The Constructivist Semiotic Model of Emotions: Affect, Feeling, and Emotion as Non-Substitutable Constructs

Many theories of emotion treat physiological affect, conscious feeling, and emotion as stages of one continuous process. They then cannot explain why substantially the same feeling supports different emotions, and they leave no standard by which an emotion can be correct or mistaken. I present the Constructivist Semiotic Model of Emotions (CSME), which treats the three as non-substitutable constructs with distinct identity conditions. Affect is the physiological and regulatory substrate. Feeling is the conscious metaperceptual awareness of that substrate, which makes it available for interpretation without giving it meaning. Emotion is a goal-governed, context-sensitive semiotic interpretive act by which an agent assigns meaning and significance to feeling. The model applies the five-part Constructivist Semiotic Sign to emotion and adds four operations: interpretation, meaning, significance, and commitment. I describe the comparative trade study through which the model preserves contributions from appraisal theory, the Component Process Model, affective neuroscience, and the theory of constructed emotion; a thirteen-stage architecture in which prediction, perception, allostasis, and metaperception prepare emotional meaning without constituting it; and five executable specifications that check the model's internal consistency. I close with the objections the book anticipates and with what the model shares with its neighbors and adds. Working paper 3 of 8 in the series on the frameworks of How to Design an Emotion: The Deconstruction and Computation of Emotional Meaning from First Principles (Universal Moral Concepts III, New Intellectual LLC, 2026; ISBN 979-8-9898135-9-9 paperback, 979-8-9898135-3-7 Kindle). The book is the full treatment. Book page: https://newintellectual.com/how-to-design-an-emotion; related: Part IV. Buy on Amazon.