EMOTION AND COGNITION

Emotion And Cognition



Emotion And Cognition

Introduction

The various methodologies used to study cognitive science are psychology, neuroscience, computer science and systems theory. On the other hand, the methodology used to study emotions are Systemic Design. Most commonly, it was understood that the right way to study emotions was to measure one or more bodily processes: sympathetic nervous system activation, muscular tension, facial expression, vocal expression, respiration, skin conductance, and brain wave activity have all been recommended as the best indices of emotion, and, for more than 50 years, most experimental studies of emotion have used at least one of these methods ( Woodworth & Schlosberg, 1954). William James ( 1890/ 1950) emphasis on muscular and visceral feedback undoubtedly played a major role in this concern with the physical manifestations of emotion ( Ellsworth, 1994), but its roots are far more ancient, tracing the dichotomy between reason and passion that has dominated discussions of emotion since the beginning of Western philosophy ( Solomon, 1993). This paper will critically discuss the methodologies used to study emotion and cognition.

Discussion

It took Arnold ( 1960 ), Schachter and Singer ( 1962 ), and Lazarus himself (e.g., Lazarus, Averill, & Opton, 1970) to bring the mind into the world of emotions and revitalize the field. In his target article, Lazarus once again reminds us how pernicious the distinction between "rationality" and "irrationality" has been for the study of emotion. The term rational typically serves more as a value judgment than a scientific concept, and I think Lazarus is right when he suggests that our thinking would be clearer if we abandoned it.

The experimental psychologists in their shiny laboratories were not the only ones who were struggling to understand emotions. Almost simultaneously, and quite independently, Freud and his followers explored the complexities of emotional life. Like the experimentalists, the Freudians knew the one right way to study emotions, and it was psychoanalysis. On the surface, the psychoanalytic method seems the opposite of the brass-instrument technology of the experimentalists: The patient simply talks, trying to say whatever comes to mind, what the emotions feel like, and what they mean to him or her, and the therapist listens. But the therapist does not listen in a straightforward manner, does not take the patient's account of his or her emotional experience at face value; the therapist is listening not to the story recounted, but to the hidden story, the story of repressed emotions inaccessible to the patient's conscious mind. Thus, although the Freudians and the experimentalists disagreed about the right way to understand emotions, they agreed that serious consideration of the conscious experience of emotion, as reported by the subject, was not the right way.

Many different methodologies are used to study cognitive science. As the field is highly interdisciplinary, research often cuts across multiple areas of study, drawing on research methods from psychology, neuroscience, computer science and systems theory.

One of the methodology used to study cognitive is psychology. Noam Chomsky helped to ignite a "cognitive revolution" ...