Toward a phenomenology of attention

There is a considerable amount of research being done on attention by cognitive psychologists. I claim that in the process of measuring and mapping consciousness, these researchers have missed important phenomenological findings. After a synopsis and illustration of the nature of attention as described by Aron Gurwitsch, I critique the assumptions of current psychological research on this topic. Included is discussion of the metaphor of attention as a beam or spotlight, the concept of selective attention as the standard accomplishment, and the cognitive bestowal of organization on otherwise unorganized data. It is concluded that cognitive psychologists and others working on attention can benefit from Gurwitsch's work, and that a credible account of attention is crucial to the success of any comprehensive statement on the nature of consciousness.     

Toward a phenomenology of feelings

Our understanding of emotion cannot be complete without an understanding of feelings, the experiential aspect of emotion. Despite their importance, little effort has been devoted to the careful apprehension of feelings. Based on our apprehension of many randomly selected moments of pristine inner experience, we present a preliminary phenomenology of feelings. We begin by observing that often feelings occur as directly experienced phenomena of awareness; however, often no feelings are present in experience, or if they are present, they are too faint to be observed by a process intended to observe them. Feelings range from vague to distinct and sometimes do, but other times do not, include bodily sensations. When bodily sensations are present, there is a wide range of clarity and location of these sensations. Sometimes people experience multiple distinct feelings and sometimes people experience one feeling that is a mix or blend of different feelings. We also discuss what feelings are not, including instances when feelings do not appear to be present, despite evidence suggesting the presence of underlying emotional processes (e.g., behavioral evidence of emotion). These instances of emotion but not feeling lead us to speculate that experiencing feelings is a skill developed over time through an interaction of interpersonal and intrapersonal events.     

Toward a consensual taxonomy of emotions

ABSTRACT

In this article, I chart certain origins of the science of emotion back to the cognitive revolution. I then highlight new developments in the field – the influences of emotion upon cognition, the focus on over 20 emotions, the expanding emphasis on positive emotion, and an abiding interest in the functions emotions serve. I close by arguing for the need for the field to move toward a conceptual taxonomy of emotions, to move beyond decades of terminological debates about what emotions are to a convergent effort to understand what emotions do for people.     

The rainbow of emotions: at the crossroads of neurobiology and phenomenology

Continental Philosophy Review - This contribution seeks to explicitly articulate two directions of a continuous phenomenal field: (1) the genesis of intersubjectivity in its bodily basis (both...     

Toward a phenomenology of trance logic in posttraumatic stress disorder

Some induction procedures result in trance logic as an essential feature of hypnosis. Trance logic is a voluntary state of acceptance of suggestions without the critical evaluation that would destroy the validity of the meaningfulness of the suggestion. Induction procedures in real and simulated conditions induce a conflict between two contradictory messages in experimental hypnosis. In military induction the conflict is much more subtle involving society's need for security and its need for ethics. Such conflicts are often construed by the subject as trance logic. Trance logic provides an opportunity for therapists using the phenomenology of "presence" to deal with the objectified concepts of "avoidance," "numbing" implicit in this kind of dysfunctional thinking in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. An individual phenomenology of induction procedures and suggestions, which trigger trance logic, may lead to a resolution of logical fallacies and recurring painful memories. It invites a reconciliation of conflicting messages implicit in phobias and avoidance traumas. Such a phenomenological analysis of trance logic may well be a novel approach to restructure the meaning of trauma.     

Neural affective decision theory: Choices, brains, and emotions

We present a theory and neurocomputational model of how specific brain operations produce complex decision and preference phenomena, including those explored in prospect theory and decision affect theory. We propose that valuation and decision making are emotional processes, involving interacting brain areas that include two expectation-discrepancy subsystems: a dopamine-encoded system for positive events and a serotonin-encoded system for negative ones. The model provides a rigorous account of loss aversion and the shape of the value function from prospect theory. It also suggests multiple distinct neurological mechanisms by which information framing may affect choices, including ones involving anticipated pleasure. It further offers a neural basis for the interactions among affect, prior expectations and counterfactual comparisons explored in decision affect theory. Along with predicting the effects of particular brain disturbances and damage, the model suggests specific neurological explanations for individual differences observed in choice and valuation behaviors.     

Children's emotions and memory for affective narrative content

The present study was an investigation of effects of emotional states on children's learning and memory for a short narrative. Happy, sad, or neutral moods were induced in 72 second-grade boys and girls by a standard affect induction procedure. This mood induction was accomplished either before or after they heard a story in which two protagonists encountered a variety of experiences having an affective character. For half of the subjects, the initial story event had a positive affective valence, and for half it was negative. Children's memory for events in the narrative was assessed immediately afterward, using measures offo free recall, cued recall, and recognition. Children recalled more affective content than neutral content, and boys recalled more than girls. Valence of the initial story item and sex of subject influenced the relationship between mood state and memory for story events. Under some conditions, positive moods reduced recognition accuracy for positive material. The findings suggest that simple patterns of mood-influenced memory found in previous studies are modified by factors such as characteristics of the learner and the organization of the material to be learned. The relationship between mood and memory thus appears to be more complex than previously recognized.This experiment was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BNS-8308147) to John C. Masters. The authors wish to thank Bill Harris, Suzanne Chabaud, and Saneya Hassan for assistance in data collection and coding.     

Uncovering the affective core of conscientiousness: the role of self-conscious emotions

We conducted 3 studies to test the idea that guilt is a key affective component of Conscientiousness and that it can account for the relation between Conscientiousness and negative affect. Study 1 used meta‐analysis to show that Conscientiousness was associated with specific emotions and overall negative affect but was most strongly associated with guilt. Conscientiousness was negatively related to guilt experience but positively related to guilt proneness. Also, guilt experience mediated the relation between Conscientiousness and negative affect. Study 2 (N = 142) examined the relation between facets of Conscientiousness and guilt. We replicated results from Study 1 and showed that the relation between Conscientiousness and guilt was not due to overlap with Extraversion and Neuroticism. Study 3 (n = 176) examined the interplay between Conscientiousness and guilt on grades in a short‐term longitudinal study. These studies showed that Conscientiousness is primarily related to guilt and highlighted the importance of examining the emotional substrate of Conscientiousness.