Conscious Emotional Experience Research Articles

Can feeding the gut microbiome treat malnutrition?

Emotions coordinate our behavior and physiological states during survival-salient events and pleasurable interactions. Even though we are often consciously aware of our current emotional state, such as anger or happiness, the mechanisms giving ...Emotions are often felt in the body, and somatosensory feedback has been proposed to trigger conscious emotional experiences. Here we reveal maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions using a unique topographical self-report method. In ...

In This Issue

Emotions coordinate our behavior and physiological states during survival-salient events and pleasurable interactions. Even though we are often consciously aware of our current emotional state, such as anger or happiness, the mechanisms giving ...Emotions are often felt in the body, and somatosensory feedback has been proposed to trigger conscious emotional experiences. Here we reveal maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions using a unique topographical self-report method. In ...

Profile of Michael Manga

Emotions coordinate our behavior and physiological states during survival-salient events and pleasurable interactions. Even though we are often consciously aware of our current emotional state, such as anger or happiness, the mechanisms giving ...Emotions are often felt in the body, and somatosensory feedback has been proposed to trigger conscious emotional experiences. Here we reveal maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions using a unique topographical self-report method. In ...

Vocational Identity Resources in Emerging Adulthood: Associations With Facets of Dispositional Mindfulness

The processes of career development and forming a crystallized identity can be fraught with emotional turmoil. One multidimensional construct known to reduce emotional reactivity is dispositional mindfulness (DM). We used canonical correlation analysis to examine relationships involving measures of resources for establishing a vocational identity (Hirschi, 2012a) and facets of DM in emerging adults (134 women, 38 men). Observing, describing, and nonreactivity to inner experiences contributed uniquely to the first canonical function with career agency and occupational engagement. Observing, describing, and nonjudging contributed uniquely to the second function with occupational engagement and negative career outlook. These results shed light on key facets of DM that help emerging adults to effectively utilize emotion within the context of career‐life planning. Future research should examine relationships between DM facets and additional constructs subsumed within the career resources model. Counselors may find utility in understanding how clients conceptualize conscious emotional experience and use it in career‐life planning.

Association between alexithymia and impaired reward valuation in patients with fronto-insular damage.

Humans compute the anticipated reward value of stimuli in their environment in order to behave in an adaptive, goal-directed manner. This reward valuation ability is vital, and its disruption in a range of clinical populations has profound personal and social consequences. However, research has often failed to consider the reward-related functions of a central component of human emotion: conscious emotional experience. Alexithymia-a condition characterized by diminished conscious awareness of one's emotions-offers a unique opportunity to examine the link between emotional awareness and reward valuation. In the present study, we measured both acquired alexithymia and reward valuation ability in a large sample of patients with traumatic brain injuries (N = 112). Behavioral analyses provided evidence for a negative association between alexithymia and reward valuation ability. This association remained significant after controlling for several covariates in the model (anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and IQ). Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping was carried out to identify brain regions-of-interest (ROIs) that, when damaged, lead to increased alexithymia and impaired reward valuation. Importantly, mediation models computed using the ROIs identified through the voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping revealed a specific indirect effect of left frontoinsular damage on impaired valuation that was mediated by increased levels of alexithymia. This indirect effect was not observed for any of the other candidate ROIs. The present study identifies a network of brain regions likely to be involved in the integration of subjective feelings and reward processes critical for the adaptive control of goal-directed behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Implicit Affect, Heart Rate Variability, and the Metabolic Syndrome.

Greater negative affect has been associated with an increased risk of the metabolic syndrome (METs). However, all studies to date have examined this association using explicit affect measures based on subjective ratings of emotional experiences. Prior studies suggest that implicit affect, representing the automatic, prereflective appraisal process involved in conscious emotional experiences, is associated with physiological stress responses independent of explicit affect. Furthermore, low resting heart rate variability (HRV) may increase the risk of stress-related diseases. The goals of this study were to evaluate the associations between implicit and explicit affect and METs and to assess whether these associations were amplified by lower HRV. This secondary analysis of a larger study included 217 middle-aged women who completed measures of implicit affect, explicit affect, high-frequency HRV, and the different components of METs. There was a significant interaction between implicit negative affect and HRV predicting METs (odds ratio = 0.57, 95% confidence interval = 0.35-0.92), such that the combination of higher implicit affect and lower HRV was associated with a greater likelihood of METs. Similarly, there was a main effect of implicit negative affect as well as an interaction between implicit negative affect and HRV on the lipid accumulation product (b (standard error) = -0.06 (0.02), 95% confidence interval = -0.11 to -0.02), a combination of waist circumference and triglycerides. Higher implicit negative affect in the context of lower HRV may be related to a greater risk of METs. The present findings highlight the relevance of including implicit affect measures in psychosomatic medicine research.

Bodily maps of emotions are culturally universal.

Emotions are often felt in the body, and interoceptive feedback is an important component of conscious emotional experiences. Here, we provide support for the cultural universality of bodily sensations associated with 13 emotions in a large international sample (3,954 individuals from 101 countries; age range = 18-90). Participants were presented with 2 silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words and asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing while they experienced each given emotion. We tested the effects of various background factors (i.e., age, sex, education, body mass index, nationality, civilization, and language) on the bodily sensation maps. Bodily sensations associated with emotions were concordant across the tested cultures (rs > 0.82) and across the sexes (r > 0.80). Bodily sensations weakened during aging (M rs = 0.11 across emotions). We conclude that universality in experiencing emotions in the body is stronger than the differences due to culture or sex. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Determination of Professional Awareness of a Future Specialist at the Professional Training Stage

This scientific article is devoted to the problem of searching the determinants of professional development of the individual at the stage of vocational training. The author pays special attention to the process of development of professional consciousness, substantiates his decisive role in the formation of the personality of the future specialist, because it is this process that determines the formation of individual style of human activity, the development of professional creativity and progressive views, the formation of interests, values, motives, reflections. The urgency of the problem of structuring the professional consciousness, determining its place and importance in the mechanism of professional development of the personality are emphasized. Other factors of professional development of the personality - professional-personal qualities and professional competence are established, and their interdependence is substantiated. On the basis of scientific analysis of the structure of professional consciousness and its constituent components - cognitive, reflective, axiological, motivational, affective blocks, the corresponding directions of development of professional consciousness and their indicators are determined: awareness of professional reality; becoming a professional I; conscious evaluation of oneself as a specialist; awareness of professional values; determination of conscious professional motives; conscious experience of professional emotions; conscious avoidance of professional stress and burnout.

РОЗВИТОК ПРОФЕСІЙНОЇ СВІДОМОСТІ НА ЕТАПІ НАВЧАННЯ У ЗАКЛАДАХ ВИЩОЇ ОСВІТИ: СПРОБА КОНЦЕПТУАЛІЗАЦІЇ

Дана стаття присвячена проблемі пошуку детермінант професійного розвитку особистості на етапі професійної підготовки. Особливу увагу авторка приділяє процесу розвитку професійної свідомості, обґрунтовує його вирішальну роль у становленні особистості майбутнього фахівця, оскільки саме цей процес визначає формування індивідуального стилю діяльності людини, розвиток професійної творчості й прогресивних поглядів, формування інтересів, цінностей, мотивів, рефлексії. Підкреслюється актуальність проблеми структуризації професійної свідомості, визначення її місця і значення в механізмі професійного розвитку особистості. Встановлено й інші фактори професійного розвитку особистості – професійно-особистісні якості й професійна компетентність, обґрунтовано їхню взаємообумовленість. На основі науко­вого аналізу структури професійної свідомості та її складових компонентів – когнітивного, реф­лек­сивного, аксіологічного, мотиваційного, афективного блоків визначено відповідні напрямки розвитку професійної свідомості та їхні показники: усвідомлення професійної дійсності; становлення професійного «Я»; усвідомлене оцінювання себе як фахівця; усвідомлення професійних цінностей; визначення свідомих професійних мотивів; усвідомлене переживання професійних емоцій; усвідомлене уникнення професійних стресів і вигорання. На основі виділених детермінант професійного розвитку (становлення професійно-особистісних якостей і професійної компетентності фахівця), а також напрямків розвитку професійної свідомості розроблено й представлено авторську модель становлення професійної свідомості фахівця. Отримані шляхом аналітичного огляду літератури дані дозволяють перейти до наступного етапу – дослідження механізмів розвитку професійної свідомості з метою розроблення відповідних ефективних тренінгових програм і оптимізації процесу професійної підготовки фахівців у закладах вищої освіти

Comparing three models of arousal in the human brain.

The bipolar valence-arousal model is assumed by many to be an underlying structure of conscious experience of core affect and emotion. In this work, we compare three versions of the bipolar valence-arousal model at the neural domain, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Specifically, we systematically contrast three models of arousal: model 1-'arousal as a separate quale from valence', model 2-'arousal as intensity of bipolar valence' and model 3-'arousal as a linear combination of unipolar pleasant and unpleasant'. Using parametric modulation analysis, we estimated the ability of each model to predict activation in arousal-related brain regions, in response to affective stimuli. The results suggest that arousal is not separable from valence in its ability to predict arousal-related neural activity. The relevance of the results to the theory of conscious affect is discussed.

Body Maps of Moral Concerns

It has been proposed that somatosensory reaction to varied social circumstances results in feelings (i.e., conscious emotional experiences). Here, we present two preregistered studies in which we examined the topographical maps of somatosensory reactions associated with violations of different moral concerns. Specifically, participants in Study 1 (N = 596) were randomly assigned to respond to scenarios involving various moral violations and were asked to draw key aspects of their subjective somatosensory experience on two 48,954-pixel silhouettes. Our results show that body patterns corresponding to different moral violations are felt in different regions of the body depending on whether individuals are classified as liberals or conservatives. We also investigated how individual differences in moral concerns relate to body maps of moral violations. Finally, we used natural-language processing to predict activation in body parts on the basis of the semantic representation of textual stimuli. We replicated these findings in a nationally representative sample in Study 2 (N = 300). Overall, our findings shed light on the complex relationships between moral processes and somatosensory experiences.

In Memoriam: Lelio Orci, 1937–2019

Emotions coordinate our behavior and physiological states during survival-salient events and pleasurable interactions. Even though we are often consciously aware of our current emotional state, such as anger or happiness, the mechanisms giving ...Emotions are often felt in the body, and somatosensory feedback has been proposed to trigger conscious emotional experiences. Here we reveal maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions using a unique topographical self-report method. In ...

Investigating Emotions as Functional States Distinct From Feelings.

We defend a functionalist approach to emotion that begins by focusing on emotions as central states with causal connections to behavior and to other cognitive states. The approach brackets the conscious experience of emotion, lists plausible features that emotions exhibit, and argues that alternative schemes (e.g., focusing on feelings or on neurobiology as the starting point) are unpromising candidates. We conclude with the benefits of our approach: one can study emotions in animals; one can look in the brain for the implementation of specific features; and one ends up with an architecture of the mind in which emotions are fully accommodated through their relations to the rest of cognition. Our article focuses on arguing for this general approach; as such, it is an essay in the philosophy of emotion rather than in the psychology or neuroscience of emotion.

A higher-order theory of emotional consciousness

Emotional states of consciousness, or what are typically called emotional feelings, are traditionally viewed as being innately programmed in subcortical areas of the brain, and are often treated as different from cognitive states of consciousness, such as those related to the perception of external stimuli. We argue that conscious experiences, regardless of their content, arise from one system in the brain. In this view, what differs in emotional and nonemotional states are the kinds of inputs that are processed by a general cortical network of cognition, a network essential for conscious experiences. Although subcortical circuits are not directly responsible for conscious feelings, they provide nonconscious inputs that coalesce with other kinds of neural signals in the cognitive assembly of conscious emotional experiences. In building the case for this proposal, we defend a modified version of what is known as the higher-order theory of consciousness.

How should neuroscience study emotions? by distinguishing emotion states, concepts, and experiences.

In this debate with Lisa Feldman Barrett, I defend a view of emotions as biological functional states. Affective neuroscience studies emotions in this sense, but it also studies the conscious experience of emotion (‘feelings’), our ability to attribute emotions to others and to animals (‘attribution’, ‘anthropomorphizing’), our ability to think and talk about emotion (‘concepts of emotion’, ‘semantic knowledge of emotion’) and the behaviors caused by an emotion (‘expression of emotions’, ‘emotional reactions’). I think that the most pressing challenge facing affective neuroscience is the need to carefully distinguish between these distinct aspects of ‘emotion’. I view emotion states as evolved functional states that regulate complex behavior, in both people and animals, in response to challenges that instantiate recurrent environmental themes. These functional states, in turn, can also cause conscious experiences (feelings), and their effects and our memories for those effects also contribute to our semantic knowledge of emotions (concepts). Cross-species studies, dissociations in neurological and psychiatric patients, and more ecologically valid neuroimaging designs should be used to partly separate these different phenomena.

Current Perspectives in the Intersection between Emotion and Consciousness

A fascinating question that went through the last decades of experimental psychology research is the relationship between emotion and consciousness. Emotions are complex pattern that require the contribution of numerous physiological, psychological and cognitive processes. In fact, they are state of feeling which give rise to physical and psychological changes that influence and actively drive our behaviors. On the one hand emotions involve the appraisal and evaluation of sensory afferent information. On the other hand they produce motivation and disposition to behave that, differently from reflexes and instincts, vary across different situations. The fact that the same central emotional state may generate very different patterns of behavior, each adaptive in a different situational context, is an important connection point with the consciousness [1,2]. Here, we consider the term consciousness in a broad acceptation referring to to the level of consciousness (e.g. coma, vegetative state and wakefulness), the content (that is what it is we are conscious of) as well as the self-awareness [3-6]. By this token, conscious emotional experiences may be fundamental to elaborate the cognitive and behavioral strategies which enable us to act intentionally and purposely. Hence, emotion and consciousness overlap and interact in several psychological domains and, importantly, each is necessary for some aspects of the other.

Are valence and arousal separable in emotional experience?

The bipolar valence-arousal model of conscious experience of emotions is prominent in emotion research. In this work, we examine the validity of this model in the context of feelings elicited by visual stimuli. In particular, we examine whether arousal has a unique contribution over bivariate valence (separate measures for pleasure and displeasure) in explaining physiological arousal (electrodermal activity, EDA) and self-reported feelings at the level of item-specific responses across and within individuals. Our results suggest that self-reports of arousal have neither an advantage in predicting EDA nor make a unique contribution when valence is present in the model. Acceptance of the null hypothesis was confirmed with the use of the Bayesian information criterion. Arousal also showed no advantage over valence in predicting global feelings, but demonstrated a small unique component (1.5% to 4% of variance explained). These results have practical implications for both experimental design in the study of emotions and the underlying bases of their conscious experience.

The neural basis of attaining conscious awareness of sad mood.

The neural processes associated with becoming aware of sad mood are not fully understood. We examined the dynamic process of becoming aware of sad mood and recovery from sad mood. Sixteen healthy subjects underwent fMRI while participating in a sadness induction task designed to allow for variable mood induction times. Individualized regressors linearly modeled the time periods during the attainment of self-reported sad and baseline "neutral" mood states, and the validity of the linearity assumption was further tested using independent component analysis. During sadness induction the dorsomedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, and anterior insula exhibited a linear increase in the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal until subjects became aware of a sad mood and then a subsequent linear decrease as subjects transitioned from sadness back to the non-sadness baseline condition. These findings extend understanding of the neural basis of conscious emotional experience.

Conciencia emocional, estados de ánimo e indicadores de ajuste individual y social en niños de 8-12 años

Title: Emotional awareness, mood and individual and social adjustment outcomes in children aged 8-12 years old. Abstract: Emotional awareness or conscious experience of emotion is a key concept related to different individual adjustment child outcomes, such as somatic complaints. This relationship, moderated by mood, has been found in preadolescent and adolescent population. However, little is known in younger children and including other adjustment outcomes, such as adaptation. Therefore, the objective of this work is to analyze the con- tribution of emotional awareness and mood upon different adjustment outcomes: somatic complaints and inadaptation (assessed by the test TAMAI), in children aged 8-12 years old. Different self-reported question- naires were administered to 1423 children, with a mean age of 9.8 years old. Results support the influence of emotional awareness (mainly the ability to differentiate and verbally communicate emotions and analyze the own emotions), strengthened by mood, not only upon somatic complaints, but also upon personal and social inadaptation. These results come to outline the importance of emotional abilities and the corresponding affective moods, in children daily life.

Bodily maps of emotions

Emotions are often felt in the body, and somatosensory feedback has been proposed to trigger conscious emotional experiences. Here we reveal maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions using a unique topographical self-report method. In five experiments, participants (n = 701) were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions. They were asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing while viewing each stimulus. Different emotions were consistently associated with statistically separable bodily sensation maps across experiments. These maps were concordant across West European and East Asian samples. Statistical classifiers distinguished emotion-specific activation maps accurately, confirming independence of topographies across emotions. We propose that emotions are represented in the somatosensory system as culturally universal categorical somatotopic maps. Perception of these emotion-triggered bodily changes may play a key role in generating consciously felt emotions.