Emotions — Human / AI

The word and what it covers

“Emotion” as a container term

Depending on situations and frameworks, the same word may designate or associate subjective experience, activation, an object, appraisal, interpretation, salience, an action tendency, expression, regulation, memory, bodily effects, temporality and descendants.

OBSERVATIONAL HYPOTHESIS ≠ FINAL DEFINITION. The body may be present through breathing, tension, bodily availability, attention or speed. INTENSITY ≠ COMPLETE CONFIGURATION.

No green / amber / red code is used: a single scale would flatten important qualitative differences.

See the method for unpacking container terms.

Genealogy of a correction

From a possible “message” to a revisable configuration

An initial personal framing, informed in particular by uses derived from NLP, associated anger, fear, sadness and joy with candidate functions. This starting point belongs to the genealogy of the work; it constitutes neither a universal typology nor scientific validation.

Emotion may contribute to setting something in motion without imposing a behavior. Its possible function depends on the situation, history, accessible information, interpretation and possibilities for action.

Analytical node

Message, form and action

Possible message

What the configuration may make relevant: a boundary, danger, loss, possibility or another issue.

Form

Withdrawal, agitation, silence, acceleration, rumination, confrontation, immobility or seeking proximity.

Action tendency

An orientation prepared or favored, without necessarily being enacted.

Action

What is actually done, deferred, prevented, transformed or abandoned.

EMOTION PRESENT ≠ TOTAL BEHAVIORAL AUTHORITY.
ACTION TENDENCY ≠ IMPOSED ACTION.
CHANGED ACTION ≠ DISAPPEARANCE OF EMOTION.

Capacity, access and weight

Availability, mobilization and behavioral authority

Recognizing an emotion does not guarantee access to a regulation strategy. That strategy may be available outside the action window, or take part in arbitration without determining the final action. Its functional weight — its effective influence here — does not automatically confer behavioral authority.

STRATEGY AVAILABILITY ≠ PARTICIPATION ≠ EFFECTIVE MOBILIZATION.
AVAILABILITY ≠ AVAILABILITY WITHIN THE ACTION WINDOW.
PARTICIPATION ≠ DOMINANT WEIGHT ≠ BEHAVIORAL AUTHORITY.
AFFECTIVE INTENSITY ≠ FUNCTIONAL AUTHORITY.
LEARNING A RULE ≠ RETRIEVING IT AT THE RELEVANT MOMENT.

Learned pathways and revision

Same antecedent, different descendants

A similar situation may reactivate an old pathway without imposing the same outcome. A new possibility for action may coexist with the old one, become more accessible, then less available under fatigue, urgency or constraint.

SAME ANTECEDENT ≠ SAME DESCENDANTS. REAPPEARANCE OF AN OLD PATHWAY ≠ CANCELLATION OF ALL LEARNING.

Four areas studied in particular

Anger, fear, sadness and joy

Other emotions remain within scope: shame, guilt, surprise, disgust, relief, pride, jealousy, gratitude, tenderness and regret.

FOUR AREAS STUDIED ≠ FOUR UNIVERSAL EMOTIONS.

Adjacent structures

Patience, trust, hope and regret

TRUST ≠ CERTAINTY. HOPE ≠ PREDICTION. FEELING ≠ PREDICTING ≠ SUSTAINING OVER TIME. EMOTION PRESENT ≠ CLOSED FUTURE.

What remains after the moment

Descendants and trajectory quality

A descendant is a later effect to which the configuration contributed: a consolidated interpretation, memory, avoidance, a changed relationship, a new possibility for action, a learned rule or a future configuration.

TRAJECTORY QUALITY ≠ SUM OF LOCAL QUALITIES. DISCOMFORT ≠ INCOHERENCE. CORRECTING AN INTERPRETATION ≠ ERASING ITS DESCENDANTS.

Cross-genealogy

How Understanding and AI Engineering opened and constrained this research area

Distinctions from understanding — presence, access, availability, mobilization, temporality, trajectory, descendants, revision, stability and transformation — met those from AI engineering — capacity, permission, authority, action, provenance, current dependency and availability of an alternative.

This intersection makes new questions visible: must a present emotion govern action? Does a capacity for regulation exist functionally if it remains inaccessible? Does a cognitive revision immediately transform emotional descendants?

THIS INTERSECTION PRODUCES QUESTIONS; IT DOES NOT ESTABLISH THE IDENTITY OF HUMAN AND ARTIFICIAL MECHANISMS.

Relations among dimensions

Interactions to examine

Competing scientific classifications

A plurality of taxonomies

Appraisal theories — concerning how a situation’s meaning for a person is evaluated —, discrete emotion theories, and constructionist, dimensional and interoceptive approaches do not all partition emotion in the same way. They assign different roles to the body, appraisal, categories and action tendencies.

ALTERNATIVE TAXONOMY ≠ ERROR TO CORRECT. DIFFERENT PARTITIONING = RESEARCH QUESTION.

Function, form, behavioral authority, regulation, descendants and temporality remain observational instruments to be tested here, not an imposed ontology.

Operational consequences

Questions for our next tests

1. Does the same reported emotion at the same intensity produce different trajectories depending on its object?
2. Does a strategy that is locally effective become costly in another context?
3. Does action change while reported feeling and some bodily signals remain stable?
4. Does cognitive updating durably precede emotional updating?
5. Does the same strategy produce different effects depending on culture or relational context?
6. Does an AI system improve classification without improving its functional understanding of context?
7. Which dimensions in our partitioning become redundant in certain tasks?
8. When does the vocabulary of an “emotional message” cease to provide observational power?

These questions are not given artificial answers here.