Dear Don,
Thanks for your reply. Wasn't trying to be provocative, it seems to occur as
a result of drawing attention to assumptions that don't work.
Reading your comments, again, we seem to be proposing slightly different
things.
I'm seeing this as a fundamentally epistemological problem rather than a
by-product of differences between rival camps in Psychology.
I'll try to fill out the detail and hope this is a bit clearer.
Emotions are human-made theory categories that are used for convenience to
classify what we see ourselves doing and being. They are theoretical
'boxes' into which, for convenience, we shoehorn the rich reality of
human experience.
Conflating the 'box' and the 'experience' presents similar epistemological
problems to confusing the 'map' and the 'territory'.
The false belief in objects and light having colour is a similar problem of
confusing map (theories about objects) and the territory (in this case the
specific territory is the electromagnetic frequency sensors in humans).
This false belief in colour is unproblematic for many epistemologically
simple tasks such as interface design and most areas of product design.
Similarly, for many other epistemologically simple situations, including
quite abstruse and abstract areas of Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive
Science, the conflation of the map (emotion categories) with the territory
(richness of human experience) is unproblematic.
In some areas, however, it is problematic. One of them is theorising about
the cognito-affective basis of self-reflective decision-making in mind
about directing mental attention in developing partial design solutions.
This is a central and foundational issue in understanding how humans design.
Depending on how it plays out it is likely to influence the theory
foundations of design theory more generally.
The problem issues of conceptualising emotion are being addressed at least
in part in cognitive science and cognitive psychology. Or at least the
issues are emerging.
Current work (2014) by Oatley and Johnson-Laird published in Trends in
Cognitive Science as 'Cognitive Approaches to Emotions' point to some
aspects of the problems in their review of theories of emotion in
cognitive science (action-readiness, core-affect, and communicative theories
of emotion). A pre-print is at
http://mentalmodels.princeton.edu/papers/2014tics-emotions.pdf . It was
supposed to have been published by Elsevier on 3 Jan 2014 but hasn't
appeared in the uni library access here yet. Their review reveals the lack
of exact mapping of the concepts of emotions with the reality, and more
importantly, shows fundamentally different explanations of causal purpose.
Clarity on this latter is essential for using theories of emotion in other
theories, such as developing design theory as described above.
Theories about emotion from other fields present similar problems. For
example, in Ekman's analyses on basic emotions from an ethological
viewpoint, he identifies the theoretical characteristics necessary for an
idea about emotion to be validated as a concept. This leads to identifying
basic emotions as non-unique and rather being nuanced overlapping families
of concepts www.paulekman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Basic-Emotions.pdf
I first noticed this problem with theories of emotion in the early 1990s,
in Ortony, Clore Collins work on the cognitive structure of emotions (which
formed the basis of later theories of emotion in cognitive science. The
problems of Ortony et al's particular cognitive science approach to emotion
and its defining of emotion in terms of other (especially the problems for
design theory and practice ) are also described by others , e.g.
http://www.idsia.ch/~steunebrink/Publications/KI09_OCC_revisited.pdf and
http://www.idsia.ch/~steunebrink/Publications/ECAI2008_0337.pdf . This is
significant for design because Ortony, Clore and Collins cognitive model of
emotion is used for inclusion of emotion in designing games and
interactions.
You mention repeatability and reliability of data collection using concepts.
These are not defining features of the validity of concepts.
As I understand it, the discussion of happiness as a psychiatric illness is
intentional analysis and not a spoof. Rather, it sees sanity as being marked
by emotional valence closer to contentment, acceptance or is-ness, with
'happiness' being a temporary deviation experienced by less sane
individuals.
Lessing offers a description in Sentimental Agents. . . (p. 70-93)
Warm regards,
Terry
--
Dr Terence Love
PhD (UWA), B.A. (Hons) Engin, PGCE. FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
[log in to unmask]
--
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Don Norman
Sent: Tuesday, 4 February 2014 4:57 AM
To: Terry Love
Cc: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design
Subject: Re: Engineering and Culture -conflicts?
Ah Terry, you can be so provocative.
On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There are multiple examples of concepts that present this problem.
> Perhaps the most difficult, because we are so conditioned, is the
> problem of emotions sensed as 'feelings'. These feelings and emotions
> are only concepts
> - not real.
>
I agree with the spirit of your argument, but not the substance. Emotions
and feelings are real. Just because the only evidence we can get of
subjective mental states are , well, subjective, does not mean they are not
real. Moreover, the fields of psychophysics and psychometrics have developed
methods of measurement for these states that are reliable and repeatable.
Next you will tell us that beauty and elegance are not real. Or love or
hate, or even good and bad.
With regard to feelings and emotions being "merely conditioned
conceptualised interpretations of body responses that in essence do not
themselves exist," this proves you are mired in the behaviorist tradition of
psychology that, thank goodness, started to die in the 1960s and as far as i
know, is now dead. (And i take great pride in being one of its killers.)
Some emotions and feelings do fit under your description, but many are
universal -- felt by all people's and cultures. Moreover, with increasing
evidence from neuroscience to back up the already existing strong behavioral
evidence.
---
Your reference to:
> On a lighter note, coming to the same problem from a very different
> direction, have you come across Bentall's critique of behaviours
> associated with the concept of happiness and his suggestion that
> happiness is best classified as a psychiatric disorder ?-
> http://jme.bmj.com/content/18/2/94.full.pdf+html
A delightful spoof, but with serious imlications regardling the tendancy to
classify all sorts of oddities as fundamental disorders. I highly recommend
this to all readers of this list as a welcome bit of humor and amusement.
(I also have several friends who are in the "psychology of happiness"
business, three of whom actually started the movement. It's about time, is
my response.)
Don
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
