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According to the semantic primacy hypothesis of emotion generation, stimuli must be semantically categorized to evoke emotions. This hypothesis was tested in two speeded reaction time experiments that also explored the processes underlying valence judgments. Participants viewed pleasant and unpleasant pictures. In different blocks of trials, they pressed a key as soon as they experienced the feeling evoked by a picture, recognized the depicted object, or detected the valence (pleasant/unpleasant) of the picture. Object recognition was significantly earlier than affect onset, and the two latencies were positively correlated. The latency of valence detection was in between the latencies of object recognition and affect and correlated with both. Experiment 2 additionally found that blurring the pictures delayed the onset of affect and that this effect was partially mediated by delayed object recognition. In contrast, false-coloring the pictures was found to delay affect mainly by reducing its intensity. Coloring also delayed valence judgments of pleasant pictures. The findings provide further chronometric support for the semantic primacy hypothesis of emotion generation and shed light on the processes underlying valence judgments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

According to the semantic primacy hypothesis of emotion generation, stimuli must be semantically categorized to evoke emotions. This hypothesis was tested for the subjective component of emotions in four chronometric experiments in which the conscious recognition of emotion-eliciting objects and the onset of affect was timed using temporal order judgments (TOJs, Exp. 1a, 1b, and 3) and simultaneity judgments (SJs, Exp. 2). Participants viewed pictures that elicited pleasant or unpleasant feelings. At varying intervals before and after picture onset, a visual probe stimulus was presented. In separate blocks of trials, the participants judged when they recognized the object shown in the picture and noticed the feeling evoked by the picture: Before or after the probe (TOJs), or simultaneously/not simultaneously with the probe (SJs). Psychometric functions were fitted to the data of the individual participants to determine the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) of the target events and the probe. In both tasks, the mean PSS of affect occurred significantly later than the PSS of object recognition, with an average delay of about 120 ms. A positive lag between object recognition and affect was found for nearly all participants and pictures. In addition, the latencies of object recognition and affect were positively correlated. The found temporal order of object recognition and affect is consistent with the findings of previous studies using speeded reaction time tasks. Implications of the findings for the cognition-emotion debate and for bodily feedback theories of emotional experience are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

This special section of Emotion Review is devoted to the discussion of a recent philosophical emotion theory, the theory of emotions as affective position-takings (Jean Moritz Müller, The World-Directedness of Emotional Feeling: On Affect and Intentionality, Palgrave MacMillan, 2019). The aims of the special section are to provide readers with a spotlight view of recent research in the philosophy of emotion, to advance emotion theory, and support the interdisciplinary dialogue. To increase the accessibility of the special section texts to a nonphilosophical readership, we first discuss the relationship between the philosophy and the psychology of emotions and give a brief review the main types of theories of emotional experience.

The theory of emotions as affective position-takings (PT) is investigated from the perspective of a computational model of the belief-desire theory of emotions (CBDTE) proposed by the author. Both theories assume that a core subset of typical emotion episodes are the products of an evaluation process in which cognized states of affairs are evaluated for their congruence with the person's desires; and that emotions are, on the conscious level, feelings of pleasure and displeasure. However, according to PT the evaluation is a concern-based construal and emotional feelings are intrinsically object-directed, whereas according to CBDTE, the evaluation is performed by a hardwired mechanism that produces nonintentional feelings. Furthermore, CBDTE suggests that hedonic feelings are simultaneously reactions to the detection of value, and representations of the detected value.

According to the semantic primacy hypothesis of emotion generation, stimuli must be semantically categorized to evoke emotions. This hypothesis was tested in two chronometric studies, using the rotating spot method of timing subjective events. Participants saw pleasant and unpleasant pictures while a spot rotated around the edge of the picture. In different blocks of trials, they indicated when they experienced the pleasant or unpleasant feeling evoked by the pictures, or recognized the depicted objects, by reporting the position of the spot at the time when these mental events occurred. In both experiments, the latency of object recognition was found to be shorter than the latency of affect for nearly all participants and pictures, and the two latencies were positively correlated across participants. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and additionally showed that an experimental manipulation that delayed object recognition, blurring the pictures, also delayed the onset of affect. A mediation analysis suggested that this effect was at least partly mediated by the delayed recognition of the objects. The findings support the semantic primacy hypothesis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

In the first part of the article, the central role of theory in emotion psychology is underscored and reasons are given why more theoretical psychology of emotion is needed. In the second part, nine tasks for the theoretical psychology of emotion are defined, by refining and extending three of the general tasks of theoretical psychology proposed 70 years ago by Sigmund Koch [Theoretical psychology, 1950: An overview.

The death of Jon Snow at the end of the fifth season of the TV serial Game of Thrones prompted an intense reaction among the fans of the serial on social media. Thousands of viewers all over the world contributed to the discussion of the meaning and implications of this event, turning it into a global event in the participatory culture of contemporary seriality. In this article, we propose an explanation of this remarkable cultural phenomenon. Based on a theory of plot twists as surprise structures, we argue that the reactions of fans can be understood as concrete, contextually adapted realizations of the characteristic cognitive reactions evoked by the emotions of surprise and shock caused by unexpected negative events. Our analysis focuses in particular on the contributions of viewers to the establishment of the beliefs disconfirmed by the plot twist and on the cognitive activities that served to adapt their minds to the new reality revealed by the twist, which also included reflections on the aesthetic aspects of the plot twist and the narrative in which it was embedded. By providing a public platform for these reflections, the fan forums allowed the individual attempts to adapt to the plot twist to become a collective endeavor. The study illustrates how universal cognitive mechanisms interact with culturally produced contents to generate similar reactions to a fictional event across the globe.

Murray Smith’s proposal in Film, Art, and the Third Culture for a naturalized aesthetics is of interest to both film theorists and psychologists: for the former, it helps to elucidate how films work; for the latter, it provides concrete application cases of psychological theories. However, there are reasons for believing that the theory of emotions that Smith has adopted from psychology to ground his case studies—an extended version of basic emotions theory—is less well supported than he suggests. The available empirical evidence seems more compatible with the assumption that the different emotions are outputs of a single, integrated system.

Three main versions of cognition-arousal theory are distinguished depending on how they interpret the theory’s basic postulate, that an emotion is a function of cognition and arousal: objectivist causal theories, attributional theories, and fusion theories. The objectivist causal and attributional theories each comprise a causal-functional and a part-whole version, and the fusion theory subsumes in particular a categorization and a perceptual integration version. In addition, the attributional version of cognition-arousal theory can be reinterpreted as a theory of emotion self-ascription. Although arousal may in fact not be necessary for emotions, a modified cognition-feeling theory that replaces arousal with intrinsically affective feelings, seems still viable. Arguments are presented why the objectivist causal-functional version of this theory should be preferred.

Schachter’s cognition-arousal theory has been highly influential in emotion psychology and beyond. The six contributions to this special section investigate the origins of Schachter’s theory in his previous work on affiliation; systematize the variety of existing versions of cognition-arousal theory; summarize recent cognition-feeling theories of emotion and associated empirical work influenced by Schachter’s theory; and critically reexamine two assumptions of cognition-arousal theory: the assumption, made in some interpretations of the theory, that cognitive appraisals are components of emotions, and the assumption that bodily feelings cannot alone constitute emotional experiences.

In four experiments involving 565 German speakers we tested several hypotheses about possible determinants of the side-effect effect (see), which consists of judging foreseen bad, but not good, side-effects of actions as intentionally produced. Experiment 1 failed to find intentionality ascriptions for bad side-effects for the majority of the participants in two different scenarios and obtained no consistent support for two hypothesized social-cognitive determinants of the see, the agent’s attitude and the mode of effect description. Experiment 2 replicated the see in the original ceo scenario, but again found no evidence that the effect was influenced by the agent’s attitude towards the side-effect. The see was also not influenced by a manipulation of the moral quality of the agent’s primary goal. Experiment 3 investigated six additional scenarios used in previous studies and again obtained clear evidence for the see only in the ceo scenario. In addition, Experiment 3 demonstrated that judgments of both intent and intentionality strongly increased if the original side-effect was described as a means to the agent’s primary goal, or as an independently pursued goal. Taken together, the findings suggest that for German speakers, the see depends on the specifics of the scenario content and is difficult to obtain outside the original ceo scenario. Consistent with these conclusions, Experiment 4 documented parallel difficulties replicating the “means effect”, an analogue of the see on the level of means, but replicated the see in a scenario closely modeled after the original ceo scenario.

Research on cognition and emotion during the past 30 years has made reasonable progress in theory, methods and empirical research. New theories of the cognition-emotion relation have been proposed, emotion research has become more interdisciplinary, and improved methods of emotion measurement have been developed. On the empirical side, the main achievement of the past 30 years is seen to consist in the reduction of the set of serious contenders for a theory of emotions. Still, several important issues are not fully resolved, including the computational implementation of appraisal processes, the nature of emotions, and the link between emotions and actions. Also, quantitative theories of the cognition-emotion relation need to be refined and tested, and improved theories of the link between emotions and bodily and facial expressions need to be developed. To counter the dangers of theoretical fragmentation and knowledge loss, more efforts should be devoted to the analysis, reconstruction, comparison and integration of important theories and hypotheses in the field of emotion, as well as to the systematization of arguments in favor and against these theories and hypotheses.

Die Kognitionswissenschaft ist eine interdisziplinare Forschungsrichtung – beteiligt sind insbesondere Psychologie, Kunstliche-Intelligenz-Forschung, Philosophie, Linguistik und Neurowissenschaft – die sich mit der Untersuchung der kognitiven Leistungen von Menschen, Tieren und Maschinen befasst (vgl. Stephan/ Walter 2013; Strube 1995). Typische Beispiele fur kognitive Leistungen sind Wahrnehmen, Schlussfolgern, Problemlosen und Entscheiden.

Although Pilati et al.'s (2014) findings question the strong quantitative universality of the attribution-affect model of helping, they are consistent with a weak form of quantitative universality, as well as with the qualitative universality of the theory. However, universality is put into question by previous studies revealing significant and sizeable between-study differences in the strength of the causal paths postulated by the theory. These differences may in part reflect differences in the type of helping situations studied.

The phrase “facial expression of emotion” contains the implicit assumption that facial expressions co-occur with, and are a consequence of, experienced emotions. Is this assumption true, or more precisely, to what degree is it true? In other words, what is the degree of statistical covariation, or coherence, between emotions and facial expressions? In this chapter, we review empirical evidence from laboratory and field studies that speaks to this question, summarizing studies results concerning expressions of emotions frequently considered as “basic”: happiness-amusement, surprise, disgust, sadness, anger and fear. We provide general and separate emotion mean correlations and proportions as coherence estimates as using meta-analytic methods.

We compare the utility of Maximum Likelihood Difference Scaling (MLDS) and Ordinal Difference Scaling (ODS) for the measurement of emotion intensity. MLDS and ODS are both nonmetric probabilistic scaling methods based on difference measurement; however, MLDS uses quadruple comparisons (comparison of pairs of stimulus pairs) as input data, whereas ODS uses graded pair comparison judgments, where participants indicate the size of the difference between two stimuli on an ordinal response scale. In two studies using different kinds of emotional stimuli (disgust-inducing pictures, and descriptions of situations eliciting relief), quadruple comparisons and graded pair comparisons of the stimuli were collected and submitted to MLDS and ODS respectively. The scaling solutions were compared in terms of the reliability of the estimated scale values and their correlations to direct ratings of emotion intensity. The findings of both studies suggest that ODS performs at least as well as MLDS on these criteria. In addition, in most cases, good to high agreement between the scale values estimated by the two methods was found. Hence, ODS may be used as an economical alternative to MLDS for the difference scaling of emotional stimuli.

In this introduction to the special section on the attributional approach to emotion and motivation, the character of Weiner’s attributional theory as an appraisal theory is discussed. I argue that the theory, although focusing on appraisal dimensions related to causal attribution, is actually a fairly general appraisal theory of emotion. Distinctive features of the attributional approach are its pioneering role in emotion research, its emphasis on the functional role of emotions, particularly for the motivation of action, and the existence of a large supportive data base. Given the solid evidence compiled by attributional researchers for emotion-specific effects of emotion on motivation, I propose that future research should focus on the details of the mental mechanisms through which emotions affect motivation, and formulate five questions that could guide this inquiry.

We first present a reconstruction of James’s theory of emotion (JATE) and then argue for four theses: (a) Despite constructivist elements, James’s views are overall in line with basic emotions theory. (b) JATE does not exclude an influence of emotion on intentional action even in its original formulation; nevertheless, this influence is quite limited. It seems possible, however, to repair this problem of the theory. (c) Cannon’s theory of emotion is a centralized version of JATE that inherits from the latter theory a potentially fatal flaw, the insufficient physiological differentiation of emotions. (d) The core claim of JATE, that emotions are bodily feelings, is very likely false.

We outline a theory of cultural transmission in socio-cultural minorities in a foreign cultural environment. The explanatory focus of the theory is on the educational activities of minorities and on the educational policies of the majority towards them. The theory comprises two components referring to, respectively, the proximate psychological mechanisms and the distal cultural–evolutionary processes that underlie minority– majority interactions. The first theory component is an action–theoretical model of the interaction between majorities and minorities in the educational domain. A central assumption of this model is that socio-cultural groups have a culture-transmission motive, i.e. a desire to maintain and transmit their culture. The second component of the theory consists of a set of assumptions about the evolution of socio-cultural groups that provides an enhanced understanding of the basic goals and strategies of minorities and majorities in cultural-transmission situations. It is argued that the theory allows an explanation of several findings that pose difficulties to existing theories, in particular, the frequently observed stability of cultural traits in ethnic minorities.

Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. According to the affect program theory of facial displays, the evolutionary core of the human emotion system consists of a small set of discrete emotion mechanisms that comprise motor programs for emotion-specific facial displays. However, research on surprise has found that surprising events often fail to elicit the associated facial expression (widened eyes, raised eyebrows, mouth opening). The present study tested a refined Darwinian account of the facial expression of surprise, according to which surprising events cause widened eyes and raised eyebrows if they exceed the field of vision, as these facial changes increase the visual field and facilitate visual search. To test this hypothesis, we staged a surprising event that engulfed the field of vision: When the participants left the laboratory, they unexpectedly found themselves in a new room, a small chamber with bold green walls and a red office chair. In addition, to explore the role of social context for the expression of surprise, in two of three experimental conditions, a stranger or a friend they had brought to the experiment was sitting on the chair. The results provided no support for the Darwinian account of the facial expression of surprise. A complete expression of surprise was observed in 5% of the participants, and the individual components of the expression were shown only by a minority, regardless of social context. These findings reinforce doubts about the adequacy of affect program theory for the case of surprise.

Author note: We thank Mark Textor for a clarifying note concerning Brentano’s views on phenomenality, and several contributors to this special issue for their comments on diverse issues discussed in our introduction. Corresponding author: Rainer Reisenzein, Institute of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Franz-Mehring-Strase 47, 17487 Greifswald, Germany. Email: rainer.reisenzein@uni-greifswald.de Ten Perspectives on Emotional Experience: Introduction to the Special Issue

Based on the belief that computational modeling (thinking in terms of representation and computations) can help to clarify controversial issues in emotion theory, this article examines emotional experience from the perspective of the Computational Belief–Desire Theory of Emotion (CBDTE), a computational explication of the belief–desire theory of emotion. It is argued that CBDTE provides plausible answers to central explanatory challenges posed by emotional experience, including: the phenomenal quality, intensity and object-directedness of emotional experience, the function of emotional experience and its relation to cognition and motivation, and the relation between emotional experience and emotion. In addition, CBDTE avoids most objections that have been raised against cognitive theories of emotion. A remaining objection, that beliefs are not necessary for the emotions covered by CBDTE, is rejected as empirically unsupported.

This special issue of Social Psychology commemorates the 50th anniversary of Fritz Heider’s 1958 book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. The contributions to the special issue address the history and current state of attribution research, or illustrate contemporary research in the field. The historical articles document that Heider’s analysis of causal attribution and of common-sense psychology was significantly influenced by his academic teachers Alexius Meinong and Ernst Cassirer. We distinguish between the mainstream reception of Heider’s book, which has given rise to an extensive empirical research program, and a minority reception by authors who emphasized aspects of Heider’s thinking not well represented in mainstream psychology. Currently, there are indications of a “back to Heider” movement in social psychology. This new phase of attribution research is inspired by a fresh reading of Heider’s book, and is marked by an interdisciplinary orientation. The articles illustrating current attribution research address both classic and novel topics: the causality implicit in language, the role of causal attribution in hindsight bias, the justification of actions, and the attribution of mistakes in organizational contexts.

According to Heider, some of his ideas about common-sense psychology presented in The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations ( Heider, 1958 ) originally came from his academic teacher, Alexius Meinong. However, Heider makes no reference to Meinong in his book. To clarify Meinong’s influence on Heider, we compare Heider’s explication of common-sense psychology with Meinong’s writings, in particular those on ethics. Our results confirm that Heider’s common-sense psychology is informed by Meinong’s psychological analyses in several respects: Heider adopts aspects of Meinong’s theory of emotion, his theory of value, and his theory of responsibility attribution. In addition, Heider more or less continues Meinong’s method of psychological inquiry. Thus, even without Meinong’s name attached, many aspects of Meinong’s psychology found their way into today’s social psychology via Heider. Unknowingly, some of us have been Meinongians all along.

Three studies examined the effects of experimentally manipulated surprise expressions on the experience of surprise. Surprise was induced by a sudden, unannounced change of the stimulus presentation during a computerized task. Facial expression was manipulated by leading participants to adopt an expression akin to surprise, or by forcing them to look up steeply to a monitor. The expression manipulations had no intensifying effect on the experience of surprise, whereas manipulations of unexpectedness and mental load had strong effects. In addition, mental load was found to affect beliefs about facial expression, suggesting that the participants used their feelings of surprise to infer their probable facial displays. Path analyses supported this reverse self-inference hypothesis.

Three experiments investigated the process of inferring emotions from brief descriptions of typical eliciting situations, using response time methodology. The initial hypothesis was that emotion inferences are mediated by inferred cognitive appraisals of the eliciting event (concerning e.g., its valence or the responsible agent). This hypothesis was contradicted by the finding of Experiment 1 that emotion judgments are typically made faster than appraisal judgments. To explain this finding, it was hypothesized that emotion judgments are based on automatized (proceduralized) appraisal inferences. This hypothesis was tested in Experiments 2 and 3 using a judgment facilitation paradigm. The results supported the proceduralization hypothesis by demonstrating that appraisal judgments are facilitated by prior emotion judgments.

In his commentary on M. Siemer and R. Reisenzein (2007), B. Parkinson (2007) raised a number of important questions concerning the process of emotion inference and the scope of appraisal theories. Siemer and Reisenzein first examine the alternative explanations of their findings proposed by Parkinson and then look at the alternative "situated" view of emotions proposed by him. The main conclusion is that the issues raised by Parkinson can be dealt with by (suitable extensions of) appraisal theory.

Eight experiments examined facial expressions of surprise in adults. Surprise was induced by disconfirming a previously established schema or expectancy. Self-reports and behavioral measures indicated the presence of surprise in most participants, but surprise expressions were observed only in 4%-25%, and most displays consisted of eyebrow raising only; the full, 3-component display was never seen. Experimental variations of surprise intensity, sociality, and duration/complexity of the surprising event did not change these results. Electromyographic measurement failed to detect notably more brow raisings and, in one study, revealed a decrease of frontalis muscle activity in the majority of the participants. Nonetheless, most participants believed that they had shown a strong surprise expression.

A world-wide internet survey was conducted to test central assumptions of a recent theory of cultural transmission in minorities proposed by the authors. 844 1st to 2nd generation immigrants from a wide variety of countries recruited on a microjob platform completed a questionnaire designed to test eight hypotheses derived from the theory. Support was obtained for all hypotheses. In particular, evidence was obtained for the continued presence, in the immigrants, of the culture-transmission motive postulated by the theory: the desire to maintain the culture of origin and transmit it to the next generation. Support was also obtained for the hypothesized anchoring of the culture-transmission motive in more basic motives fulfilled by cultural groups, the relative intra- and intergenerational stability of the culture-transmission motive, and its motivating effects for action tendencies and desires that support cultural transmission under the difficult conditions of migration. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the assumption that people have a culture-transmission motive belongs to the folk psychology of sociocultural groups, and that immigrants regard the fulfillment of this desire as a moral right.

At the center of the social emotions are reactions to the positive and negative fate of others and to the perceived fulfillment and violation of social and moral norms. Using pity and guilt as representatives of these two groups of social emotions, I investigate their generation, nature and function from the perspective of CBDTE, a (sketch of a) Computational model of the Belief-Desire Theory emotion. The central assumption of CBDTE is that a core subset of human emotions are the products of hardwired mechanisms whose primary function is to subserve the monitoring and updating of the belief-desire system. The emotion mechanisms work like sensory transducers; however, instead of sensing the world, they monitor the belief-desire system and signal important changes in this system, in particular the fulfillment and frustration of desires and the confirmation and disconfirmation of beliefs. Social emotions are accommodated into CBDTE by assuming that the proximate beliefs and desires that cause them are derived from special kinds of desire. Specifically, pity is a form of displeasure that is experienced if an altruistic desire is frustrated by the negative fate of another person; whereas guilt is a form of displeasure that is experienced if a nonegoistic desire to comply with a norm is frustrated by an own action. The intra-system function of these emotions is to signal the frustration of altruistic desires (pity) and of nonegoistic desires to comply with a norm (guilt) to other cognitive subsystems, to globally prepare and motivate the agent to deal with them. The communication of social emotions serves to reveal the person’s social (nonegoistic) desires to others: Her altruistic concern for others, and her nonegoistic caring for the observance of social norms.

R. E. Thayer (1989) proposed 2 types of activation: energetic arousal (awake-tired) and tense arousal (tense-calm). This view has been challenged by claims that energetic arousal and tense arousal are mixtures of valence and a single activation dimension. The authors present a direct test of this hypothesis by computing the correlation between the residuals of energetic arousal and tense arousal after removing the shared variance with valence. Whereas the valence activation hypothesis predicts a strong positive correlation between the 2 residuals, the authors found that it was not significantly different from 0. This finding reaffirms the view of energetic arousal and tense arousal as 2 distinct types of activation.

A new experimental paradigm involving a computerised quiz was used to examine, on an intra-individual level, the strength of association between four components of the surprise syndrome: cognitive (degree of prospectively estimated unexpectedness), experiential (the feeling of surprise), behavioural (degree of response delay on a parallel task), and expressive (the facial expression of surprise). It is argued that this paradigm, together with associated methods of data analysis, effectively controls for most method factors that could in previous studies have lowered the correlations among the components of emotion syndromes. It was found that (a) the components of the surprise syndrome were all positively correlated; (b) strong association existed only between the cognitive and the experiential component of surprise; (c) the coherence between syndrome components did not increase with increasing intensity of surprise; and (d) there was also only moderate coherence between the components of the facial expression of surprise (eyebrow raising, eye widening, mouth opening), although in this case, coherence tended to increase with intensity. Taken together, the findings support only a weakly probabilistic version of a behavioural syndrome view of surprise. However, the component correlations seem strong enough to support the existence of strong associations among a subset of the mental or central neurophysiological processes engaged in surprise.

Results from four studies document very high agreement between the raw data matrices of affect similarity judgments and correlations computed from self-ratings. This was found both for the global structural level, where the correlation-similarity correspondence was as high as the average correspondence of correlation matrices from different studies, and for local subgroups of affects, provided that reliable measures were used. The findings suggest that self-rating correlations and similarity judgments of affects contain essentially the same structural information. As a consequence, the two data types are equally valid starting points for structural analyses of affect, and differences between the models of affect that have been derived from them may reflect primarily method artifacts, such as the use of different scaling methods, rather than differences in the original data. Possible explanations for the high correspondence between self-rating correlations and similarity judgments of affect are discussed.

Three studies investigated age-related differences in the surprise reaction. Study 1 revealed that children and seniors showed a more pronounced action delay in response to a simple, hedonically neutral surprising event than young adults that could not be attributed to a general slowing of information processing. Studies 2 and 3 provided evidence that these age-related differences in action delay between children and young adults were due to children’s greater difficulties to ”nd an explanation for the occurrence of the surprising event and to decide on its relevance for action. These results support the idea that the core mechanism of surprise is evolutionary-based and age-invariant, but its eliciting conditions and consequences depend on developmental changes of knowledge structures.