Cognition, emotion and the brain: a different view

This article contradicts the current paradigm of a brain which receives, processes, represents and stores information about objects and events. It considers the brain as an activating mechanism which is triggered by combinations and sequences of stimuli, modulates the intensities of neuronal arousals and relays them to particular combinations of organic effectors. Cognitive and affective events are created and expressed by the combinations and sequences of motor and autonomic effector arousals. The apperception of phenomena emerges by the integration of cognition, which is basically the expression of proprioceptive activities, with feelings, which are the expression of some autonomic system's activities. The cognitive and the affective abilities and expressions are distorted or abolished, if deprived of this integration. Thus, the article proposes an efferent attitude toward the 'psycho'-physiological process and a realistic attitude toward the brain's task.