Emotion: the Self-regulatory Sense:

Global Advances in Health and Medicine

Katherine T.Peil¹ 

关键词: Emotion;    self-regulation;    morality;    development;    feedback;    bio-values;    sensitivity;    computational dynamics;    cybernetics;    connectionism;    complexity;    self-organization;    epigenetics;   

DOI  :  10.7453/gahmj.2013.058

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

While emotion is a central component of human health and well-being, traditional approaches to understanding its biological function have been wanting. A dynamic systems model, however, broadly redefines and recasts emotion as a primary sensory system—perhaps the first sensory system to have emerged, serving the ancient autopoietic function of “self-regulation.” Drawing upon molecular biology and revelations from the field of epigenetics, the model suggests that human emotional perceptions provide an ongoing stream of “self-relevant” sensory information concerning optimally adaptive states between the organism and its immediate environment, along with coupled behavioral corrections that honor a universal self-regulatory logic, one still encoded within cellular signaling and immune functions. Exemplified by the fundamental molecular circuitry of sensorimotor control in the E coli bacterium, the model suggests that the hedonic (affective) categories emerge directly from positive and negative feedback processes, their good/bad binary appraisals relating to dual self-regulatory behavioral regimes—evolutionary purposes, through which organisms actively participate in natural selection, and through which humans can interpret optimal or deficit states of balanced being and becoming. The self-regulatory sensory paradigm transcends anthropomorphism, unites divergent theoretical perspectives and isolated bodies of literature, while challenging time-honored assumptions. While suppressive regulatory strategies abound, it suggests that emotions are better understood as regulating us, providing a service crucial to all semantic language, learning systems, evaluative decision-making, and fundamental to optimal physical, mental, and social health.

【 授权许可】

CC BY