Abstract
The NATO Conference at Ciocco focused on cognitive theories of emotion. This included both the hermeneutic development of older views, along with the exposure of space-age models from artificial intelligence. In attending to these presentations and the discussion they engendered, I was struck by the diversity of phenomena being addressed, and the many different definitions of emotion that drove efforts at explanation. Is there a common data base that theories of emotion should address? The following is an effort to respond to this question. Two major issues are elucidated: (1) the problem of discordance and desynchrony among measures of emotion; (2) the question of whether emotions are best conceived as discrete organismic states, or as affective dimensions. The paper concludes with some suggestions for theorists, and a listing of problems that the data compel any theory of emotion to address.
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Lang, P.J. (1988). What are the Data of Emotion?. In: Hamilton, V., Bower, G.H., Frijda, N.H. (eds) Cognitive Perspectives on Emotion and Motivation. NATO ASI Series, vol 44. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2792-6_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2792-6_7
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