Enactive cognition and the neurophenomenology of emotion

pp. 1-24

in: Susan Gordon (ed), Neurophenomenology and its applications to psychology, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

This chapter introduces enactive cognition, an approach that integrates dynamic systems theory with first-person, phenomenological methods of investigating human experience and neurophenomenological method. Neurophenomenology is an extension of enactive cognitive theory, which integrates first- and third-person perspectives in ways that allow them to inform and constrain each other. Insights from these approaches are discussed, which include the finding that perception and cognition are inseparable and cannot be understood apart from the body's interactions with the ecological context of its activities. The author argues that the enactive approach calls into question an old paradigm of the theory of emotion, which conceptualizes emotion and cognition as distinct functions located in separate regions of the brain. An account of emotion, instead, needs to preserve the meaning of the experience of emotion as it appears within the lifeworld context of the person, rather than being based on inferences drawn only from laboratory conditions. Enactive and neurophenomenological approaches are promising avenues for bringing forth an affective, experiential revolution in psychology.