Lesion Studies in Affective Neuroscience

This chapter considers major current models of emotion by using an affective neuroscience approach. It provides a global survey of historical and conceptual issues that have guided scientific inquiries about emotion. Although the scope of affective neuroscience research is not limited to emotion but includes other affective phenomena such as moods, preferences, and affective dispositions, the chapter examines models of emotion because they are more typically the focus of affective neuroscience research. It explains terminological and taxonomy-related issues and suggests what seems to be a relatively consensual definition of emotion. The chapter discusses the major models of emotion in modern research and the contrast in their focus on different phenomena: expression, action tendencies, bodily reaction, feeling, and cognition. It considers the case of the amygdala to illustrate the potential of the affective neuroscience approach to constrain theoretical models of emotion.