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What We Talk About When We Talk About Emotion

James A. Coan
Emotion Review 2010 2: 292
DOI: 10.1177/1754073910372687
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Emotion

Emotion Review
Vol. 2, No. 3 (July 2010) 292293
2010 SAGE Publications and
The International Society
for Research on Emotion
ISSN 1754-0739
DOI: 10.1177/1754073910372687
er.sagepub.com

James A. Coan

Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, USA

Abstract
In this article I respond to commentaries of my review of latent versus
emergent variable models of emotion. I note that Ross Bucks view of emotion as stated in his commentary largely endorses an emergent variable
model. Drawing from Dynamical Systems Theory, Camras frames the emergent variable model as softly-assembled attractor states. This implies that
emotions are fuzzy sets of indicators that vary in the degree to which
they indicate an emergent emotional state. Calvo offers affective computing as a method of evaluating indicators according to their incremental
contribution to predicting human emotional responses. This innovative
perspective holds a great deal of promise. Ultimately, I hope that this
discussion has contributed to the field's understanding of emotion and
emotional processes.

Keywords
affective computing, development, emergence, emotion
In order to find the real artichoke, we divested it of its leaves.
Wittgenstein (1953/2009, p. 164)

In proposing the emergent variable model of emotionand

explicitly distinguishing it from the latent variable modelmy
main goal was to clarify the methodological assumptions about
emotion that are embedded in the theoretical language used to
describe it. On the one hand, many theories of emotion either
imply or assert an underlying neural structure or circuit that
organizes and causes a set of outputs (e.g., expressions, feelings, actions, physiological responses) that we call emotional. I
aligned this view with the latent variable model, and made
explicit the measurement properties such a model assumes. On
the other hand, recent theorists have characterized emotions as
emergent properties involving the interaction or co-occurrence
of multiple dissociable situational, cognitive and evaluative elements. I aligned this view with the emergent variable model, and
outlined some of the measurement properties that distinguish it
from the latent variable perspective.

Interestingly, Ross Bucks (2010) view of emotion largely

endorses an emergent variable model, even asserting that social
and moral emotions exist at the ecological level, where they
emerge from interactions between an organism and its environment. He contrasts emotions per se with primary motivationalemotional systems, or primes, arguing for example that certain
primespanic, stress, and anxietycreate fear in combination with the ecological condition of threat. If he is right, then
he is endorsing an emergent variable view. This does not imply
that fear does not exist, only that it is an output of
the interaction between situational demands and relatively
independent constituent processes.
Taken together, the commentaries suggest there is no
strong consensus about what the best indicators of emotion are.
Citing difficulties researchers have had confirming Differential
Emotions Theory (Izard & Malatesta, 1987), Linda Camras
(2010) notes that emotional facial expressions do not distinguish
emotions in children very well. Moreover, she reminds us that the
best indicators of emotion may change over the course of development. Camras discussion of emotions as softly assembled
attractor states associated with Dynamical Systems Theory is
highly compatible with the emergent variable perspective, and
brought to mind the notion of fuzzy sets (Zadeh, 1965)the possibility that a variety of subtly different indicators may occupy
varying degrees of membership in emergent emotional states.
Rafael Calvo (2010) proposes the very promising possibility
that affective computing may assist in determining the optimal
indicators of emotion in humans. From Calvos perspective,
computers may identify the most salient emotion indicators by
using them to effectively respond to human emotional needs. If
the latent variable model is true, then computers should eventually be able to correctly identify and respond to emotional states
in humans by tracking a relatively small number of indicators
perhaps only a single indicator. If additional indicators are
necessary, this may be evidence for superadditivity, where indicators contribute unique sources of non-random variance in
identifying an emotional response. The question, then, is one of

Corresponding author: James A. Coan, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, 102 Gilmer Hall, PO Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. Email: jcoan@virginia.edu

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Coan

incremental validity (Sechrest, 1963)the degree to which

each new indicator in the model provides a significant increase
in the models predictive power.
Calvos commentary restates a methodological asymmetry
between the latent and emergent variable models. If the indicators
do in fact share a common cause, then they must be correlated,
because variation in the cause precedes variation in the indicators.
This suggests further that a small number of indicators (possibly
just one) would suffice for affective computing. However, it is still
possible for uncorrelated indicators to simultaneously cause the
same outcome by contributing unique sources of variability to that
outcome. If true, then the addition of indicators to a predictive
model should significantly increase its utility.
Finally, in his commentary, Buck worries with Wittgenstein
about the bewitchment of our intelligence by imprecise language,
especially (at least in Bucks case) as applied to solving the
problem of what emotions are and how they are best defined. I
share his concern. Indeed, my review of the latent and emergent
variable models was largely fueled by this concern. It seemed
to me that, although the assumptions of the latent variable
model were fairly well understood, they were nevertheless
deserving of a concrete restatement. Because it has rarely been

What We Talk About When We Talk About Emotion 293

explicitly defined, however, the emergent variable model

deserved even more attention, both at the level of its own underlying statistical and methodological properties, and in terms of
what makes it so different from the latent variable model.
Ultimately, I hope to have contributed modestly to the resolution
of which general model is the most viable.

References
Buck, R. (2010). Emotion is an entity at both biological and ecological
levels: The ghost in the machine is language. Emotion Review, 2(3),
286287.
Calvo, R. A. (2010). Latent and emergent models in affective computing.
Emotion Review, 2(3), 288289.
Camras, L. A. (2010). Emergent ghosts in the developmental machine.
Emotion Review, 2(3), 290291.
Izard, C. E., & Malatesta, C. (1987). Perspectives on emotional development I: Differential emotions theory of early emotional development. In
J. Osofsky (Ed.), Handbook of infant development (2nd ed., pp. 494554).
New York: Wiley.
Sechrest, L. (1963). Incremental validity: A recommendation. Educational
and Psychological Measurement, 23, 153158.
Wittgenstein, L. (2009). Philosophical investigations (4th ed.). Malden,
MA: Wiley-Blackwell. (Original work published 1953)
Zadeh, L. A. (1965). Fuzzy sets. Information and Control, 8, 338353.

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