Lindquist Kristen A, MacCormack Jennifer K, Shablack Holly
Carolina Affective Science Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC USA.
Front Psychol. 2015 Apr 14;6:444. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00444. eCollection 2015.
Common sense suggests that emotions are physical types that have little to do with the words we use to label them. Yet recent psychological constructionist accounts reveal that language is a fundamental element in emotion that is constitutive of both emotion experiences and perceptions. According to the psychological constructionist Conceptual Act Theory (CAT), an instance of emotion occurs when information from one's body or other people's bodies is made meaningful in light of the present situation using concept knowledge about emotion. The CAT suggests that language plays a role in emotion because language supports the conceptual knowledge used to make meaning of sensations from the body and world in a given context. In the present paper, we review evidence from developmental and cognitive science to reveal that language scaffolds concept knowledge in humans, helping humans to acquire abstract concepts such as emotion categories across the lifespan. Critically, language later helps individuals use concepts to make meaning of on-going sensory perceptions. Building on this evidence, we outline predictions from a psychological constructionist model of emotion in which language serves as the "glue" for emotion concept knowledge, binding concepts to embodied experiences and in turn shaping the ongoing processing of sensory information from the body and world to create emotional experiences and perceptions.
常识表明，情绪是一种生理类型，与我们用来给它们贴标签的词语关系不大。然而，最近的心理学建构主义观点表明，语言是情绪的一个基本要素，它构成了情绪体验和认知。根据心理学建构主义概念行为理论（CAT），当根据当前情境，利用关于情绪的概念知识，使来自自身身体或他人身体的信息变得有意义时，情绪实例就会出现。CAT表明语言在情绪中发挥作用，因为语言支持用于在特定情境中赋予来自身体和世界的感觉以意义的概念知识。在本文中，我们回顾了来自发展科学和认知科学的证据，以揭示语言为人类的概念知识搭建支架，帮助人类在一生中获得诸如情绪类别等抽象概念。至关重要的是，语言随后帮助个体运用概念来理解正在进行的感官认知。基于这些证据，我们概述了一个心理学建构主义情绪模型的预测，在该模型中，语言充当情绪概念知识的“粘合剂”，将概念与具身体验联系起来，进而塑造来自身体和世界的感官信息的持续处理过程，以创造情绪体验和认知。
