Emotion and self-awareness

Abstract

An ethological analysis of emotional behaviour suggests that it consists of somatic and autonomic elements of behaviours that are thwarted or in conflict (unpleasant emotions). Such displays change the behaviour of social partners which may end the thwarting, whereupon there is a relaxation and switch to the intended consummatory behaviour (pleasant emotions). Self-perception through distance exteroceptors allows the individual to respond to its own emotional displays as if they were those of a social partner. This is the basis of the experience of emotion and of self-awareness and self-control. Vocal signals give the most veridical self-perceptions and are produced and shaped by emotional actions. Speech and words may have developed as vocal signals associated with and symbolizing social actions with particular objects. These symbols are self-produced and self-perceived so that sequential symbol use, i.e., thinking, becomes possible. Self-perception begins in infancy with visuo-kinaesthetic discriminations of bodily actions giving the `sensori-motor self'. Internal motivational states add hedonic value, i.e., give feelings and a `feeling self'. Self-perception of one's own emotional displays forms the `emotional self'. Finally, the self-produced symbols `me' and `you' establish the `cognitive self', and `I' the self-concept. Neural feedback processes, from the level of recurrent collaterals of single neurones to that of cortico-cortical fibres of the neocortex, are not in themselves sufficient for self-awareness. Feedback from the actions of the individual to the neocortical sensory and perceptual systems is required if a discriminated self is to be represented in the association areas. These representations interact with a language system which associates `me' with the self-representation and `I' with the cortical and subcortical processes of perception, action and motivation to give full awareness of the self. Self-awareness in domesticated animals, as in other vertebrates, depends on the degree of external self-perception possible, on social organisation, on social communication through emotional signalling, and on acquisition of a symbolic language system. The phylogeny of self-awareness is briefly considered in terms of levels of awareness, from sensori-motor to cognitive self-awareness, and the evolution of symbolic vocal communication enabling a concept of self and a knowledge of this concept (i.e., cognitive self-awareness). The development of self-awareness in the human infant is similarly considered. Self-perception of emotion may be the basis of enjoyment and suffering but language may be necessary for a knowledge of these feelings and for continued suffering in the absence of the evoking stimulus or associated stimuli. The implications of this analysis for the welfare of domesticated animals are indicated.