Affective Schemas Research Articles

Affective foundations in AI-human interactions: Insights from evolutionary continuity and interspecies communications

The imminent arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) compels a reevaluation of AI-human interactions, particularly through affective communication. This research synthesizes insights from evolutionary biology, comparative psychology, and AI development, advocating for a paradigm shift beyond conventional human-like cognitive processes. It emphasizes the universal nature of affective pathways, as evidenced across various species. We introduce three affective interaction models — the Affective Threshold Model, the Dynamic Set-Point Model, and the Affective Schema Model — all of which stem from an in-depth analysis of interspecies communications. These models present a roadmap to craft AI interfaces attuned to human affective experiences, elucidating avenues of trust, intuition, and reciprocal recognition between machines and their human counterparts. By further crystallizing the concept of the “Large Affect Model”, we project a horizon where AI not only deciphers but also empathizes with human partners, paving the way for a revolutionary cooperative paradigm between AI and humanity.

From Affective Schemata to Authentic Becoming: How Reading about Bodies Can Shape Our Mental Landscape and Philosophical Outlook; Postcritique and A. S. Byatt's "A Stone Woman"

Abstract: Fully crediting the "brain-body-narrative nexus" (Wojciehowski and Gallese 62) that shapes readers' reception, perception, and processing, this article examines A. S. Byatt's "A Stone Woman," in conjunction with current research on the "extended mind." I explore (1) how Byatt's use of sensory-motor cues agitates readers' affective schemata, (2) how this affective stimulation can influence mental responses and the reading experience, and (3) how Byatt thereby also influences attitudes toward the thematic content of the story, extending the wonder tale genre's preoccupation with personal development and aligning with philosophical traditions that encourage readers to undertake their own process of authentic becoming.

“I Have Always thought that, If I Am Poor, I’m Also Supposed to Study Poorly”

The goal of this study is to highlight the embodied nature of social class inequalities in education. Drawing from a larger study that examined educational outcomes and work careers of young people whose families received welfare benefits in Croatia when these individuals were of high school age, the article focuses on biographical narrative interviews with three young individuals. These strategically selected cases were characterized by a shared experience of living in poverty that was, nevertheless, marked by very different initial intersections of social advantages and disadvantages (middle-class fall into poverty, intergenerational poverty, and poverty intersecting with anti-Roma racism). Based on the comparison of these three life stories, this study utilizes Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as a conceptual tool, incorporating both cognitive and affective schemas, to examine how these young individuals framed their lives and educational trajectories. In doing so, this study builds on the work by scholars such as Reay who extend the explorations of embodied social inequalities in education into the realm of emotions, which are—in line with the growing body of work in the sociology of emotions—understood as embedded in (unequal) social relations. Therefore, the analysis of this study focuses on how, in the three examined life stories, the horizons of probable, possible, and unimaginable were perceived very differently and shaped by distinct affective structures. The findings of this study suggest that cognitive and affective schemas function jointly, as integral elements of a social inequalities’ mechanism rooted in the compounding of advantages or disadvantages.

Neural meaning making, prediction, and prefrontal-subcortical development following early adverse caregiving.

Early adversities that are caregiving-related (crEAs) are associated with a significantly increased risk for mental health problems. Recent neuroscientific advances have revealed alterations in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)-subcortical circuitry following crEAs. While this work has identified alterations in affective operations (e.g., perceiving, reacting, controlling, learning) associated with mPFC-subcortical circuitry, this circuitry has a much broader function extending beyond operations. It plays a primary role in affective meaning making, involving conceptual-level, schematized knowledge to generate predictions about the current environment. This function of mPFC-subcortical circuitry motivates asking whether mPFC-subcortical phenotypes following crEAs support semanticized knowledge content (or the concept-level knowledge) and generate predictive models. I present a hypothesis motivated by research findings across four different lines of work that converge on mPFC-subcortical neuroanatomy, including (a) the neurobiology supporting emotion regulation processes in adulthood, (b) the neurobiology that is activated by caregiving cues during development, (c) the neurobiology that is altered by crEAs, and (d) the neurobiology of semantic-based meaning making. I hypothesize that the affective behaviors following crEAs result in part from affective semantic memory processes supported by mPFC-subcortical circuitry that over the course of development, construct affective schemas that generate meaning making and guide predictions. I use this opportunity to review some of the literature on mPFC-subcortical circuit development following crEAs to illustrate the motivation behind this hypothesis. Long recognized by clinical science and cognitive neuroscience, studying schema-based processes may be particularly helpful for understanding how affective meaning making arises from developmental trajectories of mPFC-subcortical circuitry.

From the face to the crotch: Intersubjectivity, affective schemas and the politics of the close-up in Los Labios/The Lips (Fund and Loza, 2010) and Plan B (Berger, 2009)

Fund and Loza’s Los Labios/The Lips (2010) and Berger’s Plan B (2009) implement various strategies to create a sense of the Other’s corporeal experience as something perceivable by the audience. The main cinematic technique is the use of the close-up. This article highlights this particular shot as an aesthetic device that highly contributes to establish an embodied environment for spectatorship. This quality defines these films’ political character since it displays an awareness of the Other’s corporeality as part of the Self. Hence, it is possible to make of cinema an intersubjective experience in which bodies become empowered means of connection. By applying Jenny Chammarette’s ‘phenomenological approach’, which derives from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and Vinodh Venkatesh’s notion of ‘affective schemas’, this article incorporates a diverse theoretical framework to mostly focus on bodies and the cinematic environments that they inhabit.

Screen as Skin: The Somatechnics of Touchscreen Music Media

In this article I explore the way mobile music devices with touchscreen technology produce new somatechnical figurations that reshape emotional dynamics of music listening. Using research drawn from a cyberethnography of online users from Reddit.com, I argue that the changing relationships between the human-computer interface result in new affective schemas that expand and reconfigure how it feels to listen to music in a mobile setting. In particular, I focus on skin-on-screen contact in order to suggest that the screen acts as a reflexive surface producing intimate relations for the mobile listener. Touchscreens imply the relationship between skin on skin—the skin of our body (in particular the hands) against the skin of the screen. It follows that mobile touchscreen devices suggest a degree of sensuality—in the coming together of bodies, fluids and other organic materials which ‘stick’ to the touchscreen. Reading the mobile touchscreen player as a somatechnical figuration therefore suggests that the listening experience is developing along with the technologies that mediate music to the body in ways that continue to challenge our understanding of bodily borders and in ways that redefine what it means to feel the music. Therefore, the touchscreen-skin is a critical site of affective relations that dramatically reshape what it means to listening to music in a mobile setting; a private and intimate encounter between the user and their counterpart.

Experiencing churches as spiritual and religious places: a study on children’s emotions in church buildings during scholastic field trips

Going on a field trip to the church, pupils can experience lived religion. But how do they feel during such a church visit? In this paper, we analyse statements of 516 German third graders (about 8 years old) made after they had visited their local church on a field trip. Using affective schema theory, we develop a conceptual model of emotions in churches that serves as theoretical framework for our quantitative content analysis. All in all, the vast majority of the participants report about positive feelings during their church visit. Moreover, it is one-third of the children who show spiritual or religious references in their statements. They talk about personal peace and comfort during the visit, or describe the church as a place to pray and experience the presence of God. Regression analysis identifies that it is the religiously educated children who express such references. Furthermore, children with high centrality of religiosity tend to choose traditional religious concepts, symbols and practices to express reference. These results are mostly in line with relevant theory from sociology of religion and primarily support the concept of subjective turn in religion.

Distributed Cognition in Cancer Treatment Decision Making: An Application of the DECIDE Decision-Making Styles Typology.

Distributed cognition occurs when cognitive and affective schemas are shared between two or more people during interpersonal discussion. Although extant research focuses on distributed cognition in decision making between health care providers and patients, studies show that caregivers are also highly influential in the treatment decisions of patients. However, there are little empirical data describing how and when families exert influence. The current article addresses this gap by examining decisional support in the context of cancer randomized clinical trial (RCT) decision making. Data are drawn from in-depth interviews with rural, Appalachian cancer patients ( N = 46). Analysis of transcript data yielded empirical support for four distinct models of health decision making. The implications of these findings for developing interventions to improve the quality of treatment decision making and overall well-being are discussed.

A Hierarchical Multiple-Level Approach to the Assessment of Interpersonal Relatedness and Self-Definition: Implications for Research, Clinical Practice, and DSM Planning

ABSTRACTExtant research suggests there is considerable overlap between so-called 2-polarities models of personality development; that is, models that propose that personality development evolves through a dialectic synergistic interaction between 2 key developmental tasks across the life span—the development of self-definition on the one hand and of relatedness on the other. These models have attracted considerable research attention and play a central role in DSM planning. This article provides a researcher- and clinician-friendly guide to the assessment of these personality theories. We argue that current theoretical models focus on issues of relatedness and self-definition at different hierarchically organized levels of analysis; that is (a) at the level of broad personality features, (b) at the motivational level (i.e., the motivational processes underlying the development of these dimensions), and (c) at the level of underlying internal working models or cognitive affective schemas, and the specific interpersonal features and problems in which they are expressed. Implications for further research and DSM planning are outlined.

Impairments in Self Structures in Depression and Suicide in Psychodynamic and Cognitive Behavioral Approaches: Implications for Clinical Practice and Research

This paper discusses the growing convergence among cognitive behavioral and psychodynamic approaches to psychopathology, and to depression and suicide in particular, with a special focus on theoretical models emphasizing (a) the role of cognitive affective schemas or representations of self and others and (b) impairments in mentalizing or meta-cognition. We discuss similarities and differences between these approaches in the conceptualization and the treatment of depression. This review shows that despite continuing convergence, some important differences remain which may provide a particularly fruitful area for clinical practice and future research directed towards uncovering the mutative factors in the treatment of depression.

Whole mind and shared mind in clinical decision-making

ObjectiveTo review the theory, research evidence and ethical implications regarding “whole mind” and “shared mind” in clinical practice in the context of chronic and serious illnesses. MethodsSelective critical review of the intersection of classical and naturalistic decision-making theories, cognitive neuroscience, communication research and ethics as they apply to decision-making and autonomy. ResultsDecision-making involves analytic thinking as well as affect and intuition (“whole mind”) and sharing cognitive and affective schemas of two or more individuals (“shared mind”). Social relationships can help processing of complex information that otherwise would overwhelm individuals’ cognitive capacities. ConclusionsMedical decision-making research, teaching and practice should consider both analytic and non-analytic cognitive processes. Further, research should consider that decisions emerge not only from the individual perspectives of patients, their families and clinicians, but also the perspectives that emerge from the interactions among them. Social interactions have the potential to enhance individual autonomy, as well as to promote relational autonomy based on shared frames of reference. Practice implicationsShared mind has the potential to result in wiser decisions, greater autonomy and self-determination; yet, clinicians and patients should be vigilant for the potential of hierarchical relationships to foster coercion or silencing of the patient's voice.

Psychodynamic and cognitive–behavioral approaches of obsessive–compulsive disorder: Is it time to work through our ambivalence?

This paper provides an overview of the growing convergence among psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral approaches of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). From a traditional psychoanalytic point of view, OCD is mainly conceptualized in terms of a constant conflict between feelings of love and hate. More recent psychodynamic theories of OCD, such as the object-relational model, focus on the role of ambivalent mental representations or cognitive-affective schemas of self and others. This notion of mental representations or schemas links psychodynamic formulations to cognitive-behavioral approaches of OCD. Moreover, there is increasing overlap between psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral models concerning the core dynamics involved in OCD. Implications of this convergence for future research and clinical practice are discussed.

The emotional experience of K

The author raises the question of the emotional experience of K in Bion's schema of affective links, L, H, and K, suggesting that it is the emotional experience of feeling curious. He explores the central role curiosity has in ‘On arrogance’ and ‘Attacks on linking’ and hypothesizes that in Learning from experience the more complex notion of K is introduced in its place. Thus, Bion's affective schema is taken to be a version of Freud's account of experience in terms of instinctual impulses recast in terms of emotional experience. Freud's primary developmental dichotomy, the tensions between the pleasure principle and the reality principle, can be seen as the dichotomy of tensions between the emotional experience of L/H and the emotional experience of K. This suggests that the potential tension between K and L/H is critical to what happens in the consulting room. Finally the author argues that containing as a developmental dynamic is an expression of a K‐state‐of‐mind and thus the container is thus a container‐in‐K. It concludes that one important aspect of what Bion called ‐K is an attack on a K‐state‐of‐mind by an intrusion of L/H which has the effect of contaminating and dominating the urge to know.

Already Filtered: Affective Immersion and Personality Differences in Accessing Present and Past

Schemas contribute to adaptation, filtering novelty though knowledge-expectancy structures, the residue of past contingencies and their consequences. Adaptation requires a balance between flexible, dynamic context-sensitivity and the cognitive efficiency that schemas afford in promoting persistent goal pursuit despite distraction. Affects can form and disrupt schemas. Transient affective experiences systematically alter selectivity of attentiveness to the directly experienced present environment, the internal environment, and to the stored experiences of memory. Enduring personal stylistic predispositions, like implicit motives and affective schemas, influence how experience is perceived, responded to, and integrated; they shape memory and influence present experiential patterns, individually and intersubjectively. Such systematic influences are potential sources of error in the study of memory if not mapped; so far, individual personality differences have just been a source of complication in the literature on emotion-congruent perception and memory. I synthesize what findings there are about how personality differences, emotions, and affects contribute to the structuring and integration of perceptions and memories both directly and by way of hot, affectively-anchored schemas. Case studies from experimental and personality psychology highlight a conception of personality and affective experience relevant to memory research and cognitive science.

Perceptions of Parents: A Measure of Adolescents' Feelings About Their Parents

The majority of measures that assess the parentchild relationship are based on overt parental behavior. Given that a substantial percentage of youth do not have contact with their father, these measures often lead to missing data due to paternal absence. We describe a series of four studies that led to the development of the Perceptions of Parents (POP) measure, which can be completed by younger and older adolescents even if they do not have contact with their mother or their father. The measure was found to be sound psychometrically. Two factors, positive affect and negative affect, emerged for adolescents ' perceptions of their mother and father. Scores on these factors were meaningfully related to adolescents' psychological adjustment. We discuss connections between adolescents' perceptions of their parents and therapeutic interventions for adolescents who are psychologically distressed. Key Words. adolescents, affect, feelings, parents, perceptions. The assessment of parent-child relationships has not kept pace with changes that have occurred in family constellations over the past three decades. Whereas 87% of children were reported to live in two-parent households in 1970, approximately 61% of children in the United States younger than 18 years old lived with both of their biological parents in 1990 (Roberts, 1993). This figure varies according to race and ethnicity. Approximately 26% of African American children live with both of their biological parents. The majority of children and adolescents who do not live with both of their biological parents live with their biological mother and have some type of contact with their biological father. Seltzer (1991) found that over 70% of children who do not live with their biological father have some type of contact with him, but nearly 30% did not have any contact with their biological father. Most studies of children's perceptions of their parents have focused on older adolescents' and young adults' retrospective reports of the parentchild relationship (reviewed in Burbach & Borduin, 1986; Gerlsma, Emmelkamp, & Arrindell, 1990). Most of these studies have used measures such as the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory-Revised (CRPBI-R; Schaefer, 1965; Schludermann & Schludermann, 1970) or the Parental Bonding Inventory (PBI; Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979), which assess adolescents' perceptions of their father and mother. By design, these measures assess overt behavior. Thus, these measures cannot be completed for a parent who does not (or did not) have face-to-face contact with the adolescent. Because of this measurement design, less is known about adolescents' cognitions and emotions related to their absent parent, especially absent fathers (Phares, 1996). It would be helpful to have a measure that could be given to adolescents that would assess their cognitions (i.e., mental representations) and emotions related to their father and mother, regardless of the physical presence or absence of the parents. LINES OF RESEARCH Two separate but related lines of research are relevant to this investigation. A number of investigations into and affective schema might relate to adolescents' perceptions of their parents. From a psychodynamic perspective, the large literature on attachment theory also might relate to adolescents' perceptions of their parents. Cognitions and Emotions Based on research into and affective schema in adults, it is not unreasonable to expect that adolescents who do not have contact with a parent still might have emotional reactions to that parent (e.g., Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991). These relational schemas are cognitive structures representing regularities in patterns of interpersonal relatedness (Baldwin, 1992, p. 461). Relational schemas of others are based on and affective components, which, according to Baldwin, can be formed from direct interactions or information about the other person. …

Mental Representations in Personality Development, Psychopathology, and the Therapeutic Process

This article considers the construct of mental representation from the perspectives of psychoanalytic object-relations theory and cognitive developmental psychology and the congruence of these formulations with research and theory in cognitive science and social cognition. Concepts of mental representation are applied to the study of psychopathology, personality assessment, interpersonal relationships or attachment styles, and therapeutic progress in the long-term, inpatient treatment of seriously disturbed adolescents and young adults. Understanding of personality development, psychopathology, and the therapeutic process is greatly enhanced by this constructivist perspective, which considers the construction of mental representations or cognitive–affective schemas to be a central constituent of personality development and organization.

The Legacy of Boesch's Intellectual Oeuvre

The article serves as an introduction to Boesch's theory from the personal point of view of an author who has interacted with Boesch for a long time. First, three roots of Boesch's enterprise are located (Boesch's clinical work, his interest in contexts, and his own scientific heritage), and their implications for his theoretical framework are drawn. In a second section the intrinsic relationship among some of Boesch's key concepts is illustrated (actor, action, cognitive and affective schemata, symbolism, fantasms and myths). In a third part some thoughts about the future of Boesch's theory are offered. Here it is claimed that in Boesch's theory the social world is not as adequately elaborated as is the world of objects, and that this is a task for the future. Additionally, some methodical and methodological implications are enumerated, which follow from an action theory that is built upon a potentially self-reflective subject who is to be respected also as a moral patient.

Multidimensional Schematic Restructuring Treatment for Obsessions: Theory and Practice

This paper describes a multidimensional schematic restructuring treatment approach for obsessions, developed to provide more substantial and enduring clinical improvement as compared with existing treatment approaches. The aim of treatment is to ameliorate symptoms by restructuring dysfunctional, core cognitive and affective schemas relevant to the etiology and/or maintenance of O.C.D. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) symptoms. Aspects of cognitive theory and developmental psychology not previously reported to be applied to O.C.D. are integrated theoretically and technically. Treatment targets preexisting dimensions as well as those in response to the obsession. Explicit as well as tacit structural levels are addressed. These include automatic thoughts and core beliefs, emotional responses and schemas, and behavioral coping deficits. Significant attachment and developmental experiences are identified and utilized. Strategies to identify, access, and restructure core obsession-related schemas; to reframe and decenter the obsession; and to address respondent automatic thoughts and dysphoric mood are described and illustrated. Restructuring strategies are combined with existing skills acquisition and exposure-based techniques. A multifaceted schematic constellation is proposed to underlie O.C.D. symptoms. Eleven O.C.D. specific schematic dimensions are under investigation in a new 160-item scale (Obsessive Compulsive Cognitive Schematic Scale, Sookman & Pinard, 1991). Indications for research are discussed.

Affective Schemas in the Appropriation of Narrative Texts

An argument is made that a knower's appropriation of a text takes place in relation to thematic images that the knower construes as epistemically salient. Texts offer a large but finite number of themes and images on which readers may focus. Readers come to texts, in turn, with a variety of schemas, or modes of cognitive organization derived from their prior, personally meaningful experience. The reader's affective schemas are evoked by particular thematic images in the text. Around these chosen thematic images further reflective activity takes place. This dialectical epistemic process is discussed in terms of Piaget's model of reflective abstraction and is illustrated through examining student responses to Camus's The Stranger.

An Analogical Methodology for Analysis and Validation of Anomalous Cognitive and Linguistic Operations in Small Group (Fantasy Theme) Reports

An initial analogical methodology for the analysis and validation of anomalous cognitive and linguistic operations in small group subliteral narrative (fantasy theme) reports is presented. Subliteral narratives (fantasy themes) are linguistic expressions that carry two or more levels of meaning, often referred to as "symbolic, " "metaphoral, " or figurative language. The methodology and cognitive-linguistic operations are instantiated with data derived from protocols transcribed from small group interactions. The significance of such anomalous findings bear on cognitive research, on story narratives, similarity relations, action ships, speech errors, analogical reasoning, isomorphic relations, structure mapping, metaphor comprehension, affective schemata, and transformation of invariance. Some implications are discussed.