Emotion Recognition as Pattern Recognition: The Relevance of Perception

We develop a version of a direct perception account of emotion recognition on the basis of a metaphysical claim that emotions are individuated as patterns of characteristic features. On our account, emotion recognition relies on the same type of pattern recognition as is described for object recognition. The analogy allows us to distinguish two forms of directly perceiving emotions, namely perceiving an emotion in the absence of any top-down processes, and perceiving an emotion in a way that significantly involves some top-down processes ; and, in addition, an inference-based evaluation of an emotion. Our model clarifies the epistemology of emotion recognition