Emotion in Action: A Predictive Processing Perspective and Theoretical Synthesis

Starting from a decidedly Frijdian perspective on emotion in action, we adopt neurocognitive theories of action control to analyze the mechanisms through which emotional action arises. Appraisal of events vis-à-vis concerns gives rise to a determinate motive to establish a specific state of the world; the pragmatic idea of the action’s effects incurs the valuation of action options and a change in action readiness in the form of incipient ideomotor capture of the selected action. Forward modeling of the sensory consequences of the selected action option allows for the evaluation and fine-tuning of anticipated action effects, which renders the emotional action impulsive yet purposive. This novel theoretical synthesis depicts the cornerstone principles for a mechanistic view on emotion in action.