Emotional Messages and the Brain
Y
she was asked to do it again later. However, she had no conscious recollection of the
painful incident and could not explain why she was reluctant to shake his hand. This
kind of problem can be solved by measuring their physiological reactions. Needless to
say, however, the different measurements are complementary to each other. Looking at a
phenomenon from various aspects will enrich the understanding of the phenomenon.
Studying emotion is important for communication researchers for both
theoretical and practical reasons. Television and many other media are filled with
emotional scenes and content. Not only the programming designed to entertain (e.g.,
drama, sitcom, etc.) but also the programming designed to inform such as news carries
intense emotions through the reports about murders, accidents, natural disasters and war.
Media make people happy, sad, angry, disgusted, excited, scared, fearful, etc. Then, do
all these emotions have same effects in terms of processing of the information presented
along? Do the emotional messages receive same attention? Are they remembered
equally well? If not, which ones are better in terms of these? These are the questions
message producers would be intrigued finding the answers for. This paper attempts to
review the research on emotion in cognitive neuroscience to answer these questions.
First, the important theoretical approaches to human emotion will be examined.
Theoretical Approaches to Emotion
Categorical approach – Basic emotions
Being influenced by Darwin (1872/1965), this view posits that emotions have
been affected by the process of evolution. In this view, there are several distinctive
emotions (called basic emotions) that generate multiple complex (secondary) emotions
when combined with one another. However, what the basic emotions are can be
different from one theorist to another. For instance, Izard (1972) listed fear, anger,
disgust, surprise, interest, shame, enjoyment, contempt and distress while Plutchik
(1980, 1990) viewed surprise, desire, rage, panic, acceptance and disgust as basic
emotions. Similarly, Damasio (2000) classified emotion as primary, secondary and
background emotions. Primary emotions include happiness, sadness, fear, anger,
surprise and disgust whereas secondary emotions are such as jealousy, embarrassment,
guilt and pride.
The primary function of emotion is to mobilize the organism to cope with
significant interpersonal encounters as quickly as possible (Ekman, 1994). Emotions
have evolved to learn what is significant to the species and to the person. Emotions, thus,
increase the chance of survival by responding accordingly to significant stimuli and
Convention