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Experiencing emotions

How does the brain allow us to experience emotions?

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EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 2

Experiencing emotions

How does the brain allow us to experience emotions?

Introduction

Experiences of emotion in an individual emerge from psychological environments and

are also affected neurobiological processes. This paper, therefore, reviews what an individual

feels and the content which will make up the experience of emotions and how the

neurobiological processes of the brain will affect the perception of experiences. The paper will

also describe how the experience of emotions will emerge in psychological terms.

Overtime scholars have taken two main scientific approaches to emotional experience

which include traditional theories of emotion and biological naturalism. The traditional theories

of emotions are based on the assumption that experiences of emotion will be a result of physical

processes which occur in the body or brain to be specific and will, therefore, be explained from

the events which occur in the physical world. Traditional theories of emotion thus include

materialistic theories which are theories which differ much on specifics of how emotions will be

formed and how they will manifest but all share common assumptions that explanations of

emotional experiences will only need an analysis of cause and effects (Trampe, Quoidbach, and

Taquet, 2015). Another set of traditional theories of emotion is the behaviorist approaches to

emotion. These approaches thus define experiences out of what that already exists by

characterizing emotions as nothing but certain behaviors. In the behaviorist approach,

understanding emotions will, therefore, involve coming to terms with the causes of such

emotional behaviors. Identity approaches of emotion thus identify emotional experiences as

bodily states or activities of neurochemical systems or brain circuits to action plans or to a

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 3

certain extent a combination between the body and the brain (Scarantino, 2012). Traditional

theories of emotion also include functionalist approaches to emotion which will try to describe

emotion through the causal relations it has immediately. In this perspective, two experiences will

thus be of similar types if they are caused by a similar psychological situation or are defined by

similar behavioral consequences (Anderson, 2007). For example, a person may show anger if

another person is to blame which may be as a result of antagonistic behavior.

Biological naturalism is also another approach to emotional experience. Biological

naturalism is, therefore, a philosophical approach which opposes the traditional views of the

mind by offering a scientific approach to emotion experience (Hodges, 2013). In reference to

biological naturalism, adequate accounts of emotional experience will thus require more than

specifications of the causes and thus need content description which is what a person will feel

which will help distinguish a given experience from another. Biological naturalism approach to

emotional experience also posits that given content can also not be entirely reduced to what

causes it (Brooks, Shablack, Gendron, Satpute, Parrish and Lindquist, 2017). Emotional

experiences just like any other conscious states will thus be system-level properties of a brain.

This can therefore be explained through neuronal activities just as other system-level properties

such as digestion are properties of the gastrointestinal processes. Experiencing emotions can,

therefore, be explained completely through neurobiological characteristics of the brain in that

emotions can actually be inferred to the activities of the brain but emotions are not exclusively

equitable to any single feature for example biochemical properties and neural circuitry or even

synaptic changes (Harrison, Gray, Gianaros, and Critchley, 2010). This means that emotions

cannot be inferred fully to any material cause. All conscious events will thus have both

phenomenological and neurobiological features. The study of brain activity or analysis of mental

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 4

processes on their own will therefore fail to provide adequate scientific accounts of emotional

experiences. The Biological naturalism approach is also based on the concept that conscious

states will only exist only on the first-person point of view (Hoemann, Gendron and Barrett,

2017). Conscious states are thus ontologically subjective which will mean that they will naturally

exist when they will be experienced by agents which are conscious and can never be redefined

independently from those who experience them. It would thus be impossible to measure more

easily observable emotional aspects such as vocal acoustics, facial movements and voluntary

behaviors so as to deduce subjective aspects of emotion. To really understand emotion it would

thus be necessary to ask subjects what they experience. Through biological naturalism, scientists

should thus concentrate on subjective experiences so as to understand the emotional experience.

Focusing on the material underpinnings of experiences may thus not reveal full information. To

describe the process of how the brain allows us to experience emotions it is therefore important

to understand how the experiences of emotions will emerge from more basic processes using a

psychological framework.

The Phenomenological Contents of Emotion Experience

Core Effect

At its core, every mental representation of emotion will thus be a state of pleasure or

displeasure which can be generally termed as core affect. The states of pleasure or displeasure

associated with emotions are thus termed as core affect because such experiences will be present

at birth, the ability to experience pleasure or displeasure will be present in all human beings, and

that all measures of emotion which are instrument based will show evidence of a given persons

unpleasant or pleasant state or its intensity, for example, vocal acoustics or expressive behavior

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 5

and peripheral nervous systems activation (Kagan, 2018). States of displeasure or pleasure are

also termed as core affect because they constitute neuropsychological barometers of how an

individual will relate to their environments at a given point of their lives and will also form the

core consciousness of individuals (Franks, 2016). There is therefore much empirical evidence

which shows that mental representations of emotions will either have displeasure or pleasure at

their foundation. Different people will thus give different explicit accounts of unpleasant or

pleasant feelings using different levels of self-rating scales (Scarantino, 2012). Various scales

which are meant to measure discrete emotions including anger, fear, and sadness also show

evidence of common foundations of unpleasant and pleasant feelings. However, despite its

importance core affect cannot be the sufficient measure of mental representation of emotion in

itself. All experiences of emotions are thus intentional states in that they are affective states that

relate to something (LeDoux and Brown, 2017). All descriptions of emotion experiences must

thus go beyond displeasure or pleasure so as to be able to provide systematic accounts the

phenomenological differences between all the emotions which we may take as psychologically

distinct which may include sadness, anger, fear, pride, fear, joy and awe .

Arousal Content

In some instances, mental representations of emotions will be made up of arousal -based

content. This can include the feelings of the body or mind being active such as being attentive as

opposed to feeling that the body or mind is lazy or still state (Hoemann, Gendron and Barrett,

2017). Felt activation may therefore not possess a one – on – one correspondence to actual

physiologic activity. However, despite the much value derived from describing the mental

presentations of emotions appraisal, descriptions alone may not be sufficient to give accounts of

what a person may feel when they are experiencing emotions .

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 6

The Neural Reference spaces for the experience of Emotions.

In the present days, though it would not be plausible to reduce emotional experiences as a

result of neurobiological processes and provide explanations of how neural activity may insatiate

specific emotional contents, it will be possible to provide preliminary sketches of brain areas

which will be involved during the experience of emotions. These will generally include the

temporal lobe which includes the amygdala, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the

orbitofrontal cortex (Rorty, 2014). These areas will, therefore, form the functional circuit which

is distributed in the ventral section of the brain which will help in determination of the reward

value or threat of different stimulus. The reward or threat value of different stimulus is therefore

determined when sensory information of given stimuli is linked with the representations of how

such stimuli will affect a given person’s somatovisceral state (Hoemann, Gendron and Barrett,

2017). Nueroanatomical studies amongst both humans and primates along with lesion evidence

and neuroimaging thus show that a ventral system will create context-sensitive neural

representations of a given objects value by having an influence on a person’s core affective state

such that such states will be similar to that which resulted from previous experiences with a

similar stimuli (Tyng, Amin, Saad, and Malik, 2017). Available evidence thus indicates that

neural representation of the sensory information related to a given stimulus and the

somatovisceral impact it might have will thus be entailed in functional circuits which are related

and which comprise the ventral system for the core affects. The first functional circuit will thus

be made up of the basolateral complex- amygdala connection which will code the original

information relating to a given stimulus, the experience or content dependent representations of a

given objects value, the lateral and central aspects of the OFC and the anterior insula will be

involved in the representation of interoceptive cues (Scarantino, 2012). Both the orbitofrontal

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 7

cortex (OFC) and the basolateral (BL) complex have strong reciprocal connections and robust

connections with numerous cortical representations of all sensory modalities in a way that they

have formed a functional circuit which will integrate all sensory information. This information

will thus be needed so as to establish value-based representations which will include the impact

of an object on the homeostatic state of the body and the external sensory features of an object

(Hodges, 2013). According to Scarantino (2012), the basolateral complex will formulate the

predicative value of a given stimulus while the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) will participate in the

generation of responses which will be based on that prediction.

The second functional circuit which is made up of neural representation that will act as

guide to viscreromotor control will involve reciprocal connections which are found between

ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), and the amygdala and the subgenual anterior cingulate

cortex (ACC) which will work together to modulate the visceromotor which are the behavioral,

autonomic and chemical responses which will form portions of value-based representations of

given objects (Barrett, Lewis, and Haviland-Jones, 2016). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex may

thus help connect different sensory representations of given stimuli with the visceromotor

outcomes that are associated with them and subsequently provide an affective working memory

whose contents will determine the judgments and choices after the assessment of an affective

value has been made.

Understanding Emotional Experience a Psychological Framework

Neurobiological evidence which includes neuroimaging, neuro-anatomical and

neuropsychological and also content-based analyses of emotional experience shows that mental

representation of emotions can to a certain degree be described in terms of pleasure or

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 8

displeasure which will be experienced together with other mental concepts which may originate

from mental state attributes (Gasque, 2016). For example, one may experience psychological

situations in ways which are causally linked to affective feelings. Such findings will thus be

consistent with psychological treatments of emotional experience which are based on the

hypothesis that psychological processes will be the foundations of mental representations

through which emotions will emerge from (Kragel, Knodt, Hariri and LaBar 2016). The main

idea is therefore that the mental representation of emotions in any occasion will thus be

continuous streams of changing consciousness during which the core affect will evolve

continuously, mutually constrain and interact with construals of the given psychological

situation.

At all times the brain will thus be involved in integrating and processing different parts

of sensory information from around the world, prior knowledge about different situations and

objects which allows the brain to produce affective states which will be bound to certain

situational meanings, disposition to act in given ways and somatovisceral information from the

body (Lindquist, Wager, Bliss-Moreau, Kober, and Barrett, 2012). As a result of how the brain

perceives and integrates and is predisposed to act in certain way psychological situations and the

construal’s and core affective feelings which are related to them are thus likely to be categorized

within the perception as single unified percepts such as depth, color, and shape are experienced

together when an object is being perceived. Through this view mental representations of

emotions will thus be examples what can be referred to as ‘the remembered present (Lindquist, et

al., 2012). In the brain’s continuously varying landscape, different patterns may appear which

will in some instances set the conditions for emotional experiences. Following the conditions

described emotional experiences can thus be described as conceptual structures which will be

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 9

stored in the memory of a given person and whose conditions might include cognitions, current

perceptions, core affect and actions (Deng, Chang, Yang, Huo, and Zhou, 2016). Specific

emotional conceptualizations, for example, a given context-specific conceptualization of anger

will thus be generated from a top-down simulation which will help reinstate how such conditions

were experienced in the past, such conceptual representation will then interact with the present

affect-situations and eventually result to the emergence of certain emotional experiences. This

will, therefore, lead to already situated conceptualizations of emotions which include the

previous knowledge about the given emotions which are borrowed from past experiences to

constrain new and emerging perceptual categorizations (Deng, et al, 2016). In resultant

representation, core affect is thus bound to how an individual will perceive a given situation

which will make affect into what can be referred to as an intentional state as attribution will be

allowed during the cause of the formation of affect.

People will thus have affective information of how they relate to the world either through

neural representations of previous instances when given objects produced a resultant homeostatic

change, through sensory levels or through homeostatic feedback from the body (Garfinkel,

Eccles, and Critchley, 2015). For example, when one is in a meeting and their proposal is

rejected and one experiences unpleasant feelings one can be able to explain what the percept is

for example by stating they are angry. An individual can also be able to evaluate the reasonable

inferences for their unpleasant feelings. For example, an individual can argue that they are angry

because their goal was jeopardized. Individuals can also be able to make the decision on how to

best act on their feelings, for example, to keep themselves measured and controlled in official

settings or scowl in unofficial settings (Hinton, Miyamoto, and Della-Chiesa, 2008).

Categorization of different perceptions will thus make it easier for individuals to make a

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 10

distinction between different feelings of anger and differentiate such feelings from other feelings

for example confusion or fear. Affective information will thus be delivered as a core affective

state which will be responsible for feelings of displeasure or pleasure which will be linked to

primary appraisals or ongoing automatic evaluations of the world as opposed to specific

interoceptive readouts of autonomic activities (Kragel, Knodt, Hariri and LaBar 2016). The way

an individual will conceptualize their affective state is dependent on prior knowledge they have

regarding a given emotion which they will use when categorizing it. For example, an individual

may experience their core affective states as particular sorts of nervousness, anger, and sadness

which will be dependent on the given conceptual knowledge and awareness that the individual

has or will bring to bear in such situations (Gasque, 2016). Experiencing emotions can thus be

described as a state of mind whose content may be pleasant or unpleasant and thus affective and

conceptual which will form the basic representation of an individual’s relation to the world

around them. This view is thus consistent is thus consistent with numerous theoretical insights in

the present relating to neurobiology and consciousness.

Six Basic Emotions

Anger

The amygdala part of the limbic system is responsible for anger and when triggered, it

releases a flood of hormones which cause an energy surge. As such, a person experiences a

hormonal surge which makes the brain proactive (Gasque, 2016). Consequently, the hormones

transfer the aforementioned energy onto the muscles, resulting in a physiological buildup of

tension that drives a person “nuts”. Notably, a longer lasting hormone is also released and

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 11

maintains its presence for more than the initial twenty minutes that is synonymous with the

earlier angry outburst.

Sadness

Sadness induced by physical pain has a varying effect on the brain in comparison to that

effected by emotional distress. As such, the latter increases activity within the arrangements of

the limbic system, especially the ones situated close to the face. Similarly, there are much more

enhanced movements in the left prefrontal cortex than the right owing to the higher number of

hormonal emissions in that locale. However, the hippocampus region provides a higher

concentration of this activity (Kagan, 2018).

Fear

The human brain contains an amygdalae that acts as a storage area for the things one

should be afraid of and upon any trigger, it is activated. Therefore, these nerve cells collect

information from external stimuli and communicates it with the hypothalamus region situated at

the front part of the brain (Hodges, 2013). Notably, the fear signal travels faster than its visuals

and is centered on the crisis system and the amygdala. Consequently, the communications are

transmitted to the memory center which automatically detect the threat and release hormones as a

form of stress response.

Surprise

The “surprise” emotion is activated by the sensory neurons located within the amygdala.

As such, the neurons detect both the “good” and “bad” surprises, transmit them through the

anatomical circuitry to their valence-specific cells where they induce a release of aversive or

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 12

reward hormones. Importantly, these nerves conduct a search upon which the brain compares the

information found with that located within the memory center. Thereafter, a switch occurs

whereby the brain becomes cognizant of “new” material. Therefore, one experiences an

alternating intensity of emotions based on the nature and carrier of the surprise (Hinton,

Miyamoto & Della-Chiesa, 2008). Normally, a person freezes for approximately 1/25

th of a

second, a period in which the brain processes such information with the intention of eliciting a

response.

Happiness

The cerebral cortex sends happiness signals/sensations from the ventral tegmental area

(VTA) that facilitates the transfer of pleasurable emotions throughout the brain. Consequently,

the VTA hijacks the nucleus accumbens and floods it with dopamine, a neurotransmitter

hormone which is closely linked with pleasure (Franks, 2016). As such, the prefrontal cortex is

activated. Thereafter, the brain shifts the individual’s attention to the reward stimuli that

conditions him/her to repeat the task. For example, human beings derive pleasure from eating

and upon the release of more dopamine, one if bound to continue with this activity.

Disgust

The “disgust” emotion is centrally activated in the insula part of the brain, especially the

anterior area where visceral signals/sensations are controlled (Tyng, Amin, Saad & Malik, 2017).

Therefore, it receives visual information from the frontal section of the face and the ventral

superior cortex that handles all the major sight mechanisms associated with a person. Similarly,

the posterior insula which consists of the premotor, somatosensory and auditory parts is actively

involved in this process. Consequently, a neural hormone of disgust is released upon one sighting

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS 13

an unpleasant scene, leading to an electric transmission to the memory center which validates

such an occurrence.

Conclusion

In summary, emotions will, therefore, be physiological feeling states and adaptive mental

states which will guide our behavior and effectively direct our attention. Emotional states will

thus be accompanied experiences of the bodily responses which are referred to as arousal which

will be sympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous systems. The basic emotions will thus

include emotions such as disgust, anger, happiness, fear, surprise, and sadness. Individuals will

also be able to experience secondary emotions as a result of cognitive appraisal. Different

aspects of emotional experience will thus affect how given emotions will be linked to the

wellbeing of a given individual these include the intensity of emotions experienced, the context

in which given emotion will be experienced and how the emotions experienced will fluctuate

over time.

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