This paper critically examines the philosophical underpinnings of current experimental investigation into animal affect-related decision-making. Animals’ affective states are standardly operationalised by linking positively valenced states with “approach” behaviours and negatively valenced states with “avoidance” behaviours. While this operationalisation has provided a helpful starting point to investigate the ecological role of animals’ internal states, there is extensive evidence that valenced and motivational states do not always neatly align, namely, instances where “wanting” does not entail “liking” (and vice versa). To address (...) this limitation, this paper proposes the (re-)integration of dominance as a dimension of affect. In particular, I argue that dominance, construed as a measure of organisms’ self-assessed behavioural control, can provide the necessary nuance to understand animal affect-related decision-making. Thus, after addressing the theoretical and methodological challenges related to incorporating dominance into a definition of “core affect”, this paper introduces the “Valence-Arousal-Dominance” model of animal affect. This model is explored for its potential applications in two domains. Firstly, in the study of animal affect-related decision-making under predation risk, and secondly, in the study of animal wellbeing. Through these applications, this model aims to bring experimental paradigms of animal affect-related behaviour closer to ecologically relevant scenarios. (shrink)

Some sensory experiences are pleasant, some unpleasant. This is a truism. But understanding what makes these experiences pleasant and unpleasant is not an easy job. Various difficulties and puzzles arise as soon as we start theorizing. There are various philosophical theories on offer that seem to give different accounts for the positive or negative affective valences of sensory experiences. In this paper, we will look at the current state of art in the philosophy of mind, present the main contenders, critically (...) compare and contrast them. In particular, we want to examine how they handle the reason-giving power of affective states. We will look into two representationalist proposals (Evaluativism and Imperativism) and a functionalist proposal, and argue that, contrary to their own advertisements, the representationalist proposals don’t have good accounts of why and how sensory affect can motivate, rationalize, and justify subsequent behavior and intentional mental activity. We will show that our own functionalist proposal does a much better job in this regard, and that when the representationalist proposals are modified to do a better job, they fare better not because of their representationalist credentials but due to their functionalist ones. (shrink)

In their recently published book Nudge (2008) Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (T&S) defend a position labelled as ‘libertarian paternalism’. Their thinking appeals to both the right and the left of the political spectrum, as evidenced by the bedfellows they keep on either side of the Atlantic. In the US, they have advised Barack Obama, while, in the UK, they were welcomed with open arms by the David Cameron's camp (Chakrabortty 2008). I will consider the following questions. What (...) is Nudge? How is it different from social advertisement? Does Nudge induce genuine preference change? Does Nudge build moral character? Is there a moral difference between the use of Nudge as opposed to subliminal images to reach policy objectives? And what are the moral constraints on Nudge? (shrink)

There is a long-standing debate regarding the nature of the relationship between emotions and consciousness. Majority of existing computational models of emotions largely avoid the issue, and generally do not explicitly address distinctions between the conscious and the unconscious components of emotions. This paper highlights the importance of developing an adequately differentiated vocabulary describing the mental states of interest, and their features and components, for the development of computational models of the relationships between emotions and consciousness. We discuss current psychological (...) theories of emotion, highlighting specific points in the affective processes where links exist with consciousness, and possible roles played by each. We discuss examples of models that are beginning to address components of the interface between emotions and consciousness: models of social emotions, requiring explicit representations of the self; models of affective biases on attention; models of emotion and metacognition; and models of emotion regulation. We conclude with a discussion of some of the challenges associated with modeling mental states whose core distinguishing characteristic is an awareness of affective feelings, and highlight the importance of integrating the diverse approaches to emotion research and modeling currently existing within psychology and neuroscience. (shrink)

Changing preferencesis a phenomenonoften invoked but rarely properlyaccounted for. Throughout the history of the social sciences, researchers have come against the possibility that their subjects’ preferenceswere affected by the phenomenato be explainedor by otherfactorsnot taken into accountin the explanation.Sporadically, attempts have been made to systematically investigate these in uences, but none of these seems to have had a lasting impact. Today we are still not much further with respect to preference change than we were at the middle of the last (...) century. This anthology hopes to provide a new impulse for research into this important subject. In particular, we have chosen two routes to amplify this impulse. First, we stress the use of modellingtechniquesfamiliar from economicsand decision theory. Instead of constructing complex, all-encompassing theories of preference change, the authors of this volume start with very simple, formal accounts of some possible and hopefully plausible mechanism of preference change. Eventually, these models may nd their way into larger, empirically adequate theories, but at this stage, we think that the most importantwork lies in building structure.Secondly,we stress the importance of interdisciplinary exchange. Only by drawing together experts from different elds can the complex empirical and theoretical issues in the modelling of preference change be adequately investigated. (shrink)

Higher education students experience high rates of negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, and depression. Although emotions are known to influence attitudes per se, previous research has not examined how emotionality may relate to attitudes toward plagiarism. This study sought to examine how positive and negative emotionality relates to students’ positive attitudes, negative attitudes, and subjective norms concerning plagiarism. University students completed the Attitudes Toward Plagiarism questionnaire and measures of anxiety, stress, depression, and negative and positive affect. Extending on previous (...) research, it was found that a lack of positive affect and negative emotionality, specifically stress, were significant predictors of attitudes toward plagiarism. Emotionality predicted 8.9% and 10% of the variance in positive plagiarism attitudes and subjective norms, respectively. Interestingly, gender was unable to predict subjective norms relating to plagiarism. Support for negative and positive emotionality predicting attitudes toward plagiarism challenges the assumption that emotions do not predict attitudes within the plagiarism context. These findings are practically relevant, as they highlight the necessity of implementing interventions directly targeting mental health within the higher education setting. (shrink)

Two recent attempts to clarify misunderstandings about the nature of cultural evolution came to very different conclusions, based on very different understandings of what evolves and how. This paper begins by examining these two ‘clarifications’ in order to reveal their key differences, and goes on to rethink how culture evolves by focussing on the role of cognitive structure, or worldview.

An approach to emotion is described in which emotions are defined as states elicited by instrumental reinforcers, that is, by stimuli that are the goals for action. This leads to a theory of the evolutionary adaptive value of emotions, which is that different genes specify different goals in their own self-interest, and any actions can then be learned and performed by instrumental learning to obtain the goals. The brain mechanisms for emotion in brain regions such as the orbitofrontal and anterior (...) cingulate cortex provide a foundation for understanding the neural basis of emotion. Classically conditioned effects may modulate the actions initiated by this system. In addition to this instrumental learning system, some stimuli may elicit responses, for example approach, withdrawal, or fixed action patterns, but intervening states are not required for this type of adaptive response. In addition, a rational thought system involved in multistep planning can allow gene-specified goals to be deferred or avoided in order to achieve longer-term types of goals that may be more advantageous to the individual than to the genes. (shrink)

The goal of forming a science of intentional behavior requires a more richly detailed account of symbolic systems than is assumed by the authors. Cultural systems are not simply the equivalent in the ideational domain of culture of the purported Baldwin Effect in the genetic domain. © 2014 Cambridge University Press.

The primal motivational systems of all mammals are constituted of the evolved affective brain networks that gauge key survival issues. However, since progress in functional neuroscience has historically lagged behind conceptual developments in psychological science, motivational processes have traditionally been anchored to behavioral rather than neural and affective issues. Attempts to retrofit neuroaffective issues onto established psychological-conceptual structures are problematic, especially when fundamental evidence for primal affective circuits, and their neural nature, comes largely from animal research. This article provides a (...) synopsis of our growing understanding of primary-process emotional systems of mammalian brains and minds, which provides a new empirically based infrastructure for higher levels of human theorizing. (shrink)

Moral bioenhancement is the attempt to improve human behavioral dispositions, especially in relation to the great ethical challenges of our age. To this end, scientists have hypothesised new molecules or even permanent changes in the genetic makeup to achieve such moral bioenhancement. The philosophical debate has focused on the permissibility and desirability of that enhancement and the possibility of making it mandatory, given the positive result that would follow. However, there might be another way to enhance the overall moral behavior (...) of us humans, namely that of targeting people with lower propensity to trust and altruism. Based on the theory of attachment, people who have a pattern of insecure attachment are less inclined to prosocial behavior. We know that these people are influenced by negative childhood memories: this negative emotional component may be erased or reduced by the administration of propranolol when the bad memory is reactivated, thereby improving prosocial skills. It could be objected that memory-editing might be a threat for the person’s identity and authenticity. However, if the notion of rigid identity is replaced by that of extended identity, this objection loses validity. If identity is understood as something that changes over time, moral bioenhancement through memory-editing seems indeed legitimate and even desirable. (shrink)

We briefly describe ways in which neuroeconomics has made contributions to its contributing disciplines, especially neuroscience, and a specific way in which it could make future contributions to both. The contributions of a scientific research programme can be categorized in terms of (1) description and classification of phenomena, (2) the discovery of causal relationships among those phenomena, and (3) the development of tools to facilitate (1) and (2). We consider ways in which neuroeconomics has advanced neuroscience and economics along each (...) line. Then, focusing on electrophysiological methods, we consider a puzzle within neuroeconomics whose solution we believe could facilitate contributions to both neuroscience and economics, in line with category (2). This puzzle concerns how the brain assigns reward values to otherwise incomparable stimuli. According to the common currency hypothesis, dopamine release is a component of a neural mechanism that solves comparability problems. We review two versions of the common currency hypothesis, one proposed by Read Montague and colleagues, the other by William Newsome and colleagues, and fit these hypotheses into considerations of rational choice. (shrink)

The inferences that can be drawn from Izard’s article are unclear. Izard (2010) suggests that his data raise questions concerning inconsistencies, confusion, and costs in emotion research. I suggest that his data do not speak to the issues of confusion and costs, and that the choice of distinguished scientists may have been inappropriate to meet the goals of Izard’s study. Of course, questions concerning the efficiency of research in emotion studies are interesting. I describe more appropriate ways of addressing such (...) issues. (shrink)

Progress in understanding the relation between brain profiles and emotions is being slowed by the belief in a collection of basic emotional states, with the names: fear, anger, joy, disgust, and sadness, that do not specify the species or age of the experiencing agent, the origin of the state, or the evidence used to infer it. This article evaluates critically the premise that decontextualized emotional words refer to natural kinds. It also suggests that investigators set aside the currently popular words (...) and search for relations, in humans and animals, between patterns of measures to varied incentives presented in distinctive contexts. (shrink)

In this commentary, I will argue that the componential and emergent views of cognitive control as defined by Cooper (2010) do not necessarily oppose each other, and I will try to make a case for their interdependence. First, I will use the construct of cognitive inhibition—one of the main componential control functions mentioned in the target articles—to illustrate my line of reasoning. Then, I will comment on how some of the target articles, each from a different perspective, bring arguments in (...) favor of this integrative view. (shrink)

Zuidas is a new city centre, which is emerging in the outskirts of Amsterdam. The ambitious project of developing a new international city centre has been carefully planned as the Netherlands has a strong and meticulous tradition for urban planning. The planning has however not only encompassed traditional urban planning aspects such as infrastructure, environmental factors and aesthetics, but has also dealt with the design of urban experiences. Through an introduction of the framework of the structure of experiences, this article (...) examines how urban experiences can be understood and analysed, and deals with how urban experiences can be designed through careful consideration of how experiences are constituted. Taking the psychological structure of experiences into account when designing urbanity is not only interesting, but also highly relevant as Zuidas is competing with other international venues such as La Défense, the Docklands and Potsdamer Platz. (shrink)

Recent neuroscientific evidence brings into question the conclusion that all aspects of consciousness are gone in patients who have descended into a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Here we summarize the evidence from human brain imaging as well as neurological damage in animals and humans suggesting that some form of consciousness can survive brain damage that commonly causes PVS. We also raise the issue that neuroscientific evidence indicates that raw emotional feelings (primary-process affects) can exist without any cognitive awareness of those (...) feelings. Likewise, the basic brain mechanisms for thirst and hunger exist in brain regions typically not damaged by PVS. If affective feelings can exist without cognitive awareness of those feelings, then it is possible that the instinctual emotional actions and pain "reflexes" often exhibited by PVS patients may indicate some level of mentality remaining in PVS patients. Indeed, it is possible such raw affective feelings are intensified when PVS patients are removed from life-supports. They may still experience a variety of primary-process affective states that could constitute forms of suffering. If so, withdrawal of life-support may violate the principle of nonmaleficence and be tantamount to inflicting inadvertent "cruel and unusual punishment" on patients whose potential distress, during the process of dying, needs to be considered in ethical decision-making about how such individuals should be treated, especially when their lives are ended by termination of life-supports. Medical wisdom may dictate the use of more rapid pharmacological forms of euthanasia that minimize distress than the de facto euthanasia of life-support termination that may lead to excruciating feelings of pure thirst and other negative affective feelings in the absence of any reflective awareness. (shrink)

In some cases people judge it morally acceptable to sacrifice one person’s life in order to save several other lives, while in other similar cases they make the opposite judgment. Researchers have identified two general factors that may explain this phenomenon at the stimulus level: (1) the agent’s intention (i.e. whether the harmful event is intended as a means or merely foreseen as a side-effect) and (2) whether the agent harms the victim in a manner that is relatively “direct” or (...) “personal”. Here we integrate these two classes of findings. Two experiments examine a novel personalness/directness factor that we call personal force, present when the force that directly impacts the victim is generated by the agent’s muscles (e.g., in pushing). Experiments 1a and b demonstrate the influence of personal force on moral judgment, distinguishing it from physical contact and spatial proximity. Experiments 2a and b demonstrate an interaction between personal force and intention, whereby the effect of personal force depends entirely on intention. These studies also introduce a method for controlling for people’s real-world expectations in decisions involving potentially unrealistic hypothetical dilemmas. (shrink)

Matthew Liao’s edited collection Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality covers a wide range of issues in moral psychology. The collection should be of interest to philosophers, psychologist, and neuroscientists alike, particularly those interested in the relation between these disciplines. I give an overview of the content and major themes of the volume and draw some important lessons about the connection between moral neuroscience and normative ethics. In particular, I argue that moving beyond some of the dichotomies implicit in some (...) of the debates advanced in the book makes the neuroscience of moral judgment much more useful in advancing normative ethics. (shrink)

In both psychology and philosophy, cognitive theories of emotion have met with increasing opposition in recent years. However, this apparent controversy is not so much a gridlock between antithetical stances as a critical debate in which each side is being forced to qualify its position in order to accommodate the other side of the story. Here, I attempt to sort out some of the disagreements between cognitivism and its rivals, adjudicating some disputes while showing that others are merely superficial. Looking (...) at evidence from neuroscience and social psychology, as well as thought experiments and theoretical arguments, I conclude that it is necessary to acknowledge both that emotions have intentional content and that they involve somatic agitation. I also point out some of the more promising directions for future research in this area. (shrink)

In the last 10 years, several authors including Griffiths and Matthen have employed classificatory principles from biology to argue for a radical revision in the way that we individuate psychological traits. Arguing that the fundamental basis for classification of traits in biology is that of ‘homology’ (similarity due to common descent) rather than ‘analogy’, or ‘shared function’, and that psychological traits are a special case of biological traits, they maintain that psychological categories should be individuated primarily by relations of homology (...) rather than in terms of shared function. This poses a direct challenge to the dominant philosophical view of how to define psychological categories, viz., ‘functionalism’. Although the implications of this position extend to all psychological traits, the debate has centered around ‘emotion’ as an example of a psychological category ripe for reinterpretation within this new framework of classification. I address arguments by Griffiths that emotions should be divided into at least two distinct classes, basic emotions and higher cognitive emotions, and that these two classes require radically different theories to explain them. Griffiths argues that while basic emotions in humans are homologous to the corresponding states in other animals, higher cognitive emotions are dependent on mental capacities unique to humans, and are therefore not homologous to basic emotions. Using the example of shame, I argue that (a) many emotions that are commonly classified as being higher cognitive emotions actually correspond to certain basic emotions, and that (b) the “higher cognitive forms” of these emotions are best seen as being homologous to their basic forms. (shrink)

Tracy, Shariff, and Cheng (2010) propose that human pride has two facets (hubristic pride [HP] and authentic pride [AP]) which, despite their similarities, diverge in important ways, including their evolutionary histories and functions. Put simplistically, AP emerged from HP. While AP and HP are thus homologous, HP continues to exist in humans, alongside AP. This is problematic on the most common interpretation of homology, in which an ancestral trait transforms into a derived trait, but does not remain present independently. I (...) suggest that construing HP and AP as serial homologues (duplicated but varying traits within single organisms) solves this problem, and also resolves some of the other tensions in their account of pride as a “single” emotion with “two” facets. (shrink)

Affective dynamics are discussed from the perspective of a view of origin and functions of affective valence based in control processes. This view posits that affect reflects the error signal of a feedback loop managing rate of progress at goal attainment or threat avoidance. Negative feelings signal doing poorly, demanding more effort. Positive feelings signal doing better than necessary, allowing coasting, which yields goal attainment without unnecessary resource expenditure. Given multiple simultaneous goals, these functions assist in moment-to-moment priority management, facilitating (...) attainment of all. (shrink)

Increasing public concern for the welfare of fish species that human beings use and exploit has highlighted the need for better understanding of the cognitive status of fish and of their ability to experience negative emotions such as pain and fear. Moreover, studying emotion and cognition in fish species broadens our scientific understanding of how emotion and cognition are represented in the central nervous system and what kind of role they play in the organization of behavior. For instance, on a (...) macro neuro-architecture level the brains of fish species look dramatically different from those of mammals, while such a dramatic difference does not (always) occur at the level of emotion- and cognition-related behavior. Here, therefore, we discuss the evidence of emotion and cognition in fish species related to underlying neuro-architecture and the role that emotion and cognition play in the organization of behavior. To do so we use a framework encompassing a number of steps allowing a systematic approach to these issues. Emotion and cognition confer on human and non-human animals the capacity to compliment and/or override immediate reflexes to stimuli and so allow a large degree of flexibility in behavior. Systematic research on behavior that in mammals is indicative of emotion and cognition has been conducted in only a few fish species. The data thus far indicate that in these species brain-behavior relationships are not fundamentally different from those observed in mammals. Furthermore, data from other studies show evidence that behavior patterns related to emotion and cognition vary between fish species as well within fish species, related to sex and life history stage for example. From a welfare perspective, knowledge of such variability will potentially help us to design optimal living conditions for fish species kept by humans. (shrink)

Increasing public concern for the welfare of fish species that human beings use and exploit has highlighted the need for better understanding of the cognitive status of fish and of their ability to experience negative emotions such as pain and fear. Moreover, studying emotion and cognition in fish species broadens our scientific understanding of how emotion and cognition are represented in the central nervous system and what kind of role they play in the organization of behavior. For instance, on a (...) macro neuro-architecture level the brains of fish species look dramatically different from those of mammals, while such a dramatic difference does not (always) occur at the level of emotion- and cognition-related behavior. Here, therefore, we discuss the evidence of emotion and cognition in fish species related to underlying neuro-architecture and the role that emotion and cognition play in the organization of behavior. To do so we use a framework encompassing a number of steps allowing a systematic approach to these issues. Emotion and cognition confer on human and non-human animals the capacity to compliment and/or override immediate reflexes to stimuli and so allow a large degree of flexibility in behavior. Systematic research on behavior that in mammals is indicative of emotion and cognition has been conducted in only a few fish species. The data thus far indicate that in these species brain-behavior relationships are not fundamentally different from those observed in mammals. Furthermore, data from other studies show evidence that behavior patterns related to emotion and cognition vary between fish species as well within fish species, related to sex and life history stage for example. From a welfare perspective, knowledge of such variability will potentially help us to design optimal living conditions for fish species kept by humans. (shrink)

A lot of qualitatively very different sensations can be pleasant or unpleasant. The Felt-Quality Views that conceive of sensory affect as having an introspectively available common phenomenology or qualitative character face the “heterogeneity problem” of specifying what that qualitative common phenomenology is. In contrast, according to the Attitudinal Views, what is common to all pleasant or unpleasant sensations is that they are all “wanted” or “unwanted” in a certain sort of way. The commonality is explained not on the basis of (...) phenomenology but by a common mental, usually some sort of conative, attitude toward the sensation. Here I criticize both views and offer an alternative framework that combines what is right in both while avoiding their unintuitive commitments. The result is the reductive (psychofunctionalist) adverbial sensory modification view of pleasure and displeasure. (shrink)

Sciences able to identify appropriate analytical units for their domain, their natural kinds, have tended to be more progressive. In the biological sciences, evolutionary natural kinds are adaptations that can be identified by their common history of selection for some function. Human brains are the product of an evolutionary history of selection for component systems which produced behaviours that gave adaptive advantage to their hosts. These structures, behaviour production systems, are the natural kinds that psychology seeks. We argue these can (...) be identified deductively by classing behaviour first according to its level of behavioural control. Early animals in our lineage used only reactive production, Vertebrates evolved motivation, and later Primates developed executive control. Behaviour can also be classified by the type of evolutionary benefit it bestows: it can deliver either immediate benefits (food, gametes), improvements in the individual’s position with respect to the world (resource access, social status), or improvements in the ability to secure future benefits (knowledge, skill). Combining history and function implies the existence of seven types of behaviour production systems in human brains responsible for reflexive, instinctual, exploratory, driven, emotional, playful and planned behaviour. Discovering scientifically valid categories of behaviour can provide a fundamental taxonomy and common language for understanding, predicting and changing behaviour, and a way of discovering the organs in the brain––its natural kinds––that are responsible for behaviour. (shrink)

I argue against the commonly held intuition that robots and virtual agents will never have emotions by contending robots can have emotions in a sense that is functionally similar to humans, even if the robots' emotions are not exactly equivalent to those of humans. To establish a foundation for assessing the robots' emotional capacities, I first define what emotions are by characterizing the components of emotion consistent across emotion theories. Second, I dissect the affective-cognitive architecture of MIT's Kismet and Leonardo, (...) two robots explicitly designed to express emotions and to interact with humans, in order to explore whether they have emotions. I argue that, although Kismet and Leonardo lack the subjective feelings component of emotion, they are capable of having emotions. (shrink)

MS, under submission, derived from a Powerpoint presentation at a Conference on Consciousness, Memory, and Perception, in honor of Larry Weiskrantz, City University, London, September 15, 2006.

Pre-theoretically, it seems obvious that there are deep and multifarious relations between memory and emotions. On the one hand, a large chunk of our affective lives concerns the good and bad events that happened to us and that we preserve in memory. This is one amongst the many ways in which memory is relevant to the nature and causation of emotions. What does recent research teach us about these relations? § 1 surveys some key issues in this regard. On the (...) other hand, which events we happen to preserve in memory very much depends on how we affectively reacted to them when they took place. Emotions are relevant to the nature and causation of memory in this and many other ways. Key issues regarding these relations are surveyed in § 2. (shrink)

[This is the penultimate version, please send me an email for the final version]. Some sensations are pleasant, some unpleasant, and some are neither. Furthermore, those that are pleasant or unpleasant are so to different degrees. In this essay, I want to explore what kind of a difference is the difference between these three kinds of sensations. I will develop a comprehensive three-level account of sensory pleasure that is simultaneously adverbialist, functionalist and is also a version of a satisfied experiential-desire (...) account. (shrink)