Emotions Are Folk Concepts in a Predicting Brain

The question “what is an emotion” is as old as the study of the mind and brain. Scientists from Western, English-speaking, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) nations tend to adopt certain definitions, but these definitions do not map onto the lived experiences of all people around the world. My approach to the question “what is an emotion?” is thus to accept that emotions are folk concepts that do not “cut nature at its joints.” Instead, I draw from models of predictive brain function to ask, “how does the brain make mental states in general, and experiences that we call “emotions” in particular?” I discuss recent models of predictive processing and how it is thought that the brain gives rise to feelings of valence and, arousal, and how, in some cultures, categorical emotional predictions (e.g., “anger”) might have evolved as a particularly useful class of predictions for navigating humans’ social worlds.