The Experience of Emotion Lisa Feldman Barrett, Batja Mesquita, Kevin N. Ochsner, and James J. Gross Abstract: Emotion experiences are rich in content and emerge from psychological descriptions, but are causally determined by neurobiological processes. This chapter outlines a scientific agenda for understanding what these experiences feel like and how they arise. It reviews the available answers to what is felt (i.e., the content of an emotion experience) and how neurobiological processes account for these properties. These answers are integrated into a framework that describes how emotion experiences emerge from more basic processes. It discusses the role of such experiences in the economy of the mind and behavior. Keywords: emotion; affect; consciousness Introduction: As psychology shifted from the science of the mind to the science of behavior, the subjective experience of emotion was overlooked. Recent discourse has reemerged, but the prevailing view is that emotion research needs to escape subjectivity. Our current understanding of emotion experience is limited by behaviorist legacy and a view of the mind that eschews phenomenology. Knowing the causes of emotion is not sufficient to answer what is felt. This chapter frames an emerging scientific agenda for understanding what an emotion experience feels like and how such feelings arise. Scientific Accounts of Emotion Experience Traditional Theories of Emotion: Most scientific accounts assume that emotion experiences are entailed by physical processes in the brain or body and can be explained by events in the physical world. Materialist theories assume that experiences can be redefined as nothing but these causes. They differ in specifics of how emotions are caused and manifest, but share a common assumption that an explanation of emotion experience requires only an explication of causes or effects. Biological Naturalism: This framework challenges traditional materialist views of the mind. Consciousness is treated as a biological phenomenon that is part of the natural world. Conscious states are defined as ontologically subjective, content-rich, and primarily intentional events. They are constituted by, but not redefined as, neurobiological events. Biological Naturalism: John Searle's approach to the mind-body problem challenges both dualist and materialist views of the mind. Consciousness is treated as a biological phenomenon that is part of the natural world. Conscious states are defined as ontologically subjective, content-rich, and primarily intentional events. The Phenomenological Contents of Emotion Experience: Not all mental states are conscious, but conscious mental states are mental representations that can be reported. To say that a person is consciously experiencing emotion is to say that he or she has a mental representation of emotion: past feelings, hypothetical feelings, or feelings occurring in the moment. The most direct way to measure the contents of a mental representation of emotion is to examine people's verbal behaviors regarding their own mental state, in the form of self-reports. Core Affect: At its core, a mental representation of emotion is a contentful state of pleasure or displeasure,The Experience of Emotion Lisa Feldman Barrett, Batja Mesquita, Kevin N. Ochsner, and James J. Gross Abstract: Emotion experiences are rich in content and emerge from psychological descriptions, but are causally determined by neurobiological processes. This chapter outlines a scientific agenda for understanding what these experiences feel like and how they arise. It reviews the available answers to what is felt (i.e., the content of an emotion experience) and how neurobiological processes account for these properties. These answers are integrated into a framework that describes how emotion experiences emerge from more basic processes. It discusses the role of such experiences in the economy of the mind and behavior. Keywords: emotion; affect; consciousness Introduction: As psychology shifted from the science of the mind to the science of behavior, the subjective experience of emotion was overlooked. Recent discourse has reemerged, but the prevailing view is that emotion research needs to escape subjectivity. Our current understanding of emotion experience is limited by behaviorist legacy and a view of the mind that eschews phenomenology. Knowing the causes of emotion is not sufficient to answer what is felt. This chapter frames an emerging scientific agenda for understanding what an emotion experience feels like and how such feelings arise. Scientific Accounts of Emotion Experience Traditional Theories of Emotion: Most scientific accounts assume that emotion experiences are entailed by physical processes in the brain or body and can be explained by events in the physical world. Materialist theories assume that experiences can be redefined as nothing but these causes. They differ in specifics of how emotions are caused and manifest, but share a common assumption that an explanation of emotion experience requires only an explication of causes or effects. Biological Naturalism: This framework challenges traditional materialist views of the mind. Consciousness is treated as a biological phenomenon that is part of the natural world. Conscious states are defined as ontologically subjective, content-rich, and primarily intentional events. They are constituted by, but not redefined as, neurobiological events. Biological Naturalism: John Searle's approach to the mind-body problem challenges both dualist and materialist views of the mind. Consciousness is treated as a biological phenomenon that is part of the natural world. Conscious states are defined as ontologically subjective, content-rich, and primarily intentional events. The Phenomenological Contents of Emotion Experience: Not all mental states are conscious, but conscious mental states are mental representations that can be reported. To say that a person is consciously experiencing emotion is to say that he or she has a mental representation of emotion: past feelings, hypothetical feelings, or feelings occurring in the moment. The most direct way to measure the contents of a mental representation of emotion is to examine people's verbal behaviors regarding their own mental state, in the form of self-reports. Core Affect: At its core, a mental representation of emotion is a contentful state of pleasure or displeasure,