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 1To be published in
 Behavioral and Brain Sciences
(in press)© 2004 Cambridge University Press
 Below is the unedited, uncorrected final draft of a BBS target article that has been accepted for  publication. This preprint has been prepared for potential commentators who wish to nominatethemselves for formal commentary invitation. Please DO NOT write a commentary until youreceive a formal invitation. If you are invited to submit a commentary, a copyedited, corrected version of this paper will be posted.
 
Bridging emotion theory and neurobiology through dynamic systemsmodeling
Marc D. Lewis, Ph.D.Department of Human Development and Applied PsychologyUniversity of Toronto252 Bloor Street WestToronto, Ontario M5S 1V6CANADAmlewis@oise.utoronto.cahttp://home.oise.utoronto.ca/~mlewis
 
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 Abstract:
Emotion theorists and neurobiologists have much to share but they lack a common language for doing so. Emotion theorists rely on causal assumptions that are simple, linear, and cognitivist in character,and they emphasize psychological wholes that cannot be explained by the interaction of their constituents.Conversely, neurobiologists focus on the interaction of multiple components, invoking complex, bidirectional causal processes, but they rarely extend their analysis to psychologically meaningful wholes.Dynamic systems principles can provide a bridge between the psychology and neurobiology of emotion:(1) by explaining psychological as well as neural processes in terms of bidirectional causation andemergent part-whole relations, and (2) by grounding a model of self-organizing emotional states inexplicit correspondences between psychological and neural events.
 
I first argue that the application of dynamic systems ideas to emotion theory permits a reconceptualizationof emotion-appraisal states as self-organizing wholes. These are proposed to emerge from bidirectionalcausal interactions among perceptual, cognitive, and emotional constituents, and to maintain thoseinteractions through vertical (“circular”) causality. I then present a psychological model based on thisreconceptualization, identifying trigger, self-amplification, and self-stabilization phases of emotion-appraisal states, leading to consolidating traits. The article goes on to describe neural structures andfunctions involved in appraisal and emotion as well as mechanisms of integration by which they interact.Based on dynamic systems concepts, these mechanisms are identified as nested feedback interactions,global effects of neuromodulation, vertical integration, action-monitoring, and synaptic plasticity, andthey are modeled in terms of both functional integration and temporal synchronization. I end byelaborating the psychological model of emotion-appraisal states with reference to these neuralmechanisms.
 Keywords
: appraisal, bidirectional causality, cognition, dynamic systems, emotion, neurobiology, part-whole relations, self-organization
 
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1. Introduction.
Both emotion theorists and neuroscientists have studied emotions, and their relation to cognitionand behavior, for decades. Yet communication between them has remained relativelyconstricted. Most emotion theorists continue to ignore neuroscience almost entirely. At a recentinternational conference on emotions there were 17 symposia and talks on the psychology of emotion, 2 on the neurobiology of emotion, and only one that attempted to bridge these perspectives. In partial contrast, neurobiologists adopt basic concepts from emotion theory, butthey ignore the larger phenomena that are of greatest interest to psychologists. For example, theymap isolated appraisal mechanisms onto specific brain regions, but rarely consider an appraisalas a coherent mental model corresponding with an emotional state. Given emotion theorists’ goalof moving toward an integrated “affective science,” and given the rapid progress in emotionalneurobiology that could expedite this move, why do the psychology and neurobiology of emotion remain largely isolated?One reason for this isolation may be that emotion theorists and neuroscientists view cause-effectrelations and part-whole relations in terms that are nearly incommensurable, and thus find itdifficult to talk to each other. Emotion theory relies on causal assumptions that are simple, linear,and often cognitivist in character, and it emphasizes psychological wholes (e.g., appraisal,attention, “emotion”) without explaining how they derive from interacting parts. Neural accountsincorporate far greater complexity, including bidirectional causal assumptions, but they focusalmost exclusively on interacting parts (i.e., neural structures and subsystems) while ignoring the properties of the whole. Thus, complex causal processes remain elusive for emotion theorists,
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