James–Lange theory

It was developed by philosopher John Dewey and named for two 19th-century scholars, William James and Carl Lange (see modern criticism for more on the theory's origin).

Modern theorists have built on its ideas by proposing that the experience of emotion is modulated by both physiological feedback and other information, rather than consisting solely of bodily changes, as James suggested.

… What kind of an emotion of fear would be left, if the feelings neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible to think.

The rage is as completely evaporated as the sensation of its so-called manifestations.Physician Carl Lange developed similar ideas independently in 1885.

He did not think the idea of common sense reactions were real but that each emotion triggered a specific physiological response.

Or, if the person heard glass breaking and thought it was their roommate being careless and clumsy, they would have a pounding heart and raised blood pressure due to their subject anger, according to James.

Which in the end concludes that our own perceptions of our body's physiological reactions doesn't give enough evidence and proof to determine the subject nature of an emotional experience.

Finally, impulses from the muscles and viscera are sent back to the cortex, transforming the object from an "object-simply apprehended" to an "object-emotionally felt.

[11] In Mortimer J. Adler's first attempt to earn a PhD in Experimental Psychology, he conducted a research study aligned with the postulates of James-Lange Theory of Emotions along with George Schoonhoven.

In order to demonstrate this hypothesis, they submitted their Psychology graduate students to some laboratory tensions that they could distinguish said emotions based on their physiological reactions.

There, they would be submitted to smelling and seeing a bacon sandwich with a cup of coffee, but would not be permitted to eat it, so the downfall of that was that they would experience the sensations of anger afore-mentioned, such as dilated pupils, and so on.

Cannon emphasized that the viscera had been separated from the central nervous system with no impact on emotional behavior in experiments on animals.

Cannon examined research on dogs performed by Sherrington, who separated the spinal cord and vagus nerves from all connections in the rest of the body, and found that the expression of emotion did not change, suggesting that the viscera do not have an observable impact on certain emotional behavior in dogs.

For example, the same visceral responses such as increased heart rate, sweating, widening of the pupils, and the discharge of adrenaline can be associated with the experience of fear or anger.

[3] Stimulating the viscera to produce a specific emotion was found to be ineffective by physician Gregorio Marañón.

[3] In one of his studies, participants had adrenalin injected into their veins, which produced physiological changes expected to be linked with an emotion.

The only noticeable changes in the participants were physical, such as activation of the sympathetic nerve impulse, which creates constriction of the blood vessels and dilation of the bronchioles.

Cannon stated that this study disproved the idea that physiological responses are the sole reason for the experience of emotion.

In ‘The Little White Bird’ (1902) J. M. Barrie discusses the psychological abilities of fairies with his young companion, David.

In 2017, Lisa Feldman Barrett reported that the James-Lange theory was created by neither William James nor Carl Lange.

"[2] Barrett also points out that when testing this theory with electrical stimulation, there is not a one-to-one response between a behavior and emotion category.

[17] A study in 2009 found that patients who had lesions to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex had impaired emotional experiences, but unaffected autonomic responses while patients with lesions to the right somatosensory cortex had impaired autonomic responses without affected emotional experiences.