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Emotion Recognition as Pattern Recognition: The Relevance of Perception
Author(s) -
Newen Albert,
Welpinghus Anna,
Juckel Georg
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12077
Subject(s) - perception , psychology , inference , analogy , relevance (law) , cognitive psychology , emotion recognition , emotion perception , affective science , cognitive neuroscience of visual object recognition , emotion classification , metaphysics , object (grammar) , cognitive science , computer science , artificial intelligence , epistemology , philosophy , neuroscience , political science , law
We develop a version of a direct perception account of emotion recognition on the basis of a metaphysical claim that emotions are individuated as patterns of characteristic features. On our account, emotion recognition relies on the same type of pattern recognition as is described for object recognition. The analogy allows us to distinguish two forms of directly perceiving emotions, namely perceiving an emotion in the (near) absence of any top‐down processes, and perceiving an emotion in a way that significantly involves some top‐down processes (including expectations and background knowledge); and, in addition, an inference‐based evaluation of an emotion. Our model clarifies the epistemology of emotion recognition.