This article suggests that methodological and conceptual advancements in affective sciences militate in favor of adopting an appraisal-driven componential approach to further investigate the emotional brain. Here we propose to operationalize this approach by distinguishing five functional networks of the emotional brain: the elicitation network, the expression network, the autonomic reaction network, the action tendency network, and the feeling network, and discuss these networks in the context of the affective neuroscience literature. We also propose that further investigating the “appraising brain” (...) is the royal road to better understand the elicitation network, and may be key to revealing the neural causal mechanisms underlying the emotion process as a whole. (shrink)

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 processing of emotional nonlinguistic information in speech is defined as emotional prosody. This auditory nonlinguistic information is essential in the decoding of social interactions and in our capacity to adapt and react adequately by taking into account contextual information. An integrated model is proposed at the functional and brain levels, encompassing 5 main systems that involve cortical and subcortical neural networks relevant for the processing of emotional prosody in its major dimensions, including perception and sound organization; related action tendencies; (...) and associated values that integrate complex social contexts and ambiguous situations. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the issue of the processes potentially underlying the emergence of emotional consciousness in the light of theoretical considerations and empirical evidence. First, we argue that componential emotion models, and specifically the Component Process Model , may be better able to account for the emergence of feelings than basic emotion or dimensional models. Second, we advance the hypothesis that consciousness of emotional reactions emerges when lower levels of processing are not sufficient to cope with the event (...) and regulate the emotional process, particularly when the degree of synchronization between the components reaches a critical level and duration. Third, we review recent neuroscience evidence that bolsters our claim of the central importance of the synchronization of neuronal assemblies at different levels of processing. (shrink)

Beginning with the Flood story from ancient Mesopotamia, which is related to similar Biblical and Greek accounts, we focus on the genre of disaster myths, in which man is overcome by divine retribution for his misdeeds. Psychologically speaking, myth has to be considered as part of our human search for meaning. Man looks for the causes of effects; he also expects the effects of causes to be proportionate, which may be the basis of the notion of justice. We review the (...) concept of appraisal as a necessary prelude to emotion: human beings `size up' the situation to see what caused it and whether it was deserved or not before they react. In the case of myth, this psychological mechanism led ancient man to supernatural explanations for natural disasters, namely divine retribution. This is not the case in all cultures; in animistic ones, the cause of misfortune may be sought in hostile outside agency, such as witchcraft. This just goes to show the importance of appraisal biases in emotion, which typically rest on a cultural and religious foundation. The psychological perspective can thus contribute to the understanding of myth at work in human thinking, as part of an interdisciplinary effort involving anthropology and the study of religion. Cet article traite, d'un point de vue psychologique et d'histoire des religions, de la réponse humaine face aux catastrophes. Par son ampleur et sa rareté, la catastrophe, inexplicable et extraordinaire, est un cas intéressant pour l'étude des émotions: l'humain a besoin d'explications, de donner du sens à ce qu'il vit de façon soudaine et souvent dramatique. Dans les mondes anciens, ce type d'événement ne peut qu'avoir une intentionnalité divine et le courroux des dieux est à l'origine du fléau. L'exemple du Déluge mésopotamien permet de suivre les diverses étapes ainsi que les réactions humaines face à une catastrophe naturelle. (shrink)

In their first weeks of life preterm infants are deprived of developmentally appropriate stimuli, including their mother’s voice. The current study explores the immediate association of two preterm infant behaviours with the quality of a mother’s infant-directed speech and singing. Participants are 20 mothers who are asked to speak and sing to their medically stable infants placed in incubators. Eighty-four vocal samples are extracted when they occur in the presence of an infant’s behavioural display and compared with random selections during (...) periods of absence of target behavioural display. The results show that infant-directed maternal voice presents more marked emotional qualities when infants display a behavioural change than when infants are passive and expressionless. Specifically, higher values of mean pitch and maximum sound pressure level, as well as greater variability of these parameters are associated with a behavioural display. (shrink)