• The safest conclusion is that cognitive appraisal is an
important, but not the only, aspect of emotional experience.
Functions of emotion
Motivation and attention
▪ Schachter proposed that emotion arises due to
physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal. Both are necessary for emotion to occur.
Cognitive Appraisal Theories of Emotion (Schachter and Singer)认知评估理论
elicited in a split second.
• Cannon- Bard proposed that emotion requires the brain
to intercede调解between input of stimulus and output of response.
• Cannon- Bard proposed that emotion-arousing stimuli
have simultaneous effects, causing both bodily arousal and the subjective experience of emotion
Cognitive Appraisal Theories of Emotion (Schachter and Singer)认知评估理论
a neutral, undifferentiated state.
– Zajonc demonstrated the possibility of having preferences without
inferences, and to feel without knowing why—the mere exposure effect.
• Challenges to Lazarus- Schachter
– Awareness of physiological arousal is not a necessary condition. – Experiencing strong arousal without obvious cause does not lead to
Motivatiygdala plays an important role in
giving you heightened awareness of objects that have emotional significance. And your brain doesn’t allow events of emotional importance to escape your attention.
• The autonomic nervous system (ANS) prepares the
body for emotional responses through activation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous symptoms:
Cannon-Bard Theory.坎农-巴德理论
• There are four objections to the James- Lange Theory:
– Visceral内脏activity is irrelevant for emotional experience. – ANS responses are too slow to be the source of emotions
physiology of emotion 情绪生理学
• The physiology of emotion refers to those
responses that are designed to mobilize the body for action to deal with the source of the emotion.
Definition of emotion
• Emotion
– A complex pattern of bodily and mental changes that
includes physiological arousal, feelings, cognitive processes, visible expressions, and specific behavioral reactions made in response to a stiuation perceived as personally significant.
• Emotions serve a motivational
function by arousing the individual to take action with regard to an experienced or imagined event. Emotions direct and sustain behaviors toward specific goals.
• Lazarus maintained that “emotional experience cannot be
understood solely in terms of what happens in the person or in the brain, but grows out of ongoing transactions with the environment.”
– The sympathetic nervous system is more active when
stimuli are mild and unpleasant.
– The parasympathetic nervous system is more active
when stimuli are mild and pleasant.