Can We Still Oppose Emotion and Cognition in Humans? The Interdependency of Emotional and Cognitive Processes

Following a history of emotions marked by theories opposing emotion to reason, psychology and affective neuroscience have renewed their conceptual and theoretical positioning, pushing forward the interdependency of emotion and cognition. At the cerebral level, models based on competition involving mutual suppression of emotion and cognition have given way to models of functionally integrated emotional and cognitive processes. The dominant theoretical models, like cognitive appraisal theories (AT) and core affect theories, agree on a componential conception of emotional processes. The central point of divergence concerns the status of emotional categorization in emotional experience. However, for all models, cerebral processes are widely distributed in non-specific brain areas that account for their interactions with all cognitive functions. We review results illustrating the integration of emotional processes with other mental processes in perception, attention, memory, decision-making, and oral communication. This data suggests that emotion modulates the networks involved in perceptual and cognitive processes and influences behavior.