eMotion

Media Art project 01: eMotion

History

The history of emotions has become an increasingly popular topic recently, with some scholars arguing that it is an essential category of analysis, not unlike class, race, or gender. Historians, like other social scientists, assume that emotions, feelings and their expressions are regulated in different ways by both different cultures and different historical times, andconstructivist school of history claims even that some sentiments and meta-emotions, for example Schadenfreude, are learnt and not only regulated by culture. Historians of emotion trace and analyse the changing norms and rules of feeling, while examining emotional regimes, codes, and lexicons from social, cultural or political history perspectives. Others focus on the history of medicine, science or psychology. What somebody can and may feel (and show) in a given situation, towards certain people or things, depends on social norms and rules. It is thus historically variable and open to change.  Several research centers have sprung up in different countries in the past few years in Germany, England, Spain, Sweden and Australia.

Furtherly, research in historical trauma suggests that some traumatic emotions can be passed on from parents to offspring to second and even third generation, presented as examples of transgenerational trauma.

Etymology, definitions, and differentiation 

The word "emotion" dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means "to stir up". However, the earliest precursors of the word likely dates back to the very origins of language. Emotions have been described as discrete and consistent responses to internal or external events which have a particular significance for the organism. Emotions are brief in duration and consist of a coordinated set of responses, which may include verbal, physiological, behavioural, and neural mechanisms.  Emotions have also been described as biologically given and a result of evolution because they provided good solutions to ancient and recurring problems that faced our ancestors.

Emotion can be differentiated from a number of similar constructs within the field of affective neuroscience:

• Feelings are best understood as a subjective representation of emotions, private to the individual experiencing them.
• Moods are diffuse affective states that generally last for much longer durations than emotions and are also usually less intense than emotions.
• Affect is an encompassing term, used to describe the topics of emotion, feelings, and moods together, even though it is commonly used interchangeably with emotion.

Components of emotion

In Scherer's components processing model of emotion,  five crucial elements of emotion are said to exist. From the component processing perspective, emotion experience is said to require that all of these processes become coordinated and synchronized for a short period of time, driven by appraisal processes. Although the inclusion of cognitive appraisal as one of the elements is slightly controversial, since some theorists make the assumption that emotion and cognition are separate but interacting systems, the component processing model provides a sequence of events that effectively describes the coordination involved during an emotional episode.

• Cognitive appraisal: provides an evaluation of events and objects
• Bodily symptoms: the physiological component of emotional experience
• Action tendencies: a motivational component for the preparation and direction of motor responses.
• Expression: facial and vocal expression almost always accompanies an emotional state to communicate reaction and intention of actions
• Feelings: the subjective experience of emotional state once it has occurred

references: wikipedia