Neurosociology by David D. Frank

Author:David D. Frank [Frank, David D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-16T05:00:00+00:00

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The Neuroscience of Emotion and Its Relation to Cognition

There are many examples which suggest the ways in which the varied fields can be compatible. For example, many involved in genetics have come to appreciate the importance of the environment even as sociologists have recognized the importance of genes, although their effect on social activity is highly qualified. Neuroscientists have recognized the importance of self and the social nature of the brain, while sociologists have become interested in mirror neurons and their place in the development of language.

The Distinction between Unconscious Emotion and Conscious Feeling. In neuroscience this is evident in the reversal of the common sense notion of emotion. The traditional view put forward independently by William James and Carl Lange starts with something happening to trigger emotion. For example, losing someone we love or being insulted produces emotions like sorrow or simple anger, respectively, and these emotions lead us to weep or take steps to avenge the insult. The James–Lange

“specificity theory” reversed this old four-stage order: (trigger, perception, emotion, and emotional expression). James and Lange suggested a process with only three stages (1) We get insulted; (2) We perceive it as such, and (3) This makes us angry and at the very same time, the body produces objectively measurable events in terms of physiological changes that we simultaneously experience consciously.

These bodily changes (expressions) are the emotion. Here emotion does not cause the following behavior assumed in stage three of the old model because the behavior is the same thing as the emotion, i.e., the last stages of the commonsense model are collapsed into one (Fig. 6.1).

This perspective placed emotion solidly in human consciousness even if it was due to being conscious of one’s bodily reaction. The key to emotions was the consciousness of our physiological reaction. James’ classic example of fear has been often quoted:

Fig. 6.1 Common sense

notion of emotion

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