Modeling emotion processes remains a conceptual and methodological challenge in affective sciences. In responding to the other target articles in this special section on “Emotion and the Brain” and the comments on our article, we address the issue of potentially separate brain networks subserving the functions of the different emotion components. In particular, we discuss the suggested role of component synchronization in producing information integration for the dynamic emergence of a coherent emotion process, as well as the links between incentive (...) salience and concern-relevance in the elicitation of emotion. (shrink)

The target article is well in accordance with recent theoretical advances considering the complex large-scale brain network organization underlying emotions. Given current limitations of the methods in brain science, however, research is faced with the difficult question as to how it will be possible to elucidate the complex nonlinear interactions, the neurotransmitters involved, and the excitatory or inhibitory nature of neural processes underlying human emotion in such networks. Moreover, while investigating the network properties of neural processes underlying emotions, it is (...) also important to keep in mind that specific brain structures, or specific brain networks, generate specific emotions. Thus, while aiming at elucidating complex large-scale brain networks of emotion, it is important to identify emotional specificity of, or within, these networks. (shrink)

In this special section, three target articles present three different perspectives on emotion and how it is implemented in the human brain. Fundamental issues are discussed such as the nature and organization of emotion’s representation in the brain and the best approaches for elucidating emotion’s neural basis. Comments and author replies further discuss these issues and explore their interconnections. A common theme of the target articles and commentaries is that multiple approaches and perspectives must be integrated across all levels of (...) analysis to understand the neural basis of emotion. (shrink)

Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus view—in this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer or Luiz Pessoa. Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. But our version of functionalism (...) is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions. (shrink)

Drawing from empirical literature on ecological psychology, affective neuroscience, and philosophy of mind, this article describes a model of affect-as-motivation in the intentional bond between organism and environment. An epistemological justification for the motivating role of emotions is provided through articulating the perceptual context of emotions as embodied, situated, and functional, and positing perceptual salience as a biasing signal in an affordance competition model. The motivational role of affect is pragmatically integrated into discussions of action selection in the neurosciences.