How does it feel?
After a relatively long hiatus, we are excited to publish this issue devoted to the connection between emotion and feeling. Although hardly a neglected topic, the nature and role of feeling in emotion remains rather opaque and controversial, as evidenced by all three contributions to this issue.
In the first invited article, Ralph Adolphs (California Institute of Technology) addresses the question of where the study of feelings ought to fit within current scientific investigations of the nature of emotion. Stressing the importance of studying emotional behavior, he suggests that it is curious how, unlike other states – such as memory or perception – researchers often want to put the conscious experience of emotion center stage. Against theories, such as those of LeDoux and Barret, that give an essential place to feelings in their accounts of what emotions are, Adolphs contends that in order to study feelings we first need to know what emotions are, and this can only be achieved by understanding their functional role. He concludes that scientists should think of emotions as latent variables that provide causal explanations of behavior rather than of conscious.
In the second contribution, Jonathan Gratch (USC Institute for Creative Technologies) also emphasizes the distinction between emotional behavior and emotional experience that arises when confronting significant problems facing various forms of Affect Recognition technology. Gratch examines reasons to be skeptical of the idea that a person’s emotional state can be accurately inferred by surface cues such as facial expressions and voice quality, or through physiological signals such as skin conductance or heart rate variability. This skepticism is justified, he argues, insofar as the components of emotion are loosely connected, and expressions are highly-dependent on the social context. He highlights several ways in which affect recognition technologies can yield misleading results, in particular concerning problems in recognizing affective expressions, and problems in understanding what can be concluded from these expressions. Nonetheless, if complex contextual information can be appropriately taken into account, Gratch posits that some algorithms can play significant predictive roles and thus calls to ban affect recognition are misguided.
In the final article, David Sander (CISA, University of Geneva) examines the complex issue of the content of feelings within multicomponential accounts of emotion. He suggests that understanding the relationship between the feeling component and other components of emotion may help to illuminate a long-standing debate in emotion research; namely, whether the bodily changes associated with an emotion are a cause or a consequence of the emotion. He observes that the feeling may be (at least partly) determined by a change in the body state, while the other components of emotion may not be caused this body state. Further, he suggests that just like one can have a physiological feeling (e.g., feeling of an increased heart rate), one could also have a feeling of appraisal outcomes (e.g., feeling of uncertainty). This opens up the interesting question, for further research, of whether appraisal outcomes or action tendencies can be felt as direct inputs, or whether they are felt only via bodily changes
ISRE Spotlight
We are pleased to highlight the innovative work by Alan Cowen in our Spotlight feature. Cowen provides a refreshing take on the important claim that emotion theory be guided by data, rather than the other way around. His premise is supported by the potential offered by big data and artificial intelligence. As a graduate student and now Chief Scientist of Hume AI, Cowen has developed powerful tools that leverage vast datasets with sophisticated computational approaches, resulting in a data-driven approach to studying emotional expressions and experiences. The results provide a clearer understanding of how data supports (or refutes) existing theories of emotion, as well as showcase the potential of this approach for catapulting the field of emotion science forward.
Announcements
In addition to the excellent contributions in this issue, there are also some important announcements and points of mention.
First, there is an exciting announcement regarding the upcoming Biennial ISRE Meeting to take place in Los Angeles, California, USA. Conference Organizers Jonathan Gratch and Stacy Marsella describe their preparations for the meeting in a special piece in the current issue.
Second, we want to highlight the continued work being done by the Early Career Researchers Section. This group has put together numerous initiatives, including guest speakers, panels, and awards. We commend them for their excellence and for making ISRE a more well-rounded group of researchers.
Finally, we would like to convey our appreciation for the patience shown by our readership. The past two years have presented numerous challenges for us as editors, ranging from soliciting articles and interviews from busy researchers to balancing our work-life obligations. As parents with small children, the uncertainties and unexpected schedule changes have made for slow progress in publishing new issues of Emotion Researcher. However, we maintain our optimism that the pandemic will recede and a sense of normalcy will return.
Wishing each of you a safe, healthy, and productive year,
Warmly,
Eric & Cain
Cain Todd is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Lancaster University (UK). His research covers a wide range of issues centring on emotions and evaluative experience, most recently the phenomenology and objectivity of emotional experience and the role of attention and imagination therein. His co-edited collection Emotion and Value (OUP) was published in 2010, and his new monograph Aesthetics and Emotion (Bloomsbury) is due to appear in 2022/23.
Eric Walle is an Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of California, Merced. His theoretical writings emphasize the functions of emotions, particularly in interpersonal contexts. His empirical work examines emotional development, principally in infancy and early childhood, as well as how individuals perceive and respond to emotional communication. He is also a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Emotional Development (2022).
