Chapter 4: The Umwelt and Emotional Experience

This chapter is intended to suggest that emotion, specifically affect, plays a central role in our view of the world (our Umwelt), and that it directs our voluntary behavior toward adaptive ends. The study of behavior might therefore be organized around the particular emotional behaviors that all normal humans exhibit. After introducing this thesis and attempting to clarify the terminology of the study of emotion, the chapter will proceed to discuss how the basic human emotions might be identified, emphasize the importance of affect, consider the possible functions of affect, recount psychology’s neglect of emotion, identify the basic facets of an emotion and their neural mediation, discuss the role of experience in emotion, propose a tentative list of the basic adult human emotions, and reiterate that a focus on the basic emotions might provide advantages in organizing the study of human behavior.