What sentimentalists should say about emotion

Source: William Brady & Jay Van Bavel—New York University
Psychologists have long known that people behave differently in good moods versus bad moods, and this general principle extends to consumer behavior. Economists, as well, have come to appreciate that an individual’s financial decisions are not solely the result of extensive cost-benefit calculations; other factors like emotion are at play. Further, incidental emotions affect the behavior of buyers and sellers even though...

The emotional Stroop effect (ESE) is the result of longer naming latencies to ink colors of emotion words than those of neutral words. This report refers to potential sources of confounding and includes a modal experiment that provides the means to control for...

The physiology of emotions is a multifaceted process involving the autonomic nervous system, brain structures, hormones, and neurotransmitters. This intricate interplay dictates how emotions manifest in the body and influence behavior.
Autonomic Nervous System
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays a critical role in emotional responses by regulating involuntary physiological functions. It consists of two main components: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system...

Emotional expression encompasses how individuals convey their emotions through verbal communication and non-verbal cues. These non-verbal actions include facial expressions, body language, and physical gestures, such as frowning or smiling. Among these, facial expressions play a crucial role in emotional expression and are understood universally, indicating a biological basis for how humans communicate emotions.
Universal Facial Expressions
Psychologist Paul Ekman identified seven basic...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls the activity of the body's internal organs and regulates changes in their activity depending on the current environment. The vagus nerve, which innervates many of the internal organs, is an important part of the system. When our brain senses danger, vagal tone is inhibited, leading to a set of changes in the body designed to make us more prepared to...

We present a protocol that uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlates of the memory-enhancing effect of emotion. This protocol allows identification of brain activity specifically linked to memory-related processing, contrary to more general perceptual processing, and can be used with healthy and clinical populations.