Emotion and consciousness: Ends of a continuum [An article from: Cognitive Brain Research]

This digital document is a journal article from Cognitive Brain Research, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
We suggest a united concept of consciousness and emotion, based on the systemic cognitive neuroscience perspective regarding organisms as active and goal-directed. We criticize the idea that consciousness and emotion are psychological phenomena having quite different neurophysiological mechanisms. We argue that both characterize a unified systemic organization of behavior, but at different levels. All systems act to achieve intended behavioral results in interaction with their environment. Differentiation of this interaction increases during individual development. Any behavioral act is a simultaneous realization of systems ranking from the least to the most differentiated. We argue that consciousness and emotion are dynamic systemic characteristics that are prominent at the most and least differentiated systemic levels, correspondingly. These levels are created during development. Our theory is based on both theoretical and empirical research and provides a solid framework for experimental work.