Emotional states are central to mental and physical health. NIH invests tremendous resources in research on emotion, much of it devoted to animal models. Ironically, this research is guided by a scientific paradigm that is grounded in human experience. People experience fear and see it in others, so scientists assume there must be a literal (modular) neural circuit for fear in the mammalian brain. Rats freeze when they hear a tone paired with a foot shock, so they are presumed to be in a state of fear (versus surprise, anger, or even a general state of alarm) and undergoing ?fear learning.? Scientists also presume that a map of the neural circuitry of freezing behavior will yield a neural mechanism for fear that is largely preserved in humans, and a decade of neuroimaging studies have focused on locating a homologous neural circuit in the human brain. In the last five years, I have traced the roots of this ?natural kind? model, conducted a comprehensive review of the literature to examine its veracity, and found it wanting (Barrett, 2006a).1 In response, I have fashioned a new systems-level model, called the Conceptual Act Model, grounded in the neuroanatomy of the human brain. My model parsimoniously incorporates neuroscience findings from rats, primates, and humans, and explains the mechanisms that produce the range and variety of behavioral and introspective instances that we call ?emotion? (Barrett, b, c;Barrett, Mesquita, Ochsner, &Gross, 2007;Barrett, Ochsner, &Gross, 2007;Duncan &Barrett, 2007). The Conceptual Act Model asks different ? and perhaps better ? questions about what emotions are and how they function in mental and physical health. The NIH Director?s Pioneer Award will allow me the intellectual freedom and resources to continue building evidence for the Conceptual Act Model of emotion, thereby shaping a new paradigm to guide the scientific study of emotion.
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| Lebois, Lauren A M; Wilson-Mendenhall, Christine D; Simmons, W Kyle et al. (2018) Learning situated emotions. Neuropsychologia : |
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| Wormwood, Jolie Baumann; Lynn, Spencer K; Feldman Barrett, Lisa et al. (2016) Threat perception after the Boston Marathon bombings: The effects of personal relevance and conceptual framing. Cogn Emot 30:539-49 |
| Raz, Gal; Touroutoglou, Alexandra; Wilson-Mendenhall, Christine et al. (2016) Functional connectivity dynamics during film viewing reveal common networks for different emotional experiences. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 16:709-23 |
| Oosterwijk, Suzanne; Lindquist, Kristen A; Adebayo, Morenikeji et al. (2016) The neural representation of typical and atypical experiences of negative images: comparing fear, disgust and morbid fascination. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 11:11-22 |
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