# Emotions The following is my understanding of [Lisa Feldman Barrett's research](https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/academic-papers/) and the [theory of constructed emotion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constructed_emotion). The key insight to the science of emotions is that "[**emotions are constructions of the world, not reactions to it**](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5390700/)." Brains are not pre-wired with neurons dedicated to a specific emotion. They are not hard-wired in the "reptilian" part of the brain nor are there distinct parts of the brain dedicated to specific emotions. There are no "universal" emotions. Emotions are concepts and predictions that are constructed by the brain: > "[your brain makes an emotion by using prior experiences of emotion to predict and explain incoming sensory inputs, and guide action](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lisa-feldman-barrett-emotions)" The brain is making sense of the information it receives. Using previous experience as a guide is a simple way to do this. It saves a lot of time and energy if it matches the current experience with a past memory. Yet, it takes too long to go through thousands of old memories, one at a time. That's where concepts come in. A concept is thousands of previous experiences compressed into one. We are familiar with the concept of a car and don't have to go through thousands of them we saw before. It's not a new idea, Barrett just applies this to emotions. "Negative" emotions are also concepts. They just don't feel like ones because we experience them vividly. For example, when we learn that something really bad happened to someone we know, the sadness we feel is a prediction of the appropriate way for our body to react to the news. It wasn't a reaction per se. It arose from a complex system that made a self-fulfilling forecast of what our body required to deal with. It would take too long for the brain to passively interpret data. To act more quickly it "simulates" what might happen next and acts on that guess. When we are going to a funeral the brains predicts we will feel sorrow and grief. But the same event can bring [different emotions in various cultures](https://ideas.ted.com/11-fascinating-funeral-traditions-from-around-the-globe/). Emotions are real. Yet, what they are telling us might not be. We can't control them but we can ride them out. ## Links * [The theory of constructed emotion: an active inferenceaccount of interoception and categorization](https://www.affective-science.org/pubs/2017/barrett-tce-scan-2017.pdf) and [How emotions are 'made': why your definition of sadness is unlike anyone else's](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lisa-feldman-barrett-emotions) by Lisa Feldman Barrett * her book: [How Emotions are Made](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23719305-how-emotions-are-made) * and [critique](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/opinion/sunday/what-faces-cant-tell-us.html?_r=0) of Paul Ekman's [emotions as universal categories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman#Emotions_as_universal_categories) (his [response](https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/are_facial_expressions_universal)). --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://wiki.stojanow.com/psychology/emotions.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.