These processes appear to be independent; therefore, the processing of the emotional perception may or may not involve an emotional experience.
With regard to the relationship between cognition and emotion, there are three main stances:
- On the one hand, there are authors who defend that, in certain circumstances, the emotions block and nullify cognition, since the skills and abilities for affection are precisely the traits that characterize the human race in comparison with the simple mathematical and categorical processing of data that takes place in computers.
- The opposite posture defends that the superior cognitive processes define humans and differentiate them from animals. This posture relegates emotions to secondary, irrational and almost always equivocal processes, characteristic of animals.
- A third posture would be the one that considers both cognitive processes as independent, but working together in certain circumstances.
The existence of an emotional-perceptual-memory circuit in the human brain is widely accepted, with the amygdala playing a crucial role in registering the events of emotional stimuli. Thus, it is significantly more likely that the information with emotional content will be stored and retrieved better than the information with neutral content.
The extensive connection between the amygdala, the extrastriate visual regions and the hippocampus, allows the amygdala to modulate it’s functioning and facilitate perceptive and mnemic functions in these areas.
However, evidence shows that emotional learning associated with the amygdala is temporarily limited and that the subsequent effects on memory may be due to the participation of other brain regions, like the orbitofrontal cortex.
As previously mentioned, we would be facing an emotional processing circuit different from the specific cognitive processing path.
In the emotional circuit, the stimuli seem to be automatically analyzed in a rougher and faster way, following a strategy of configuration. It is a simplified communication, but with information of great relevance, necessary for survival and for an adequate development within an ecological niche.
As previously mentioned, this processing capacity in parallel represents a competitive advantage for surviving in the environment, since it allows the subject to avoid threats and dangers immediately, even before the information is consciously evaluated in the prefrontal cortex.
According to what can be verified, the emotional world is more complex than what can be seen on the surface. Talking about the components of emotion, depending on where the focus is placed, at first sight we can say that there are three expressions of emotion:
• The neurophysiological, which includes all the neural pathways and structures involved particularly in each emotion, as well as the vegetative responses of vasoconstriction, tachycardia and accelerated breathing, which accompany emotions.
• The behavioral one, in which the body becomes a “mirror” of emotions. They manifest themselves involuntarily through facial expression and through the rest of the body, tensing or relaxing certain muscles, which can expose what we feel, even when we try to “conceal” it. Likewise, this component shows what is going to be done or not if the emotion is followed, that is, how all those motivated actions will be expressed in behavior and in the way of relating to others.
• The cognitive, which has more to do with how one’s own and others’ emotion is perceived, and how it is interpreted, that is, the subjective experience of feelings. A problem in this area is found in alexithymia: due to an inadequate emotional education, the person is unable to correctly identify and interpret their own emotions and those of others.
Therefore, happiness will not only be something that involves a temporary state, but, being an emotion, it will have an impact on the way of thinking, feeling and behaving, that is, one will feel happy with all the organism.
It is also possible to talk about the components of emotion to refer to its qualities and characteristics, such as:
• Positive emotions versus negative emotions. Amongst the first ones there would be love, hope, desire, compassion, joy… and amongst the negative ones there would be anger, hate, desperation and sadness… Without any doubt, happiness is, fundamentally and by definition, a positive emotion.
• Emotions of high and low activation. Amongst the first ones there would be euphoria, anger, rage… while amongst the others there would be sadness, melancholy and apathy… Happiness can be one of the fullest experiences with an important activation component similar to euphoria.
• Primary emotions versus secondary emotions, being amongst the first ones rage, happiness, fear and sadness while amongst the secondary: love, surprise, shame and aversion. When thinking about happiness, one can believe that it is something “primary” and basic in a person, but it corresponds more with a secondary emotion, like that of love.
For John Rof, father of psychosomatic medicine, when someone is happy, parts as important as memory are activated; beautiful memories of the moment are created, expressed and shared with people around. The muscle tone will improve. One feels confortable and satisfied with the moment.
Especially face muscles are a group of muscles that give away emotion, in particular happiness. They are the best business card.
The face and its gesticulation have become an important element serving both to express emotions and to identify them in others. This is so true that babies pay more attention to faces than to any other stimulus. Thus, it can be said that humans are predisposed to analyze faces.
The face has more than thirty muscles controlled by cranial nerves such as the facial, the oculomotor, the trocheal or the trigeminal, from which the brain receives the proprioceptive information to identify its own emotions while activating the muscles to express them.
Although some patterns in the expression of emotions have been identified, it seems that there is a high component of social learning in them. According to multicultural studies, depending on the region of the world, the same emotion will be expressed in one way or another. Nevertheless, almost all recognize the same traits in the case of happiness:
- Commissure back and up, cheeks raised, wrinkles under the lower eyelid; age-lines at the lower corner of the eyes, nasal-labial fold wrinkles.
The importance of the emotional world, which plays a prominent role in how we feel, goes beyond a simple “reflection” of oneself, since the negative emotions can cause illness when they stiffen.
Internal feelings of activation, such as euphoria or rage, will overexcite the organism, modifying its resting baseline level, causing us to think and behave differently from how we usually do. To the same extent, feelings of deactivation such as grief or sadness will reduce the activity of the organism, modifying thoughts and behavior.
Alterations due to active and passive feelings, which could lead to changes in the levels of anxiety, breathing, pain and muscle tone, will have in turn effects on the sleep cycle or the immune system, among others. If the emotions are transitory, they will not have major consequences. But if these emotions remain, they can lead to psychosomatic problems.
Thus, a situation of psychological pain (grief) or depression, can trigger specific anxious states, characterized normally by a deflated state, superficial and slowed breathing, feelings close to melancholy with hypersensitivity to external stimuli, such as light, sound and also smell. The person will be much more sensitive to any external “aggression”. Any interest for physical activity will be lost, presenting a weakened and flaccid muscle tone.
Sleep will be hindered by thoughts of guilt and uselessness, which accompany those states, with memories about the circumstances that motivated that grief and depression. There will be “mental rumination” in which the same negative emotions repeat themselves over and over again. All of these will prevent sleeping well, damaging the quantity and quality of sleep. This, among others, will reduce the functioning of the immune system that will not be able to perform its functions during the night. If