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The causal status of emotions in consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2000

Jason T. Ramsay
Affiliation:
Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada M5S 1V6 {jramsay; mlewis}@oise.utoronto.ca
Marc D. Lewis
Affiliation:
Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada M5S 1V6 {jramsay; mlewis}@oise.utoronto.ca

Abstract

Rolls demonstrates how reward/punishment systems are key mediators of cognitive appraisal, and this suggests a fundamental, causal role for emotion in thought and behaviour. However, this causal role for emotion seems to drop out of Rolls's model of consciousness, to be replaced by the old idea that emotion is essentially epiphenomenal. We suggest a modification to Rolls's model in which cognition and emotion activate each other reciprocally, both in appraisal and consciousness, thus allowing emotion to maintain its causal status where it matters most.

Type
Brief Report
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

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