual components in order for the emotions to play such a role. Now, I do not want to suggest that some cognitivist accounts are not quite successful on their own terms. I am entirely sympathetic with the cognitivist’s desire to situate the emotions squarely in the space of reasons, and there is clearly something right about Nussbaum’s analysis of their intentional components. Furthermore, if the affective elements are private and causal in the way suggested above, then of course they can only be situated in the space of reasons if they are reduced to something properly concept-involving. This is, of course, just the lesson learned from Wittgenstein’s Private Language Argument (hereafter PLA). But I think this is to get the PLA only partially right. The PLA does not suggest that phenomenal experiences to which we have, in some sense, privileged access are thereby banished wholesale from the space of reasons. The point of the PLA, as I understand it, is instead that the very having of such experiences depends, in a holistic sense, upon the existence of a norm-governed, public practice of using emotion concepts. Recall, the PLA claims that our “phenomenal experience” concepts could not acquire their meaning from ostensive definitions, from introspecting our own personal experiences and simply slap-
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ping a name on them (Wittgenstein 1953, §293, §243–258). To use a concept is to make ourselves responsible to the norms that settle the correctness or incorrectness of doing so, and such norms must be administered intersubjectively. But once we have learned such concepts and become competent users of them, there is no reason to think that we couldn’t then apply them to our own phenomenal experiences, even when we keep individual instances of those experiences to ourselves. This point should be familiar from cases of color perception. It is by now commonplace to suggest that there is something that it is like to see red. But although this experience is properly understood as phenomenal, what it is to count as an episode of seeing red is, we might say, beholden to the norms governing ‘redness’ as a color concept. As Sellars suggests, in order to have the actual experience of seeing red, I must be competent with a whole host of concepts including not just ‘red’, but also those concerning color distinctions, standard viewing conditions, lighting circumstances and the like. This phenomenal episode would not count as a seeing of red (or perhaps “count” as anything epistemically relevant at all) were I not already to have competency with these and other concepts, all of which are, of course, norm-governed. This is not to deny, then, that when I am in the situation in which I report seeing red and exhibit red-seeing behaviors, there is something that I am feeling, something that it is like to be having such an experience, and that it is in this sense mine and mine alone (Wittgenstein 1953, §304). We deny only that the meaning of redness-seeing could be private, or that one could know that what one was seeing was red without first being a competent user of a family of normgoverned concepts. Our experiences of redness-seeing remain in our intuitive sense private. As the perceptual story goes, then, once I do have the relevant concepts, the very phenomenal appearance of a red object usually gives me good reason to judge that the object in front of me is actually red, assuming that I am in standard viewing conditions. If I am, then I am noninferentially entitled to such claims about the presence of redness. I may legitimately make an ‘observation report’ about it. But, importantly, I might not in fact make such a report. That is, this picture does not require that for each and every experience of redness, it must be the case that there is some overt behavior (verbal or otherwise) off of which others will “read” my experience and therefore be able to assess it – the experience is not norm-governed in this sense. The point is not just that having the redness-seeing experience is conceptually dependent on publicly assessable manifestations of redness-seeings (i.e. verbal reports or other overt behaviors), but that such dependence is holistic. It is conceptually impossible for me to
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have any personal phenomenal experiences of redness before I have the ability to make public reports about redness, and therefore before I have the family of concepts governing redness which play a role in intersubjective discourse. But this is consistent with the claim that on any particular occasion I might experience seeing red and not in fact manifest any overt behavior that indicates to others that I am. Analogously, then, the fact that I do not report or outwardly manifest an emotion every time I experience it does not mean that I cannot be said to be “having” the emotion experience. As with color experiences, my affective experience being part and parcel of the emotion that it is is conceptually parasitic, in a holistic sense, on a practice of public emotion manifestation in which the meanings of emotion terms are determined, taught and learned intersubjectively. An example should help to make this clear. Suppose I claim that I am feeling happy. I, however, show no outward signs of being happy on this particular day – I act aloof and despondent, I don’t laugh at those things I usually find funny, I snap at people, etc. On the one hand, we might be inclined to believe what I say about feeling happy and just chalk up my failure to display it to some other local circumstance. Certainly, if at the end of the day I am once again laughing at jokes and seem to be enjoying the company of the people I am with, then perhaps I really was “feeling” happy all along. The account presented here need not deny the intuitive plausibility of such an explanation, since it holds that we may legitimately ignore the occasional “gap” between my phenomenal experience of, and the public manifestations of, an emotion. But suppose that my behavior and dispositions continue in this way, and I seem in fact to be manifesting signs of depression – I sleep 15 hours per day, I stop caring about the way I look, I become more and more reclusive, I stop eating, all the while reporting that I am in fact happy. Suppose when you ask why I am happy I am at a loss for a reason. And suppose such behavior continues. It seems that one is now in a position to legitimately challenge my continued report that what I feel is in fact ‘happiness’. That is, if the words, “I feel happy” occur to me regularly divorced from all contexts in which I could justify them as being appropriate, they would gradually lose their meaning altogether – whether I am convinced that what I am feeling is ‘happiness’ or not. It is in this sense, then, that my phenomenal experience of happiness is holistically dependent on there being publicly available evidence of something that is appropriately happiness-meriting. Now, clearly there is more to say here. A complete account of such holistic dependence would obviously require some explanation of this relation such that we could tell when it is legitimate to charge an emotion experience claim with violating it, that is, with altogether
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failing to fall within the scope of the what is (holistically defined as) happiness. While such an account will have to wait for another time, we should still be able to take away the relevant lesson about the conceptual norm-governedness of phenomenal experiences. So, the proposal on the table is that the phenomenal dimensions of emotions, properly understood, are indeed something over and above the endorsement of particular propositional content, something which in one sense can be considered private. It is, furthermore, this something extra which is conceptinvolving and therefore epistemically valuable in its own right. So how, one might now ask, do such affective elements do their independent epistemological work? It seems plausible to suggest that phenomenal emotional responses so conceived are (perhaps uniquely) useful tools for identifying the moral features of the world: appropriately interpreted within a particular context, emotional affect might be, in a sense, a shorthand way of making moral value judgments. However, there is nothing so far to suggest that I might not be perfectly competent at making moral judgments in the absence of such capacities. That is, none of this shows that the capacity for the appropriate phenomenal response is in fact necessary for moral concept mastery. I, however, am inclined to think that such capacities might in fact be necessary. I can only begin to suggest why here. To return again to the analogy with color, it is of course the case that not all judgments of redness involve my seeing red. Suppose a trustworthy friend describes to me in detail her new cherry-red Porche, and I, having no reason to doubt her at her word, judge that her new car is in fact red. I might go on to make other inferences involving the redness of her car – that it would look purple in a blue-lit room, that it is quite different from the faded red of my own 1982 Honda Civic, that, given its color, I would look decidedly better behind the wheel than she does, etc. But of course, this is critically different from experiencing the redness first hand. Many would argue that the person who does not have the phenomenological experience of seeing red in the presence of red things, whether or not she does in fact make reliable judgments about such things, does not have mastery of the concept red. Part of what it is to possess such mastery is to have the requisite phenomenological experiences of seeing red in the cases in which redness is in fact present, all against my background competencies with the concepts of color distinctions, lighting circumstances, standard viewing conditions and the like. That is, it is to be able to make noninferential observation reports, in the sense identified earlier, about redness. Perhaps we can tell an analogous story in the case of emotional responses and moral features. That is, we might say that the good person in the pres-
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ence of cruelty is analogous to the normally sighted and standardly situated individual in the presence of redness: both have a phenomenal response which, because it is placed against a normative background, and assuming it is “appropriate,” entitles them to make other conceptual moves concerning the features to which they are responding. As in the case of the person skilled with redness, the skilled moral agent’s emotional responses give her noninferential entitlement to the claim that cruelty is in fact present here. There is something that it is like to be in the presence of cruelty that is distinct from making value judgments about cruelty through a process of inference from certain natural features of a situation – that is, of knowing that something is worthy of a “cruelty response”. In the skilled moral agent, that something is, we might say, equivalent to an observation report about the cruelty here present. Of course, whereas in the standard viewing conditions, there is generally only one acceptable observation report to be made – that which accords with the features that the object actually possesses – in the moral case, there might be a bounded range of appropriate responses to the presence of cruelty. We might say that in ‘standard morality conditions’, these responses share a certain “negative” affective flavoring, in that these responses seem intimately tied to my being motivated to intervene and change the situation, to recoil in horror, to being disposed to protest, and the like; that is, to bringing about the motivational, behavioral or verbal tendencies that we think are the justified moral responses to the presence of cruelty. Were I not to experience one of the range of negatively flavored affective responses in the presence of truly cruel features, then I would be only partially competent with the concept itself – there would be something deficient in me qua moral agent. That is, if we agree that part of what it is to be competent with a moral concept is to be able to arrive at a judgment about it noninferentially, to make observation reports about it, then we might have an argument for saying that phenomenally flavored emotional responses are required for moral concept mastery. Two caveats are in order here. First, the claim that in order to qualify as a good moral agent I must experience one of a range of negatively flavored affective responses in the presence of cruelty should, once again, be interpreted holistically. It would, of course, be unnecessarily demanding to insist that such cruelty responses are required of me in every cruelty-instantiating situation in order for me to count as competent with the concept. Instead, I want to suggest that there is a privileged connection between having the response and being competent with the concept, such that we might say, “ceteris paribus, the good moral agent experiences a merited phenomenal cruelty response in the presence of cruelty.” While we will once again have to leave for another time
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the question of how to fill in this ceteris paribus clause, we should at the very least say that were I never to experience one of these responses, I certainly could not be considered a master of the moral concept. Second, the account I have just provided means that I will have to allow that the person who feels what we would intuitively call “glee” at the prospect of torture, but associates this feeling with being motivated to stop the cruel act, of recoiling in horror, of exclaiming “how horrible!”, is not criticizable on account of her affective feelings in such a case. My suggestion has been that it seems plausible to think that only a certain range of affective experiences will be able to do the right epistemic work, will be able to move and motivate us in the right sorts of ways. But since my point is just that our “oomphings” must allow us to track the moral features of the world, if your tickle happens to morally track what my pain does, then I’ll simply have to say, “so much the worse for me and my pain.” I think this picture of the role of phenomenal emotional responses in tracking the moral features of the world is an attractive one, but I will not pursue it further here. Instead, I want to suggest that there is a second, independent reason for thinking that the capacity for phenomenal responses might be, albeit in a different way, necessary for moral concept mastery. Given my (perhaps by this point, obvious) sympathies with the non-naturalist camp championed by John McDowell and David Wiggins, I think it might in fact be impossible to identify the class of cruel things – the “shape of cruelty” – without having an emotional response to those things. One of the oft-recognized epistemic virtues of our emotional capacities is their tendency to be revelatory of information to which we might have no other access. It seems plausible to suggest, for instance, that I might witness the giving of a gift, but would never have recognized this particular instance of gift-giving as insidiously cruel if I did not first respond to the situation, in a way that might surprise me, with indignation or outrage. Of course given the picture presented here, this response would only be merited if one could, in principle, tell a story about what features of this gift-giving do in fact make it cruel. Otherwise, we would remain understandably skeptical about whether this is a case in which my emotional response is to be trusted. But to require that such a story is in principle available is not to insist that we must be able to tell that story before being justified in a particular emotional response. What this suggests is that the class of the ‘cruel’ may be inaccessible to us if we do not possess the affective capacities to be moved by cruelty in certain ways. Although we might have all sorts of background commitments about cruelty and those features and concepts to which it is related, it is possible for us, in any
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given circumstance, to fail to see the cruelty present here without being “hit” emotionally with it (Elgin 1996: 146–169). My central claim here is that the phenomenological deliverances of emotions, as themselves concept-involving, have an independent epistemic role to play. However, I want to be clear that this account need not insist that the deliverances of emotions enjoy decisive epistemic authority. Nothing I have said denies the reality that emotions have a tendency to be recalcitrant, and that the force with which they deliver their information can often take us off course or make us blind to the real features of the situation at hand. It is, I think, this feature which accounts in large part for the entrenched conviction that emotions are uniquely problematic, epistemologically speaking. To be sure, it might take a great act of will not to be carried along immediately to assent by the phenomenal force of my emotional experience. But such an act of will is possible, and emotions, properly understood, are the appropriate objects of such acts of will. Just as I am legitimately open to challenge when I am in the nonstandard viewing conditions, have the phenomenological experience of seeing redness and then start making inferential moves from such an appearance, if I am in the presence of cruelty or some other moral feature and have an unmerited emotional reaction, I might similarly be called upon to justify or withdraw my emotional response. At the very least, I am open to criticism if I take myself to be entitled to that response.5 Just as we know the standard conditions for the tenability of the deliverances of our perceptual capacities, we develop standards that specify when and to what extent emotional reactions, too, are tenable, or when we have reason to doubt or challenge their deliverances. As with other epistemic states, if there is reason to question the appropriateness or legitimacy of a certain emotion, then I have other methods for justifying or correcting it. I might look to other beliefs and attitudes I hold and see if this judgment fits in with them coherently and/or consistently, I might attempt to verify my supposed evidence, or I might appeal to some intersubjective standard within an evaluative practice. There need be nothing sui generis or mysterious about this particular kind of epistemic fallibility or our capacities for addressing it. On the other hand, we need not deny that the emotions may be significantly more recalcitrant than our perceptual capacities: whereas in the case of color perception, we typically either have no reason to doubt the deliverances of our perceptual capacities or are pretty well aware of when we’re in nonstandard viewing conditions and should therefore not trust those deliverances, in the case of emotions, the phenomenal “appearings” may have more sway over us, even when we know that they are distorted, inaccurate or unjustified.
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There might in fact be fewer cases, then, in which we are noninferentially entitled to the evaluations embodied in our emotional responses. But this seems to me to suggest only that the emotions are more complex than some of our other epistemic capacities, not that they ultimately function in epistemically disanalogous ways. Catherine Elgin, in fact, has suggested that emotion states and belief states have very similar epistemic functions, whatever their respective conceptual contents turn out to be. For example, just as my anger might structure the ways in which I see the world, beliefs, too, supply an orientation, or structuring perspective. Whether I simply believe that women are subordinated in the workplace or am angry about the (perceived) fact that they are, I avail myself of certain patterns of salience, expectations and states of perceptual awareness. If emotions and beliefs function similarly in their structuring and salience-generating capacities, then, Elgin suggests, from an epistemic standpoint there seems to be little at stake in making the distinction between the two (Elgin 1996: 153–159). While I think that there will be some important differences between emotion and belief states – I think, for instance, that their phenomenology will be markedly different – I agree with Elgin that from an epistemic standpoint, i.e., in terms of beholdenness to justificatory norms, the distinction seems largely overstated. I think we do better to regard differences in epistemic function between beliefs and emotions as differences primarily of degree, not differences in kind. My suggestion, then, has been that the impoverished options for treating the phenomenal elements of emotions result from a failure, or perhaps a refusal, to countenance the ways in which a familiar argument about our phenomenal experiences’ holistic dependence on conceptual norms applies equally to emotions. It is a mystery to me why moral psychologists and philosophers of mind who work on the emotions continue to seem satisfied with an outmoded Cartesianism which was long ago recognized as a legitimate target for critique in other areas of philosophical investigation. As far as I can see, there is no principled reason to think that the emotions represent a radically different kind of epistemic phenomenon, one that could not be accounted for by this familiar picture in the ways suggested above. It seems to me, then, that the burden of proof is now on those who would insist that emotions are, from an epistemic standpoint, intrinsically problematic. I myself find it hard to imagine why they should be so.6
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Notes . I am concerned here only with the epistemic contributions of emotion states – the ways in which they help us come to moral verdicts, or deliver moral knowledge, in the first place. In this paper, I therefore leave aside another critical role that emotions arguably play, that is, as appropriate responses to situations which have already been morally evaluated. Clearly these two roles may be closely related, and perhaps even temporally inseparable, but they are, I think, conceptually quite distinct. . To be clear, I do not think such mastery is appropriately understood as an all or nothing affair – i.e. you either have it or you don’t – but instead as existing along a continuum. I think that we can be better and worse users of moral concepts, that there are degrees of competency as a moral agent. This is supported by the picture of emotions presented here, because if emotions are properly understood as residing within the space of reasons and not in the space of causes, then our emotional capacities are norm-responsive and therefore the kind of things which can be trained, honed, and educated such that they might become more discriminate and appropriate over time. . I purposely use the rather vague ‘intentional states’ here, leaving open the question of how conceptually robust the intentional contents of such states must be. The degree or nature of conceptualization required by a cognitivist picture of the emotions is far from settled within the philosophical literature. While some suggest that the evaluative element of an emotion must be a belief, others hold that emotions might require only weaker forms of conceptualization such as construals, adverbial attitudes, imaginings or entertainings. It is beyond the scope of this paper, to take a stand on the nature of the conceptual contents of emotions. My intuition is that it is too strong, and not phenomenologically accurate, to require that the cognitive content be fully propositional in the manner required by belief. Emotions likely embody a wider variety of cognitive states, all of which involve conceptualization, but many of which will not be propositional in form. . To be sure, there has emerged recently a strain of neo-cognitivists (e.g., Michael Stoker, Claire Armon-Jones, and Robert Roberts) who seek to give non-reductionist accounts of the affective elements of emotions states. These accounts, however, remain to my mind unsatisfactory. Stocker (1996) speaks of “psychic feelings” which exhibit “conceptual complexity,” but he does not explain how such conceptual complexity is related to the irreducible “feelings” of an emotion state. Claire Armon-Jones (1991) gives an account which understands the felt aspects of emotions as adverbial construals of certain thought-contents. But given that Armon-Jones just stipulates that adverbial construals have a particular, technical sense that just is the felt aspect in question, it is unclear that her account really tells us anything useful about irreducible affectivity. . I actually think we are criticizable, at least to some degree, for having the emotional response in the first place. I am compelled by recent arguments suggesting that we are responsible for cultivating our emotional capacities in the appropriate ways, and that emotions are to a large extent within our voluntary control (see the work of Nancy Sherman (1999) for instance ). Here, then, the analogy with color perception might break down. That is, in the perceptual case, I might be held responsible, or even “criticized,” as an epistemic agent if I take myself to be noninferentially entitled to certain deliverances in nonstandard
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viewing conditions, but I am nevertheless not responsible for having those perceptual experiences, given the existence of those conditions. In the emotion case, however, it seems like I might also be legitimately criticizable for having the response, because it might be a sign that I have not cultivated the appropriate kinds of emotional sensitivities. I think this is an important piece of the overall project of epistemically revaluing the emotions, but it is conceptually distinct from the claims I make here. . I would like to thank Carin Ewing, Nathaniel Goldberg, Mark Lance, Daniel Levine, and John Haldane for engaging me in thought-provoking discussions on these topics. I am also grateful to audiences at the University of Southampton and Brown University where earlier drafts of this paper were presented. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Matthew Burstein, Margaret Little and Thane Naberhaus for invaluable comments on earlier versions of this paper.
References Armon-Jones, Claire (1991). Varieties of affect. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Calhoun, Cheshire (1984/2003). Cognitive emotions? In Robert Solomon (Ed.), What is an emotion? Classic and contemporary readings (pp. 236–247). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Elgin, Catherine Z. (1996). Considered judgment. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Greenspan, Patricia S. (1989). Emotions and reasons: An inquiry into emotional justification. London: Routledge. Gordon, Robert M. (1987). The structure of emotions: investigations in cognitive philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hume, David, (1740/2000). A treatise of human nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. James, William (1890/1950). The principles of psychology, Vol. II. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Kenny, Anthony (1963). Action, emotion and will. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Locke, John (1689/1978). An essay concerning human understanding. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McDowell, John (1994). Mind and world. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roberts, Robert C. (1988). What an emotions is: A sketch. The Philosophical Review, 97, 183–209. Sellars, W. (1956/1997). Empiricism and the philosophy of mind. In Herbert Feigl & Michael Scriven (Eds.), Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1 (pp. 253–359). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Reprinted by Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Sherman, Nancy (1999). Taking responsibility for our emotions. In Ellen Frankel, Fred Miller, & Jeffrey Paul (Eds.), Responsibility (pp. 309–321). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Solomon, Robert C. (1976/1983). The passions. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. Sorabji, Richard (2000). Emotion and peace of mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stocker, Michael with Elizabeth Hegeman (1996). Valuing emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wiggins, David (1987/1998). A sensible subjectivism? In his Needs, values, truth (3rd edition). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical investigations. G. E. M. Anscombe (Trans.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
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The Varieties of Religious Experience considered from the perspective of James’s account of the stream of consciousness Thomas Natsoulas Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis
William James produced a second major psychological work, in which he focussed on the individual’s stream of consciousness. The Varieties of Religious Experience addresses, among other things, the phenomenology of the concrete experiences wherein one apprehends oneself to stand in an immediate relation to whatever one may consider to be the divine. The present article starts exploring the later volume from the perspective of James’s detailed conception of the stream of consciousness as presented in The Principles of Psychology. Special attention is given to the (a) the evidently nonsensory perceiving of the unperceivable, including the divine, (b) the two main aspects belonging to every state of consciousness – the feeling aspect and the cognitive aspect – however “abstract” a state may be, (c) the primacy of the qualitative over the conceptual, including some of James’s arguments against the Intellectualists, and (d) the character of mystical experiences, both the religious and nonreligious kind. Keywords: William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, consciousness, stream of consciousness, nonsensory perceiving, psychology of religion, feeling, intellectualism, mysticism
Such is the human ontological imagination, and such is the convincingness of what it brings to birth. Unpicturable beings are realized, and realized with an intensity almost like that of an hallucination. (James 1902/1982: 72)
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Introduction
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature consists of the Gifford lectures William James delivered at Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902. James suggests a certain conviction is found at every religion’s heart: There exists an unseen order with which we should harmoniously live. The third lecture, “The Reality of the Unseen,” treats of the sense of reality people have with reference to the special objects of their religious experience. By this point, James already has indicated what he means by the “religious” kind of experience. Religion should be understood to refer to certain experiences – as distinct from the institutions, philosophies, and theologies developed from them. Religion, . . . as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. (James 1902/1982: 31; original italics)
Absent such concrete experiences, James expresses doubt (p. 431) that any religious philosophies or theologies would ever have been framed. James’s lecture on experiencing the unperceivable draws a distinction between two general kinds of presence to consciousness: (a) the presence of objects to thought; and (b) their presence to the senses, their sensible presence. Typically, the concrete objects of religious experience – such as a diety whom one worships – and the abstract objects of religious experience – such as the Christian God’s infinity, omniscience, and absoluteness – are present only to thought. One’s awareness of these concrete and abstract objects is usually devoid of any distinctive sense-content corresponding to them. Yet one may strongly believe in their superexperiential existence, and no less so than in the reality of items for which one can give definite descriptions. Indeed, feelings of the real presence of objects of religious experience may be “as convincing . . . as any direct sensible experience can be, and they are, as a rule, much more convincing than results established by mere logic ever are” (James 1902/1982: 72). Therefore, James’s earlier arguments, in The Principles of Psychology (1890/1950b: 299–306), regarding “the paramount reality of sensations” must receive some qualification. As I bring out later, one sometimes has, in religious experience, a greater sense of the realness of the object of one’s belief than of other things, not excluding oneself. A diminution in the felt sense of one’s own realness may also occur at other times, for example, during experiences that are mystical but not religious – a distinction that requires explication.
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. Contra the Intellectualists Objects of religious experience are not unique with respect to the absence of sense-contents corresponding to them. Experiences unrelated to religion are also informed by abstract ideas. For example, the exercise of concepts with abstract reference is, according to James (1902/1982), a very common ingredient of our everyday perceptual awarenesses of the physical environment. Thus, James states abstract ideas form the background for all our facts, the fountain-head of all the possibilities we conceive of. They give its “nature,” as we call it, to every special thing. Everything we know is “what” it is by sharing in the nature of one of these abstractions. We can never look directly at them, for they are bodiless and featureless and footless, but we grasp all other things by their means, and in handling the real world we should be stricken with helplessness in just so far forth as we might lose these mental objects, these adjectives and adverbs and predicates and heads of classification and conception. (James 1902/1982: 56)
Those who have studied The Principles may find James’s claim in Varieties that we apprehend all other things by means of concepts surprising. Among other locations in James’s masterwork, his famous chapter on the stream of consciousness contains sustained criticism of a certain group of thinkers whom James calls “the Intellectualists.” These thinkers held that the apprehension of, among much else, relations and universals requires that special acts of relating intelligence be performed. They proposed that these acts, or actions of an Ego, are pure thoughts and are in their nature superior to the kind of mundane mental-occurrence instance – which is brought into being automatically by the total brain process – of which James proposes that the entire stream of consciousness consists. According to James, the states of consciousness that are the basic durational components of streams of consciousness comprise the entire mental side of reality. One after another, it is states of consciousness alone of which our mental life consists, even doubly so if there proceeds as well within us a second stream of consciousness. Thus, in explaining any psychological function, there is no theoretical need to introduce an actus purus intellectûs, which swoops down from on high in order to do the job. Againsts the Intellectualists, several cases are cited by James (1890/1950a) wherein we mentally apprehend and cannot articulate the item that we are apprehending – as we surely could if, instead, our apprehensions of the item were of a conceptual sort. The list below indicates a
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few arguments of James’s suggesting as much, along with others supportive of his view (cf. Natsoulas 2000–2001b). 1. Subtle or implicit communications often indicate the presence of objective relations without their assigning any names to these relations, owing to the priority of firsthand awareness of these relations over our thinking about them. 2. The relations we know of as existing in nature are more numerous than any language can do justice to in all their shades and, therefore, we must have discovered these relations in the environment, rather than having conceptually constructed them. 3. In any instance in which a state of consciousness has an intrinsic perceptual aspect or component – whenever a state of consciousness is a “perceptual state of consciousness” – there is involved as part of it perceptual awareness of more than one can say, as well as awareness of environmental or bodily features that one is at a loss to describe. 4. The noticeable difference in how thunder upon silence sounds, as compared to how more thunder upon thunder sounds, is a matter of one’s undergoing two qualitatively different auditory experiences, not a matter of one’s merely thinking it to be the case that two different kinds of sequence took place. 5. Perceiving something and thinking it are two different psychological processes that are normally discriminable from each other firsthand. 6. Some of our states of mental expectation, which we commonly undergo, do not specify their objects conceptually. In such cases, it can be the case that we expect something to occur, or to be present, that is unidentified by us before we come to perceive it. 7. Trying with difficulty to recall a name, one often apprehends intead an intensely active phenomenological gap that is qualitatively distinctive and varies in this respect with the name that one is seeking. It would be inconsistent to understand James as abandoning in Varieties his basic thesis of the priority of nonconceptualizing feelings over awarenesses that conceptualize the objects of their apprehension. I take James to be saying that what, in The Principles, he had called “knowledge-about,” as distinct from “knowledge of acquaintance,” is what is taking place in the form of any conceptualizing state of consciousness. That is, not all our awarenesses – only those that are conceivings of things or states of affairs – involve the exercise of concepts. Thus, the general fact would remain, as James (1890/1950a) had previously stated it:
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What we are only acquainted with is only present to our minds; we have it, or the idea of it. But when we know about it, we do more than merely have it; we seem, as we think over its relations, to subject it to a sort of treatment and to operate upon it with our thought . . . . Feelings are the germ and starting point of cognition, thoughts the developed tree. The minimum of grammatical subject, of objective presence, of reality known about, the mere beginning of knowledge, must be named by the word that says the least. Such a word is the interjection, as lo! there! ecco! voilà! or the article or demonstrative pronoun introducing the sentence, as the, it, that. (p. 222; original italics)
This passage does not propose the existence of states of consciousness that lack a cognitive aspect. No state of consciousness occurs that does not instantiate the property of intentionality. They are all of them, whatever else they may be, cognitive states. Consult in this connection the first paragraph of James’s famous chapter on the stream of consciousness. That paragraph says something different from the well-known statement regarding early infancy that psychologists like to quote from James. Although states of consciousness vary in their veridicality and breadth, or how much each of them apprehends, no state of consciousness is less a cognition than any other state of consciousness. Nor does the above passage suggest that some states of consciousness are of such an abstract purity – that their essential nature is of such a kind – that they are literally missing, per impossibile, an intrinsic “sensitive body,” or feeling aspect (James 1890/1950a: 478; Natsoulas 1998). No state of consciousness is more abstract, less finite, less of a concrete feeling, than any other state of consciousness. Even an awareness having something universal or general for its object is, nevertheless, a “perfectly determinate, singular, and transient thing . . . . a perishing segment of thought’s stream, consubstantial with other facts of sensibility” (James 1890/1950a: 474). In James’s view, every one of the many basic durational components constituting any stream of consciousness is perforce a qualitative mental state. Not a single state of consciousness is proposed to ever occur that is lacking a qualitative or feeling aspect. This negative generalization applies as well to all those durational components of the stream that have among their objects abstract items or items that are not themselves possibly perceivable. It does not matter how abstract or unperceivable the objects of a particular state of consciousness are. According to James, states of consciousness are all qualitative mental states and will therefore seem, when they occur, “warm and intimate” to any inner awareness that one may have of them. I have discussed James’s feeling aspect of the states of consciousness in two recent articles (Natsoulas 1998, 2000–2001a). Let me say at this point only the
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following three things. Later in the present article, I shall return to the priority James assigned to states of consciousness as instances of sensibility or feeling, over the conceptualizing character that, as he acknowledges, many of them do possess. 1. In brief, the feeling aspect of every state of consciousness is that essential, qualitative way, or form by which, it feels the totality of items, properties, events, relations, and so on, that it apprehends or seems to apprehend – the latter in cases of objects of consciousness having no existence. A mental state, however neutral affectively, that is no more or less than a visual experience, say, would be a state that visual-qualitatively feels its objects. 2. The cognitive aspect of every state of consciousness is an aspect of its phenomenological structure, no less so than the state’s feeling aspect. Thus, the cognitive aspect too belongs to the subjective part of what James (1902/1982: 498) refers to as “the world of our experience.” The objective part of this world is “the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of ” (p. 498). Consistently, James could have expressed the objective part as being anything at all that we may happen to be apprehending, experiencing, occurrently aware of, or thinking about. In contrast, the cognitive aspect is an intrinsic feature of the act of apprehending: the state of consciousness itself of whatever kind it may be. The cognitive aspect is that “outwardly pointing” feature of a state that makes it possible for it to be about something beyond itself. A controversial matter, not to be considered here, is whether a mental state, a single pulse of mentality, can ever have itself as object. James (1890/1950a: 190) holds self-intimating states of consciousness are impossible. 3. James comes to discuss mystical experiences late in Varieties. He likens to sensations as opposed to conceptual thoughts the apprehensions that mystical experiences characteristically involve (p. 405). The mystical apprehensions are cognitive, for they possess intentionality, but their objects are not subject to articulation and the character of the experience is incommunicable. And yet the objects of these apprehensions are felt firsthand to be as real as anything, and often as more real than anything mundane. Notwithstanding the fact that firsthand reports of mystical experiences insist that these experiences are nonsensory. For example, James’s (1902/1982) long quotation from Saint John of the Cross includes this sentence: In [the mystical knowledge of God], since the senses and the imagination are not employed, we get neither form nor impression, nor can we give any account or furnish any likeness, although the sweet-tasting wisdom comes home so clearly to the innermost part of the soul. (p. 407)
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. Abstract objects and the sense of reality How should we construe James’s following conclusion drawn from the concrete experiential instances that he considered? How does what I am claiming about his general understanding of states of consciousness fit with his following description of many states of consciousness, including those involving, as part of them, awarenesses directed in the way James defined as religious? What does the kind of awareness James is referring to amount to intrinsically? It is as if there were in human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call “something there,” more deep and more general than any of the special particular “senses” by which the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed. If this were so, we might suppose the senses to waken our attitudes and conduct as they so habitually do, by first exciting this sense of reality; but anything else, any idea, for example, that might similarly excite it, would have the same prerogative of appearing real which objects of sense normally possess. (James 1902/1982: 58; original italics)
We undergo states of consciousness that are accompanied by a strong impression of their giving us experiential contact with an ultimate reality that lies beyond the one which our senses reveal to us. Above, James is adverting not so much to the existence of a hidden, unperceivable order, but to our having experiences of the same. Sometimes, our stream of consciousness is as though we are perceiving – other than by the particular senses – a general order that (a) lies beyond the objects that are capable of projecting photic energy or some other kind of energy to our point of observation and that (b) is no less external to us than those objects, belongs no less than they do to external reality and is present to our consciousness from outside it. Moreover, James is vaguely suggesting a means whereby this impression is produced in us. That is, the abstract objects of our states of consciousness are taken to be really present owing to the fact that an impression of reality is “excited” in us by abstract ideas. Abstract ideas are supposed to do this in something like the way the senses excite an impression of reality. But it is unclear how James believes abstract ideas “similarly excite” this impression. Our senses – better, our perceptual systems – pick up stimulus information and resonate to it (Gibson 1966, 1979/1986). But does any such information specify the existence or properties of that ultimate hidden order in which we deeply believe? If indeed it is the case that no stimulus information specifies a hidden order, then how does an abstract idea on its own give us a sense of reality with respect to its object? Activity in the sense receptors does yield
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activity in the brain. But abstract ideas cannot themselves affect the brain process. From among the mental, only the states of consciousness can affect the brain process – and they can do so only to a certain degree, according to James (1890/1950a), only by furthering or hindering the brain process as it is already proceeding. In support of the thesis that a sense of reality can be excited by receipt of relevant stimulus information, James (1902/1982: 59) brings up the kind of awareness we call a “presentiment.” In having a presentiment, the person has awareness of something there but has no inner awareness of states of consciousness involving any kind of perceptual awareness of that item. The person’s pertinent states of consciousness may be perceptual, they may involve perceptual awareness, but these states do not include, according to the testimony of the person, any kind of awareness of the presentimental item that would subjectively qualify as perceptual. James quotes a report of this evidently nonperceptual kind of awareness from an intimate friend of keen intellect. The friend stated that he “felt” something come into his room and stay close to his bed for a minute or two. He had a powerful sense of this entity’s real presence near him, and he was deeply affected emotionally by his awareness of the entity. Although he had no kind of perceptual awareness of the entity, the friend stated that he was aware of its presence “far more surely” than he had ever been aware of the presence of “any fleshly living thing.” He also reported apprehending the entity’s “instantaneously swift” departure through the door. James’s friend described as well two other similar happenings and, with the following words, summarized what took place in his stream of consciousness on all three occasions: The certainty that there in outward space there stood something was indescribably stronger than the ordinary certainty of companionship when we are in the close presence of ordinary living people. The something seemed close to me, and intensely more real than any ordinary perception. Although I felt it to be like unto myself, so to speak, or finite, small, and distressful, as it were, I didn’t recognize it as any individual being or person. (James 1902/1982: 60; original italics)
The friend also reported having, more than once, an equally intense and abrupt sense of presence “of a sort of mighty person” comprising “some ineffable good.” This presence filled him with joy instead of, as in the above three cases, abhorrence.
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James quotes a few further, similar examples from other informants. These people too were aware, by what seemed to them nonsensory means, of something present right there in their immediate environment. And James comments on the “seat” of such awarenesses, briefly proposing an hypothesis regarding their source (see later). It is natural at this point to recall James’s (1902/1982) rejection of “medical materialism” in his first lecture, titled “Religion and Neurology.” Medical materialism refers to any doctrine that would account for religious experience exclusively in terms of effects of brain or bodily function on mental processes. In comparing with his own view of religion, James first expresses a belief consistent with his account of the stream of consciousness in The Principles. He agrees with the “general postulate of psychology” according to which every state of consciousness has “some organic process as its condition . . . Every one of them without exception flows from the state of the possessor’s body at the time” (James 1902/1982: 14). However, James then points out (a) that the thoughts and feelings making scientific activity itself possible are no less organically conditioned than religious experiences are and (b) that the significance of both categories of experience is not decidable from the dependence of the states of consciousness involved on bodily conditions. Therefore, the Jamesian fact that, for example, the awarenesses of nonsensory presence are produced, as all states of consciousness are, by the total brain process does not mean the awarenesses should be discredited, that they do not have significance. Certainly, they possess contents, which make no reference to their most proximal cause, and these contents should be considered in relation to the rest of what we feel and know. James (1902/1982) summed up his general view of religious opinions: “Their value can only be ascertained by spiritual judgments based on our own familiar feeling primarily; and secondarily on what we can ascertain of their experiential relations to our moral needs and to the rest of what we hold true” (p. 18).
. The nature of the sense of reality in the evident absence of sensory presence What, more specifically, is the sense of reality we experience even when what seems to us to be really before us has no sensory presence so far as inner awareness can tell? The impression of real presence nevertheless is more like a sensation, James suggests, than like an intellectual operation. James might have suggested the sense of reality is more analogous to the conclusion of an
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inferential process – analogous not to the whole process, of course, but to the consequent occurrent belief that something is really there. Instead, James is suggesting that the sense of reality under discussion is like a sensational content (visual, auditory, etc.) that corresponds to an external object of awareness, although when we have nonsensory awareness of something as being there, ordinary sensations that correspond to that of which we have awareness seem absent to us. And the sense of this object’s real presence can be introspectively distinguished from the object’s presence to thought. James quotes the self-report of a person who continued to think about the same unperceived and unperceivable object over the years but the “electric current” of its felt presence no longer flowed into him, and so the object, now only an object of thought, no longer provided him with the moral support that it used to. As I mentioned, all states of consciousness have a feeling aspect according to James. This would apply equally to those states of consciousness whose objects have, one or more of them, a sensible presence and to those states of consciousness all of whose objects are present only to thought. However, none of the latter category of state may actually exist in James’s view. He claimed in The Principles that “our own bodily position, attitude, condition, is one of the things of which some awareness, however inattentive, invariably accompanies the knowledge of whatever else we know” (James 1890/1950a: 241). An object felt to be really present in the immediate environment without having any sensible presence (a) is apprehended as part of a larger sensory context, (b) is apprehended by means of a state that has the body among its objects, and (c) is apprehended by means of a state that is no less qualitative than any other state of consciousness. James’s (1902/1982: 63) tentative hypothesis regarding the seat of the general sense of present reality associates this sense with feelings arising from the muscles, specifically from their occurrent state of readiness to respond. A state of consciousness that includes feelings of incipient behavior and connects the action readied with an object – even an object of awareness that lacks all sensible presence – will include as well a sense of the respective object’s real presence. A major problem with James’s latter conjecture is, as I see it, simply this: We are often prepared to act with respect to environmental items that have not yet entered our immediate environment. Yet we do not experience these items as being present until they have a sensible presence for us. That is, although we are
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ready for them, we distinguish their actual arrival from their not having arrived as yet. They do not seem to be there before us in nonsensory form simply as a result of our being muscularly prepared to respond to them. Therefore, two other hypotheses concerning the sense of real presence of unperceived items are worth mentioning.
1. James may be on the right track in looking toward what else, besides the nonsensory phenomenological presence of the special item of interest, is part of the content of the same state of consciousness. Part of the surrounding environment does have sensory presence in the state of consciousness and the stimulus information picked up and resonated to by the perceptual system may include informational features that specify properties of the “unperceived” object. Thus, Gibson (1966) writes: Organs of perception are sometimes stimulated in such a way that they are not specified in consciousness. Perception cannot be “extrasensory,” if that means without any input; it can only be so if that means without awareness of the visual, auditory, or other quality of the input. An example of this is the “obstacle sense” of the blind, which is felt as “facial vision” but is actually auditory echo detection. The blind man “senses” the wall in front of him without realizing what sense has been stimulated. In short, there can be sensationless perception, but not informationless perception. (p. 2)
So too, within a single modality. Of all that which one is having awareness of at any moment by means of the visual perceptual system, only some of it is qualitatively present. The surfaces seen usually obstruct photic energy that would otherwise project to the point of observation from parts of other surfaces. Yet those partially occluded surfaces are perceived not as fragmented but as extending behind the surfaces that are partially obstructing the light reflected from them (Gibson 1979/1986; Michotte, Thinès, and Crabbé, 1964/1991).
2. The awareness of unperceivable objects with a strong sense of their real presence may result from the functioning of internal “loops” within the respective perceptual system. For example, the visual system “can also operate without the constraints of the stimulus flux . . . . The visual system visualizes” (Gibson 1979/1986: 256). And it can do so independently of the stimulus information currently being picked up by the perceptual system. Since, in such cases, none of the current stimulus information specifies properties of the object being experienced, its visualization (whether qualitative or not) with a sense of reality will depend on whether tests of reality are performed. For whatever cause, if
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such tests are suspended, then the object will seem to be really present before one. As Gibson (1979/1986), whose account this is, states, The dreamer is asleep and cannot make the ordinary tests for reality. The drugtaker is hoping for a vision and does not want to make tests of reality. There are many possible reasons why the hallucinasting patient does not scrutinize what he says he sees, does not walk around it or take another look at it or test it. (p. 257)
Gibson is speaking here of cases in which the visual system gives awareness that is qualitative and he is discussing the fact that this sometimes occurs in the absence of corresponding stimulus information yet with a sense of the object’s real presence. However, a perceptual system also sometimes gives nonqualitative awareness of objects. Presumably, such awareness can occur too when the perceptual system operates without the constraints of the stimulus flux. An activity of the visual or another perceptual system can give awareness of objects without the perceptual system’s also producing sense-contents corresponding to them yet there can be a sense of their real presence.
. In the distinctively religious sphere of experience Many people “possess the objects of their [religious] belief, not in the form of mere conceptions which the intellect accepts as true, but rather in the form of quasi-sensible realities directly apprehended” (p. 64). In his lecture on the felt real presence of the unperceivable, James (1902/1982) considers religious experiences, too, that involve a sense of real presence. There is, as well, an important category of human experience wherein the individual (a) is aware of himself or herself as standing in a relation of directly apprehending what he or she considers to be the divine or some feature or aspect of the divine and (b) takes this relation of direct apprehension to be one in which the object of religious belief has real presence albeit of a nonqualitative kind. I mentioned in the preceding section a person who continued to think about the same unperceived and unperceivable “It” over the years but the “electric current” of its presence had somehow, unfortunately, gotten turned off. His description of “It” was as an “Absolute Reality” existing beyond the perceived and perceivable world. But he distinguished “It” from a wholly unknowable reality. For he could enter into a firsthand relation with it. There could be a kind of nonsensory communication between them by which the man drew strength and vitality at difficult times. He had a very strong sense of the real presence
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to him of a higher mind – before he lost the ability to make contact, perhaps because he no longer believed in its existence as strongly as before. Similarly, as James’s examples show, people report communicating with God, usually in the form, it would seem, of their sharing thoughts with God. That is, there occurs what seems to be a “joint or mutual consciousness” (to quote the OED). See my article on the original use of the English word consciousness to refer to the occurrent sharing of knowledge of something with one or more other individuals (Natsoulas 1991). To be conscious would be, as it were, to be “scious con,” that is, to have an apprehension of some actual or apparent fact along with someone else. Relevantly to my present topic, the OED quotes from literature as follows to illustrate the use of the word consciousness in its earliest meaning. In 1681, someone wrote of “consciousness, or mutual knowledge of persons in their worship.” James (1902/1982) mentions a report that suggests the OED’s first, interpersonal sense of consciousness may apply, and will surely seem to the person to apply, to his or her experience of God’s presence. A boy of seventeen stated, Sometimes as I go to church, I sit down, join in the service, and before I go out I feel as if God was with me, right side of me, singing and reading the Psalms with me . . . . And then again I feel as if I could sit beside him, and put my arms around him, kiss him, etc. When I am taking Holy Communion at the alter, I try to get with him and generally feel his presence. (p. 71)
People sometimes report they hear the voice of God speaking to them. But, more often, communications from God take the apparent form of states of consciousness produced by God in one, God having awareness of states referring to him and occurring in one’s stream along with the states he produces there. Thus, in some religious experiences, it is by means of one’s stream of consciousness itself that God answers one’s thoughts addressed to him. A young man stated, “God is quite real to me. I talk to him and often get answers. Thoughts sudden and distinct from any I have been entertaining come to my mind after asking God for his direction” (James 1902/1982: 71). Indeed, James suggests that a self-report containing the following sentence epitomizes the religious experience of “thousands of unpretending Christians”: “He answers me again and again, often in words so clearly spoken that it seems my outer ear must have carried the tone, but generally in strong mental impressions” (James 1902/1982: 70). This person adds that these inner communications from God usually have for content a text of Scripture directly relevant to the practical concerns with which the person is currently preoccupied.
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James (1902/1982) comments that, among those people who experience the objects of their religious belief as “quasi-sensible realities directly apprehended,” their sense of the real presence of the objects to them may fluctuate and, concomitantly, their faith alternates between warmth and coldness. He adds that every religious person has likely had, in a time of crisis, his or her faith strengthened by “a directer vision of the truth, a direct perception, perhaps, of a living God’s existence” (p. 68). A case of what James is here referring to can be found in the correspondence of James Russell Lowell: As I was speaking, the whole system rose up before me like a vague destiny looming from the Abyss. I never before so clearly felt the Spirit of God in me and around me. The whole room seemed to me full of God. The air seemed to waver to and fro with the presence of Something I knew not what. I spoke with the calmness and the clearness of a prophet. (James 1902/1982: 66)
In similar self-reports from other people, James finds mention of (a) the nonperceptual character of how the divine “appears” to them at such moments and (b) the immediate sense of the reality of what is “appearing.” Indeed, when a certain clergyman described the evident reality of what he experienced, he stated God was there no less than he himself was and he, the clergyman, was, if anything, the less real of the two. The clergyman had a greater immediate sense of God’s realness than of his own. Here are two relevant comments corresponding to the above two points.
1. An extremely explicit statement of God’s real but nonsensory presence appears in a self-report of an experience lasting four or five minutes that James classifies as “mystical”: In this ecstasy of mine God had neither form, color, odor, nor taste; moreover . . . the feeling of his presence was accompanied with no determinate localization. It was rather as if my personality had been transformed by the presence of a spiritual spirit. But the more I seek words to express this intimate intercourse, the more I feel the impossibility of describing the thing by any of our usual images. At bottom the expression most apt to render what I felt is this: God was present, though invisible; he fell under no one of my senses, yet my consciousness perceived him. (James 1902/1982: 68)
This man also described his experience in terms of being “penetrated . . . altogether” with God’s goodness and power. This statement may suggest some spatial localization for the real presence the man felt. That is, God was “here,” in me, rather than “there” in the environment. However, the man might have
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felt God to be everywhere – which is how, frequently, mystical experiences have been described.
2. The sense of God’s reality as being greater than one’s own suggests a possibly fruitful line of investigation. Does “perceiving” the unperceivable in instances of religious experience tend to be accompanied by “depersonalization?” The latter term refers to a kind of experience in which one remains aware of who one is yet feels oneself altered in some way and somehow less real than normal. In describing depersonalization in The Psychology of Anomalous Experience, Graham Reed (1972) writes of it as an “uncanny sense of unreality” (p. 127); the individual “no longer feels himself to be real by comparison with his environment” (p. 129). Reed brings out that many people occasionally undergo experiences of depersonalization. A survey of college students Reed mentions found depersonalization associated with stressful situations, especially social situations involving embarrassment. However, Reed does not speak of the suffering of one’s own apparent realness from the heightened realness of another object of one’s current awareness. Yet this is not an unreasonable expectation given Reed’s interpretation of depersonalization as owed to an “anomalous emphasis”: an unusual change in how attention is distributed among the objects of one’s current states of consciousness. Reed also comments on, among other matters, certain instances in which the experience of depersonalization is recurrent and part of a depressive mental disorder. Such patients interpret their disturbing depersonalization as an indication of their being “cut off from God’s grace” (p. 128). This is likely also a feature of certain states of consciousness wherein the “perceived” presence of a diety evokes strong negative emotion. Another report provided by James, concerning “intimate communion with the divine”, has some comparative pertinence to the sense of one’s seeming to be less real than the divine. A man described a number of his religious experiences as involving “the temporary obliteration of the conventionalities which usually surround and cover my life” and “a temporary loss of my identity.” He may or may not have experienced himself as less real than the divine, but he did speak of an alteration in self-awareness: a change for the duration of the experience in what he felt himself to be. Reed would not consider such experiences to be instances of depersonalization; for, Reed insists, we retain an awareness of our personal identity in depersonalization. Rather, the man may have had mystical experiences in which he temporarily lost the sense of himself as a separate being. His account of the experiences has him taking in great expanses of the natural world while standing on a high mountain summit – which is
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not an unusual kind of setting mentioned in the self-reports and writings of nature mystics. Indeed, in James’s later lectures in the series, the ones concerning mysticism, he quotes (p. 394) reports in which one loses not only the sense of one’s own separateness but also the sense of the presence of God as a separate personality. Instead, one experiences himself and God, both, as being a unity with the totality of nature. In effect, God is nature and so is the person himself. Compared to the “ordinary” experiences of God’s immediate real presence, God and oneself are “lost” yet they continue to have existence in the form of a total reality of supreme power and love with which one has spontaneously merged. Following James’s definition of religious experience, perhaps we should say this: As the experience just described proceeds, it varies or changes from the religious kind to another kind. Recall that James’s definition requires one to apprehend oneself standing in relation to the divine. This does occur in some mystical experiences that involve a sense of one’s having merged with the divine. As James (1902/1982) states, “In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness” (p. 419). We continue to have awareness of ourselves, now as part of a divine whole. However, if all that one is aware of is nature, and so neither of God nor of self, then one is not apprehending oneself in the way James’s definition of religious experience would require, no matter how much awe the apprehension of the totality of nature may elicit. The objection may be forthcoming that my point depends on how nature is experienced; that is, nature may be apprehended as itself the divine. However, in such a case, the second term in the definitionally required relationship would still be missing. In the component states of consciousness that would qualify the experience as mystical yet not religious, there would be awareness of the divine as such but there would be no awareness of oneself as apprehending it, because one does not distinguish oneself from that whole which one takes as nature and divine. Admittedly, as this mystical experience proceeds, it will include – see below James’s fifth property of mystical experience – the occurrence of some states of consciousness that are inner awarenesses of other states of consciousness. However, inner awareness need not involve the appropriation of its objects, that is, the appropriation of the states of consciousness that it apprehends. Instead, inner awareness may be, so to speak, “anonymous” – as David Woodruff Smith (1989: 94) points out occurs in some types of meditation: whose aims are to eliminate all awareness of self. In such cases, states of consciousness occur and inner awareness of them is not, for example, an awareness of one’s see-
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ing a chair, although the latter is what is taking place. In that kind of mystical experience, just the seeing, and not anyone who is seeing, is apprehended. Similarly, James (1902/1982: 400) quotes from a Hindu work on yoga that describes mystical experiences in which “no feeling of I” exists. However, to know later on of this absence, there must have been at the time of the mystical experience, I should think, some inner awareness of what was taking place in the stream. Moreover, given what is remembered, this inner awareness must have been anonymous; that is, there must have been no appropriation of states of consciousness to oneself – which is commonly a part of inner awareness. If there had been such appropriation at the time of the mystical experience, the experience would not be remembered later on as lacking an “I-feeling”.
. Mystical experience Earlier, here and elsewhere, I observed that the qualitative – the feeling aspect belonging to all states of consciousness – has an important priority for James over the conceptual or articulable. Having examined numerous self-reports on the felt real presence of the unperceivable, James proffers in his third lecture a brief defense of mysticism over rationalism that rests upon a feature of human nature which favors feeling over word. With reference to the metaphysical and religious sphere, James argues that what we accept as articulate reasons for what we believe or disbelieve in depends on our inarticulate feelings as to what is real and what is unreal. Our impulsive belief is here always what sets up the original body of truth, and our articulately verbalized philosophy is but its showy translation into formulas. The unreasoned and immediate assurance is the deep thing in us, the reasoned argument is but a surface exhibition. Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow. If a person feels the presence of the living God after the fashion shown by my quotations, your critical arguments, be they never so superior, will vainly set themselves to change his faith. (James 1902/1982: 74)
James adds that the primacy of the intuitive sense of what is real – over the other deliverances from the total brain process that take the form of reasons and arguments – is simply a fact. That is, James has not yet said it is better that human nature is as it is in this regard. However, James explicitly claims that the part of mental life of which rationalism can give an account is “relatively superficial.” And he explains the high prestige of rationalism as owed to its articulateness, argumentativeness, and logicality. Also, James describes
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the rationalist approach to mental life as loquacious, clever, belittling, logicchopping, and as setting the rules in accordance with its own purposes. Those adopting a rationalist approach have their own primary feelings concerning what reality consists of, and they construct arguments showing that the contrary feelings about reality are false. Or they simply demand that one rationally demonstrate to them, to their satisfaction, that those contrary feelings are true. James (1902/1982) begins his two lectures on mysticism, late in the series, with the promise that they will wound up broken threads from previous lectures. Thus, the religious experiences under discussion have their “root and centre in mystical states of consciousness” (p. 379). Such states are to be distinguished by their instantiating the first two of the following five properties, and usually the third and fourth property as well. The fifth property, listed here separately, is mentioned by James in his comments on the fourth property.
1. Ineffability. A “mystical” state of consciousness possesses inarticulable content; an adequate report of its content cannot be given in words. James is proposing, I take it, that an important part of the total content of the state is ineffable, whereas some parts may be expressible. People are able to report on their mystical states up to a point after which words fail them. James (1902/1982) states, “This incommunicableness of the transport is the keynote of all mysticism” (p. 405). I believe understanding the altered states of consciousness would deepen from systematic investigation into what exactly is or is not communicable about mystical experiences. Among James’s most interesting pages begin with this sentence: “In spite of the repudiation of articulate selfdescription, mystical states in general assert a pretty distinct theoretic drift” (pp. 415–416). Toward the end of these pages, this intriguing statement appears: “Not conceptual speech, but music rather, is the element through which we are best spoken to by mystical truth” (pp. 420–421). Are the contents of mystical states fully communicable, then, with the proper form of music, the kind of music that, sans words, succeeds in conveying “ontological messages”? 2. Noetic quality. Its ineffability does not mean that a mystical state of consciousness is noncognitive. It is inaccurate to characterize any such state as lacking intentionality. James’s statement that mystical states are “more like states of feeling than like states of intellect” (p. 380) does not imply that mystical states of consciousness are not mental apprehensions. Any person who witttingly undergoes a mystical state of consciousness would testify to having been aware of something, at least something found to be completely indescribable. Not only are mystical states cognitive; also, they usually seem, to inner
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awareness, authoritative apprehensions of deeper truths than the articulable. Indeed, James goes further still in a footnote: “Consciousness of illumination is for us the essential mark of ‘mystical’ states” (p. 408). Absent an impression of new depths of truth being revealed, however incommunicable, the experience would not count as mystical.
3. Transiency. Using the term a mystical state of consciousness, James has in mind not just a single one of the successive pulses of mentality constituting a stream of consciousness one after another. In effect, he distinguishes between mystical experiences and the individual durational components of the stream constitutive of them. A mystical state is a fairly long temporal section of the stream of consciousness. James speaks of mystical experiences that last as much as an hour or two. Mystical experiences consist of a sequence of mystical states of consciousness. The latter sentence is consistent with James’s thinking although the verbal distinction is mine. With this distinction, one can raise regarding the composition of a mystical experience such questions as: Are all states of consciousness constitutive of a mystical experience mystical states of consciousness? During a mystical experience, are nonmystical states interspersed among the mystical states in some pattern? 4. Passivity. James writes mystical experiences are usually felt by inner awareness as conditions of passivity; one’s will seems in abeyance while they last. It may even seem one’s stream is under the control of someone or something else. 5. Memorabilty. According to James, some memory of the content of a mystical experience always remains, together with a conviction of the experience’s importance. This fact, if it is one, would entail, as I see it, that at least some of the states of consciousness that constitute a mystical experience must be objects of inner awareness. If no awareness of a mystical experience took place when it occurred, the experience would have no later memorability, in my view. Assuming James’s conception of inner awareness, requiring a separate state of consciousness in every case, it would follow that, among the states defining a mystical experience, states of consciousness are interspersed that are inner awarenesses of them. These states of consciousness, which are directed on other states in the same stream, would be of the same general kind as states that are inner awarenesses of mental states such as anger or fatigue. James (1890/1950a: 190) suggested that there is, when these inner awarenesses are occurring, a considerable modification of the anger or fatigue of which they are the awarenesses. That is, these inner awarenesses are themselves weaker states
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of anger or fatigue because, James presumably holds, each has for an additional focus the one or more states of consciousness that are its objects. Analogously, a mystical experience would be expected to wax and wane in some respects with the frequency of inner awareness. As mentioned, not all mystical experiences are considered religious experiences. James estimates only half of mysticism is religious mysticism. To be religious experiences, mystical experiences must be consistent with James’s definition of religion quoted in the introduction to the present article. An experience wherein one feels with awe the surroundings to be full of undecipherable meaning is a mystical experience but not, ipso facto, a religious experience. Here is how James expresses the paticular metaphysical insight common to all his mystical experiences upon inhaling nitrous oxide: It is as if the opposites of the world, whose contradictoriness and conflict make all our difficulties and troubles, were melted into a unity. Not only do they, as contrasted species, belong to one and the same genus, but one of the species, the nobler and better one, is itself the genus, and so soaks up and absorbs its opposite into itself. (James 1902/1982: 388; original italics)
These experiences fell short of being the religious kind. However, James allows drug-produced mystical experiences can be religious experiences of the kind he quoted reports of in his third lecture. That is, a sense of the divine’s real presence may occur as well in states of consciousness produced by drugs, although it never happened in James’s case. I stated above, “If there had not been awareness of the state when it occurred, it would have no later memorability.” My statement may seem contradicted by Saint Teresa’s reports on her mystical experiences. She writes of an extreme form of passivity wherein the natural action of all her faculties is suspended. Although “the soul is fully awake as regards God” during her union with God, she adds that “she is as it were deprived of every feeling, and even if she would, she could not think of any single thing” (p. 408). But, I ask, how could she tell us all these things about what happend during her mystical experiences unless she had inner awareness at the time? James makes no comment on this score, but he clearly thinks of her mystical experiences of God as religious, which implies – as indeed her own report does – that she apprehended herself during the experiences to stand in a relation to the divine and was aware of taking up a certain personal attitude toward God. She could not have been so self-aware, I should think, unless she apprehended during a mystical experience some of the states of consciousness that
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occurred therein. Compare the following statement of hers. It is certainly not a description of someone blind to her mystical states as they occurred. It was granted me to perceive in one instant how all things are seen and contained in God. I did not perceive them in their proper form, and nevertheless the view I had of them was of a sovereign clearness, and has remained vividly impressed upon my soul . . . . The view was so subtile and delicate that the understanding cannot grasp it. (James 1902/1982: 411)
James is impressed by the exactness of the distinctions that Saint Teresa uses in her descriptions of her experiences and takes the quality of her reports to indicate the reality of the experiences, as opposed to her having come later to believe that they had occurred in the form that she describes. That is, she gives to James indication of having been a good witness to her mystical experiences. Among James’s conclusions from his discussion of mystical experience is one of direct relevance to the discussion in the present article. He suggests that mystical experiences constitute another, second “kind” of consciousness. I believe that James thinks of them in this way because he believes that they may be a way of apprehending reality more broadly and completely than we ordinarily do. However, from his consistent perspective, there are only streams of consciousness as he has defined these. Sometimes – much more often according to Varieties than according to The Principle – there may flow simultaneously a second stream of consciousness in the one person. Otherwise, there exists no “other” consciousness. Rather, the identical states of consciousness make up a stream that make up a mystical experience. A mystical experience is a temporal section of someone’s stream. This section may markedly differ in its contents from other sections of the same stream, but it is no less made up exclusively of states of consciousness that posssess both a cognitive and feeling (or qualitative) aspect. And it is no less produced pulse by successive pulse by the total brain process. This is not to deny, neither with nor against James, that states of consciousness vary in the breadth of their apprehension and in their veridicality, their conformance with reality. James is suggesting that it is not pre-decided that a mystical experience will be less veridical than a nonmystical experience, nor that it will not be more veridical in some cases. He states, It must always remain an open question whether mystical states may not possibly be such superior points of view, windows through which the mind looks out upon a more extensive and inclusive world . . . The counting in of that wider world of meanings, and the serious dealing with it, might, in spite of all
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the perplexity, be indispensible stages in our approach to the final fullness of the truth. (James 1902/1982: 428)
. Final comment There is at least one large, highly relevant topic that requires the attention of a separate article: the role that James assigns in Varieties to what he calls “the subconscious self.” He states that “the ‘more’ with which in religious experience we feel ourselves connected is on its hither side the subconscious continuation of our conscious life” (p. 512). There is in all of us – James now wants to say – a kind of secondary consciousness that has important effects on the main stream of consciousness. He states, “There is actually and literally more life in our total soul than we are at any time aware of ” (p. 511). Thus, a part of the total brain process that is held to be producing, pulse by successive pulse, our primary consciousness produces a second stream that has effects on the first stream. Or is it the neurophysiological causes of the second stream that also affect the primary stream? The latter notion would seem to be more consistent with The Principles. James speaks in Varieties of a second world of experiences that sometimes impacts on the world of ordinary consciousness. And he is now able to say that some of our states of consciousness that make up our primary stream “come” from a certain mental source external to that stream. More consistently, however, I should think, states of consciousness do not literally incur, or run in, from outside a stream, but the part of the total brain process that produces the secondary stream is a determinant as well of which states of consciousness are produced in the primary stream. Moreover, the secondary effects on the primary stream may well appear firsthand to have a source that is exerting control over it. In religious experiences, this control is felt to be divine and, according to James, may indeed have its ultimate source in the divine. Thus, the focal point of the divine’s contact with us would be our total brain process or the secondary consciousness that this process produces to flow along with the primary stream.
References Gibson, J. J. (1966). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gibson, J. J. (1979/1986). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. James, W. (1890/1950a). The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1. New York: Holt.
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James, W. (1890/1950b). The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2. New York: Holt. James, W. (1902/1982) The Varieties of Religious Experience. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Michotte, A., Thinès, G., & Crabbé, G. (1964/1991). Amodal completion of perceptual structures. In G. Thinès, A. Costall, & G. Butterworth (Eds.), Michotte’s Experimental Phenomenology of Perception. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Natsoulas, T. (1991). The concept of consciousness1: The interpersonal meaning. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 21, 63–89. Natsoulas, T. (1998). On the intrinsic nature of states of consciousness: James’s ubiquitous feeling aspect. Review of General Psychology, 2, 123–152. Natsoulas, T. (2000–2001a). The stream of consciousness: XXII. Apprehension and the feeling aspect. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 20, 275–295. Natsoulas, T. (2000–2001b). The stream of consciousness: XXIII. Contra the Intellectualists (first part). Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 20, 383–403. Reed, G. (1972). The Psychology of Anomalous Experience. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Woodruff Smith, D. (1989). The Circle of Acquaintance. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
JB[v.20020404] Prn:23/11/2004; 13:45
F: Z131IND.tex / p.1 (61-151)
Index
A abstract objects 309 adaptation 5, 7, 11, 38, 87 adaptivity, emotional 3 adrenal 94 affect logic 23ff. affect-congruent effects 58–9 affected self 251ff. affect-incongruent effects 58–9 affective neuroscience 23ff., 81ff. affective stimuli 56–74 affordances x, 160, 171, 203–5 aftereffect 5, 6, 18, 19 agency 50, 55, 70, 157–79, 182, 184, 188–92, 247, 252, 267, 287–89, 295, 299 aggression 38–41, 53, 55, 76, 78, 79, 86, 141 agitation 60 Alexithymia Provoked Response Questionnaire 259ff. alexithymia xii, 243–284 alpha motoneurons 160ff. amygdala 29, 86, 90, 94, 101, 108, 115, 131, 167 anger 86, 92, 95, 106, 115, 125–6, 141, 150, 237, 255, 298, 321–2 anxiety 3, 12, 13, 16–18, 31, 38, 49, 51, 85, 138, 234, 237–9, appetitive phase 166–7 approach/avoidance 60 arousal 27–30, 33, 35, 39, 45, 54, 57, 62–69, 76, 80, 85, 167, 169, 173, 249–51, 256, 259, 264, 272–4, attention 28–29, 33, 37–42, 48, 60–61, 65, 70, 74, 100, 114, 122, 126, 131–2, 159, 175, 189,
197–213, 219, 226, 232–4, 249–56, 259, 263–4, 269–70, 274, 303, 317, 324 attributional triggers 28ff. autonomic activation (during imagined action) 161 autonomic nervous system 94, 161, 166, 174, 250
B basal ganglia 210ff. basic emotions 36, 243–4, 247, 251, 260, 268, 274–5, 277, 280–83, 291, 306 behavioral facilitation system 167 belonging 95, 102, body gamma loop 160ff. butterfly-effect 41
C CARE system 32ff. cerebellum 89, 172, 179, 211, 213 channel functions 26ff. chaos 12, 49, 50, 55 cholinergic neurons 84 cingulate 34, 86, 91, 170, 211 clonal selection 84 cognitivism (in ethics and emotion studies) 287ff. corticospinal excitability 172 covert action 157ff. creative functioning test 8, 14, 21st creativity 4, 8, 9, 14, 16–19, 99 curiosity 24, 31, 38, 102, 167 cutaneous image 169
JB[v.20020404] Prn:23/11/2004; 13:45
F: Z131IND.tex / p.2 (151-233)
Index
D defenses 3, 9, 12, 14, 30 denial of emotion 267 denial 11, 220, 253–4, 261–8, 271, 273–4, 278 depression see depressive depressive 13–17, 32, 41, 45. 317 detached self 251ff. disgust 36, 95, 96, 115, 119 disinhibition 211 dominance 56–74 dopamine 26, 30, 41, 55, 86, 115, 167, 210–11 double dissociation disorders 202ff. E egocentric frame of reference 159ff. embodiment ix, xii, 27, 106, 166, 174, 176, 181–95, 270, 290, 298 emotional context 56ff. enaction 181ff. enactive theories 181ff. estrogen 163 evaluation 46, 57–62, 66–74, 126, 174, 189, 255–6, 287–8, 298 event-related potential 121–135 explanatory gap 137ff., 193ff. external attribution 255 extraversion 99, 284 F face x, 10–18, 52, 61–2, 76, 80ff., 121–135 FEAR system 31ff. fear 95ff., 125ff. feedback 56ff. feeling, in William James’s sense 308ff. field dynamics 25ff. first-person perspective 220ff. focal self 251ff. free will xiii, 197ff. Freud 217ff. frontal cortex 27, 29, 33–4, 54, 167, 170–1, 194, 211–12, 213–14,
frustration 86 fusimotor system 172ff.
G GABAergic interneurons 173ff. gamma motoneurons 157, 160–1, 167, 172–7 gating 211 glutamate 86 glutamatergic computations 25–7 goals 187ff. grouping of responses 200ff. guilt 36, 92, 95–6, 115, 232–7
H happiness 30, 95–6, 125ff., 293–4 hard problem 137ff., 193ff. higher-order perception 140ff. histaminergic neurons 84 histrionic 13 homeostasis 85, 87, 92, 167, 190 hope 167 Huntington’s disease 210ff. hypothalamus 84, 86, 90, 94, 118, 163–9, 201
I immune system 81ff. imprint-hypothesis 47 inhibition of the alpha motoneurons 172 innate motor programs 162 inner awareness 224ff. insult 57 intellectualism 303 intentionality 27ff., 55–7, 87, 157–71, 178, 181, 193, 226, 307–8, 320 International Affective Photo System 57, 62ff. introspection 243ff. isolation 12, 14, 17, 108
JB[v.20020404] Prn:23/11/2004; 13:45
F: Z131IND.tex / p.3 (233-309)
Index
K knowledge argument 137ff.
L language x, 81, 101–118, 139, 142, 145–51, 177, 183, 194 Libet’s veto 197ff. limbic system 49, 102–3, 165 Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 260ff. locus coeruleus 83, 96 lordosis 163ff.
M memory 23, 27, 29, 37–42, 46–8, 56ff., 72, 102, 105, 107, 122, 133, 151, 169, 184, 190, 194, 200, 204, 211–15, 240, 279, 283, 321 meta-contrast technique 9 microgenesis 4, 21 misconstrued emotions 217ff. monoaminergic neurons 84 moral agency 287ff. moral concept mastery 287ff. motor imagery 160ff. motor intentionality 171 motor system 157ff., 174–5, 214 motor-evoked potentials 172 motor-tone setting circuits 162 muscle spindles 157, 160ff. muscle stretch reflex 160ff. mysticism 303, 318–22
N neural Darwinism 81ff. neurotensin 86 neurotransmitter pathways 162ff. non-linear dynamics 23ff., 40ff. norepinephrine 26, 83, 86 norms (social and moral) 287ff. nucleus accumbens 86 nurturance 86
O object mode (of self) 250ff. obsessive-compulsive 12, 212 olfactory image 169 opioids 86 oxytocin 86
P PAG 86, 170 palmar flexion (induced) 171 PANIC system 32ff., 85ff. Parkinson’s disease 210ff. perceptgenesis 3, 4, 5, 9–11, 13–14, 17–21 perception 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 17, 19, 23, 25, 27, 37, 42, 57, 59–65, 67, 69, 71–5, 122–7, 131, 140, 183–6, 193, 198, 200–09, 218, 221, 224–40, 251–2, 166–7, 292, 297–9, 109–13, 316 personality 4, 13, 20, 34, 66, 75–9, 91, 97–9, 103, 116–19, 188, 213, 223, 249, 258, 282–4, 316, 318, 325–6 phenomenal consciousness 137ff. phenomenology xi, xii, 48, 159, 209, 217ff., 284, 287–8, 298, 303, 325 phobia 18–19, 31 pituitary 94, 118 planned action schema 165 plasticity of emotional systems 29ff. PLAY system 32–33, 85ff. positive approbation 66–74 post-traumatic stress disorder 30ff. preconscious 5, 13, 17, 168, 217, 220–22, 225, 227–30, 233, 238–9 prefrontal cortex 211 see also frontal cortex pre-supplemental motor area 210 problem-space theory 189 projection 13–14, 17 prolactin 86 proprioception 157 proprioceptive image 169ff.
JB[v.20020404] Prn:23/11/2004; 13:45
F: Z131IND.tex / p.4 (309-385)
Index
psychoanalysis 12, 21, 37, 54, 228 psychology of religion 303ff. Q qualia 137ff. R RAGE system 31–2, 85ff. readiness potential 199ff. reflective consciousness 159, 170 reflexivity 248ff. regression 14, 17 religion 303ff. religions experience 303ff. representation 246ff. repression 13–14, 17, 217, 229–31, 236–40 rod-and-frame test 6, 18 routinization of action 201ff. S sadness 24, 30, 36–8, 54, 59, 76, 95–6, 126, 273 sciousness, in William James’s sense 315 secondary emotions 94ff. second-order awareness 244ff. SEEKING system 30, 33, 85, 96, 99, 101–2, 166–8 selective attention 202ff. SELF (as distinct brain system) 162 self vi, x, xi, 5–7, 10–14, 19–20, 33, 42–3, 47, 57, 61–4, 73–4, 90, 110, 112, 141, 157–9, 162, 165–70, 174–6, 188–90, 207, 219, 223, 243–280, 308, 312, 315–24 self-assessment manikin 62ff. Self-Consciousness Scale 259ff.
self-image 12, 61 semiotics 243ff. sense impressions 137ff. serotonin 26, 86 sex 30, 39, 66–72, 85, 92, 108, 163, 165–75, 253, 255, 258, 267–80 shame 36 signs 244ff. somatization 264ff. somatosensory systems 157, 171, 173, 176, 214 spiral after-effect test 5, 6, 16, 19 state functions 26ff. steroids 86 Stroop color word test 5 subjectivity 3, 7, 11, 17, 18, 249–50 subliminal event related potentials 124ff. substance P 86 Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count 243ff. supervisory attentional system 211 surprise 95ff., 125ff. T task-switching 189 temporal lobe 28 temporal thickness 169–70 Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 259ff. U unconscious 217ff. utilization behaviour 204 V valence 66–74 vasopressin 86 ventral tegmental area
86, 167
