Emotions

Abstract

Emotions serve not only to stand for things in the world but also to indicate their value. Decision, action, and many kinds of problem solving require determining how the world should be, not just how it is. Humans and other animals evolved with emotions as part of their innate biological machinery to guide action and inference. Emotions are patterns of neural firing that result from binding three different factors that are complementary rather than conflictive. A verbal or sensory representation of a situation can be bound both with a representation of the physiological states that the situation elicited and a cognitive appraisal of the import of the situation. Cognitive appraisal can also incorporate social factors because of the contributions of social goals and the culturally established associations of emotional words.