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New and Improved, but Still Cold and Symbolic

Department of Psychology, University of California, USA, pwinkiel{at}ucsd.edu

My commentary applauds the authors' cognitive framework for capturing the inferential complexity and flexibility of emotion processing. The framework offers generative powers, as demonstrated by new studies, and an insightful perspective on classic studies. However, at the core, the framework is still symbolic and cold—reflecting its origins in amodal views of the mind. This leads to two troubles. First, the framework cannot incorporate evidence for embodied, modal processing of emotion. Second, the framework overemphasizes conceptual and conscious processing, leading to dismissal of unconscious emotion. I question whether simply updating a symbolic cognitive framework is sufficient to capture the recent empirical and theoretical developments in emotion research. It might be time for a new modal and embodied theory of emotion.

Key Words: consciousness • embodiment • emotion • symbolic

Emotion Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 55-56 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1754073908097186


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