Emotion Architecture: A Two-Story and Multilayer Semantic-Network Model of Basic and Higher-Order Emotions

This study proposes a new theoretical framework, Emotion Architecture, to explain how human emotions are generated, interpreted, and transformed. The model conceptualizes emotion as a two-story structure consisting of an outer layer (basic affects) and an inner layer (a multilayer semantic network). It further demonstrates that emotions arise through two distinct pathways: (A) a route in which basic affects are first triggered and subsequently transformed through semantic updating, and (B) a route in which higher-order emotions emerge directly from the semantic network without the involvement of basic affects. The inner layer is organized as a three-layer semantic network—comprising conceptual, value-related, and narrative levels—whose updates give rise to higher-order emotions at shallow, intermediate, and deep levels. The shallow layer corresponds to conceptual and memory reactivation, the intermediate layer to cultural and value-based evaluation, and the deep layer to narrative and worldview reconstruction. The model further aligns these hierarchical processes with neuroscientific findings involving the amygdala, insula, hippocampus, mPFC, TPJ, and the default mode network (DMN), thereby demonstrating its validity as an integrative psychological and neuroscientific account of emotion. Emotion Architecture reconceptualizes emotion as a phenomenon of “meaning transformation” and provides a new theoretical foundation for understanding the structure of human inner experience.