The Affect System: What Lurks below the Surface of Feelings?

The structure of affective space has been debated for more than fifty years. According to the model of evaluative space (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994; Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1997),thecommon metric governing approach /withdrawal is generally a single bipolar dimension at response stages that itself is the consequence of multiple operations, such as the activation function for positivity (appetition) and the activation function for negativity (aversion), at earlier affective processi ng stages. Accordingly, affective space can be bipolar or bivariate depending on specific circumstances. We further extend the model by reviewing evidence for coactivated emotional states and component processes underlying affect, emotion, and feeling. Two different event-related brain components that reflect implicit affective processing provide specific information on the general location and timing of component affective processing. Not long ago, the camera was a metaphor for memory, the computer for the brain. Memory, however, does not activate a stored depiction of the event but rather reconstructs the event (Loftus, 1979; Roediger & McDermott, 2000). Contrary to the doctrine of rationality, the inferences drawn from facts (e.g., syllogisms) are not coldly calculated conditional probabilities butt calculus shaped in part by wishful thinking (McGuire, 1981). People do not weigh evidence objectively but generally exercise a confirmatory bias. For example, disagreeing parties who receive mixed messages containing evidence for and against each party's position tend to polarize rather than moderate their attitudes (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). The metaphors of the camera and the computer failed because they are based on the notion that the brain is a passive, dispassionate recorder and processor of information rather than a builder of meaning in ways sculpted by experience, personal and ancestral. Research reported in this paper was supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. BCS-0086314. 224 John Cacioppo, Jeff Larsen, Kulc Smith, and Gar, G. Berntson One tray in which this operates is well known. Sense organs filter most of the information available in a riven environment. with the brains of different Species receiving quite different types and bandwidths of the available information. Visual light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum (400-700 nanometers/millimicrons), with changes across this spectrum perceived as changes in color. The visual perception of the bumblebee, in contrast, does not include the relatively long wavelengths that we see as red, but extends into the region of ultraviolet light below 400 nm i nto aspects of the environment that are invisible to humans. Moreover, the fusion flicker rate is much faster for bees than humans, so that a movie depiction of a moving object that appears in motion to humans nay appear as a series of still images to bees. Our evolutionary heritage sculpts ongoing perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions in a deeper sense as well. Close or occlude your left eve, fixate on the \, and note the presence of the target 0. Now move your eve closer or turther away from the screen while maintaining fixation on the X. Although the 0 should disappear at some distance (about 12 inches), the horizontal line is perceptually continuous. The continuity of the horizontal line is a visual construction. ==X====---==== ==. ===O= Nowhere should the brain's construction of mental contents based on personal and ancestral experiences be more evident than in feelings and emotion. Traditionally, however, the scientific study of affect and emotion has centered on discrete feeling states. Among the important contributions of the cognitive revolution was the realization that conscious experiences provide a glimpse of oniv a small subset of the cognitive structures and operations that needed to be explored and understood. Many cognitive (and affective) processes occur unconsciously, with only selected outcomes reaching awareness (Bargh, 2001; Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993; Kihlstrom, 1987) vet, as LeDoux (2000) noted, emotion researchers have generally regarded the end products that have reached awareness or behavioral displays as (lie most appropriate evidence for the study of emotion. In this chapter, aye regard feelings and emotions as a subset of the operations of an affect system, whose structure and operating characteristics have been shaped by evolutionary forces to produce generally adaptive behaviors across a very wide range of circumstances. I r We are not suggesting that evolutionary torces,are t he orrhi i nfluences that produce adaptiv e behaviors. 1 I rrceRF 13.3. Brain regions demonstrated to be important in representing emotion' and feelings. Color-coded as follows: Blue: insula (Critchlev et al., 2000a; Damasio et al., 2000) Green: anterior cingulate (Critchley et al., 2000a; Critchley et al., 2001a,b,c Fredrikson et al., 1998; George et al., 1995; Lane et al., 1997a) Purple: posterior cingulate (Critchley et al., 2000b; Damasio et al., 2000) Red: amvgdala (Breiter et al., 1996; Morris et al., 1996; Blair et al., 1999; Buche A Affective facial expressions of taste `liking' Positive 'liking' expressions 1k , 'a 1h Humannewboms Orangutan Chimpanzee NewWoridMonkeys Rat Negative' disliking' expressions FIGURE 15.2. A. Affective reactions are elicited by sweet tastes from human infants, great apes, monkeys, and rats.