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Invariants of human emotion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2012

Paul E. Smaldino
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. paul.smaldino@gmail.comhttp://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Grads/pesmaldino/jcschank@ucdavis.eduhttp://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Schank/
Jeffrey C. Schank
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. paul.smaldino@gmail.comhttp://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Grads/pesmaldino/jcschank@ucdavis.eduhttp://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Schank/

Abstract

Because of the complexity of human emotional responses, invariants must be sought not in the responses themselves, but in their generating mechanisms. Lindquist et al. show that functional locationism is a theoretical dead end; their proposed mechanistic framework is a first step toward better models of emotional behavior. We caution, however, that emotions may still be quasi-natural perceptual types.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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