I'm going to amend my answer (I'll leave the original below). I agree with Damasio's pithy answer: "Emotions are the feeling of what happens.

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This is a good question -- and you're right, the literature is still forming up with definitions (an interesting, chaotic time to be working in this area!). A one sentence definition is difficult to make, since emotions represent a range of experiences. Here's my current best shot in a few sentences.

Emotions are subjective, qualitative experiences based in and mediated by physiological and cognitive factors; some are almost entirely physiological, others almost entirely cognitive. Emotions span the range of internal qualia from physical drives such as hunger and sexual arousal to rarefied experiences such as compassion, betrayal, or a sense of lifelong fulfillment (though there is no real consensus on what is or is not an emotion). Each of these as experiences are rationally opaque to one degree or another; that is, one cannot rationally deconstruct and thus "think their way out of" being hungry or afraid, delighted or lonely. The more cognitively mediated the emotion, the more amenable to some form of rational examination, but at their root all emotions are qualitative experiences that remain impervious to full analysis. They are thus separate from fully rational, linear, linguistic thought, and exist as multiple often simultaneous layered experiences rather than as singular, discrete states. As a result the experiential nature of emotions hinders their description and taxonomic analysis.

(Note: this is adapted from a paper I am writing on this topic.)

For me, emotion, in one sentence, is conscious reflection of internal feelings which are based on experience, knowledge and apperception.

Thanks for your appreciated responses. I personally believe it would be good to go back to Darwin and call emotion only what can be observed from outside, the behavioural aspects. if we accept this view we can further say that emotions are the consequences of affective processing and not affective processing itself. I also believe that affective processing sometimes takes place without necessarily generating an emotion. Further, the same set of stimuli can generate more than just one emotion and finally, affective processing is independent from cognition. If you are interested in more details of all this, please download the following chapter:

http://www.intechopen.com/books/novel-frontiers-of-advanced-neuroimaging/neuroimaging-helps-to-clarify-brain-affective-processing-without-necessarily-clarifying-emotions

It would be very great if you could let me know your opinion on this radical, but hopefully helpful perspective.

Thanks

Peter, this seems like a reversion to old behaviorist views. There was a great article years ago (during the "cognitivist revolution") on why we need cognitive states. Essentially, the argument is that a response may come from one stimulus or no stimulus -- the behavior may be generated internally without any antecedent stimulus. Given this, the internal states (cognition) was said to be a vital aspect of study for psychology.

Similarly, emotions are not only behavior: a "felt" emotion may occur without external stimulus or its external evidence be suppressed despite such a stimulus. IMO, limiting the study of emotion to external affect and behavior is like the guy who's looking for his car keys under the street lamp because that's where the light is (I actually had that as a foot note in a paper I'm preparing but reconsidered and took it out :) ). To put this less bluntly and colloquially, studying emotional behavior and affect is fine, but it is not sufficient to say that this is the same as the study of emotions.

From my own personal experience, emotions seem to be the meaning we personally attribute to a specific event. Hard/cold facts happen independently of the meaning we attribute to them. This meaning may be attractive/repulsive pleasant/unpleasant according to our previous expectations concerning this determined event. If the fact happens according to expectations, an attractive/pleasant emotion ensues; otherwise, a repulsive/disgusting emotion arises.

It would be fascinating to see an experimental demonstration of events describing expected event -> event itself -> event interpretation. All of it in a real-time, realistic basis, in ordinary situations, with a volunteer using a technical device capable of registering brain activities correlated to events linked or disconnected with emotions and the physiological changes they produce.

Dear michael, there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding. by no mesns i am saying that we should only look at behavioural aspects, because i know that emotions are related with underlying brain processes, with feelings, memory functions, etc.

However i think more accuracy is needed in terms of terminology.

At the moment the term emotion is interchangeably used for many different things. as if you would call the wheels of your car "car", its engine "car", the entire car "car" and even driving "car".

All i want to say is that i believe we should use different labels for different processes which we can distinguish.

Also, why do still disagree on which emotions actually exist? That makes me think that there is need for new consideration.

Thanks

Please see our recent paper on the nature of emotion from a evolutionary-functional view, drawing evidence from emotional expressions. In general, we believe that emotion is best understood as a mechanism for controlling an organism's interaction with other organisms.

My understanding, emotion is an electrical waves in motion, it moves from one person to another and keep both party to connect with each others and understand the deep feelings.

Alternatively, Lazarus' (1991) Cognitive-Motivational-Relational Theory of emotion draws upon how emotions are aroused through either environmental or imaginary encounters. According to this model, encounters are appraised as either harm, benefit, challenge or loss, to which emotions arise in response to appraisal evaluations of stake, congruence and relevance. Thus emotions may be described as: "A cognitive and motivational response to internal or external demands to personally meaningful goals".

Article Progress on a Cognitive-Motivational-Relational Theory of Emotion

The problem with most of the existing definitions is that they look inside ourselves for answers. From an evolutionary perspective, any biological trait must have a clear survival advantage. What would be the survival advantage of developing a feeling just for the sake of it in reaction to a situation? As an analogy, the feeling of hunger is to make us eat; the feeling of thirst is to make us drink; and the feeling of sexual arousal is to make us reproduce. So it cannot be the case that the feeling of happiness is to make us feel positive, and the feeling of anger or sadness to make us feel negative. Those feelings must be driving us to do things that have clear survival values, such as scaring off an opponent to win a fight, or making peace to avoid being hurt in an unwinnable confrontation, or attracting someone as a mate or a cooperation partner, etc. Unless survival functions such as these are clearly identified, the definition of emotion in terms of feelings triggered by situation appraisal can only be tautological.

I have to admit a certain sympathy with Frijda (1986) who defines emotion as "the feeling of being ready to to something". Short, sweet, and (for once) emphasizes the critical role emotions have/have had in the generation of adaptive behavior.

Hi nathan, in that sentence emotion is suddenly equal to feeling, while feeling, as i believe, should be seen as different to emotion.

Another thought: in evolution, not everything has to be adaptive. I personally prefer a more neutral approach to search for explanations and/or definitions.

Thanks

Hey Peter. Yeah, not as clear as I might have wished. I certainly did not mean to equate the two (even implicitly) but simply to emphasize that emotions are fundamentally about the generation of behavior. I am not even close to believing that feelings are the be all to end all (experiential essentialism I think the philosophers terms it) and entirely agree with your (I think) remark vis-a-vis the possibility that the feeling of being motivated to act may in fact be epiphenomenal to the function of emotions. I am, as yet, unsure as to what the conscious experience of emotion adds to the system that could not be as readily accomplished by a non-conscious equivalent, a consideration that occasionally has me thinking that the experience is a side effect or by product of a "consciousness" adaptation that did not actually evolve in relation to the emotions systems at all. The one exception to this is, I think, the possibility that conscious awareness evolved in part because it allows for a broader emotional repertoire.

This is my working definition:

Emotions are often recognizable transient feelings that orchestrate physiological and cognitive systems for the purpose of predisposing those who feel them to act more or less in a certain way.

Hi, my working defenition of emoptions is: EMOTIONS ARE AUTOMATIC RESPONSE TO STRESS, WHICH WE THEN ADD QUALITATIVE VALUE THROUGH OUR (LIFE) EXPERIENCES.

I would also appriciate any comments on my working definition. Thank you. Hope the answer gives some new perspectives.

Emotion is the sensory, cognitive and affective disposition to act.

It's shorter and less comprehensive definition that I can draw!

hi jan, sorry for my late reply. your approach to emotion seems radically different to most other approaches, which I usually like a lot, but it certainly needs a very very good argumentation. I would be interested in the question whether your approach is all about just negative emotions or is there any room for positivity? I am asking that, because stress is always negative, right?

what do you think?

hi paula,

thanks for your suggestion. your definition is too broad for my taste, because you bring in sensory, cognitive and affective components. I am currently in favour of only talking about affective processing. my definition is that emotion is a possible result of affective processing and is the behavioural output of it. it can be generated, but it doesn't always have to be generated.

thanks

Generally speaking Emotion is the most important ingredient in all living creatures of the world.

Hi Peter, I agree with your observation. However, when it calls for a brief definition of such a complex concept that involves aspects of neurology, sociology, psychology, biology and other incur a more general definition.

I'll share with you the definition I used in my graduation thesis, that resulted from contributions from psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science. It is not a short sentence, but it is the definition that until nowadays, best explained to myself what i was talking about when i referred to emotions. Hope it helps you building your own and that its meaning isn't lost with the translation.

"Emotions are subjective components of human language, that are expressed either intentionally or not, considering the development stage of the individual. They are, therefore, an inate characteristic, resulting from complex programs, that are started at the brain level, that involve a cognitive and affective component, as well as bodily actions, being induced by neurochemical mediators. They are experienced as a specific mental state, followed by bodily changes, actions and expressions, as well as ideas and thoughts that constitute the "emotional state". Emotional competent stimuli are responsible for triggering emotions that comprehend a subjective perception of those, considering the stablished objectives, in a process that involves appreciation, the assessment context, readiness for action and finally, psychological change, expression and action." (Fernandes, N.; Martins, H., Cristóvão, A., Almeida, P., 2012).

@Jan. I agree with Peter on your proposed definition. Your definition looks more like definition of reflexes to me. Usual reaction on stress could be fear or anger. The only positive thing which I am able to think out is switching into "adrenaline mode", which might, on some conditions, provide to handle stressful event quickier and more effectively.

-Emociones: Procesos afectivos que emergen de la relación entre la persona y su medio social. Conllevan cambios a nivel fisiológico, motor o conductual expresivo y subjetivo-experiencial, que tienen en su base la valoración personal de la situación o estímulo (externo o interno) y son vivenciados con agrado y/o desagrado, considerando su vínculo con las necesidades y metas individuales. Estos cambios presentan implicación para el funcionamiento biológico, psicológico y social del sujeto. (Pérez.2015).

-Emotions: Affective processes that emerge from the relationship between the individual and their social environment. Involving changes to physiological or behavioral expressive and subjective-experiential level, engine, having at its core personal assessment of the situation or (external or internal) stimulus and are experienced with pleasure and / or dislike, considering its relationship with the needs and individual goals. These changes have implications for biological, psychological and social functioning of the subject. (Pérez.2015).

Emotions, as value judgements. 

Sentiments, the emotional side of thoughts. The emotional value of an idea, as a precursor to choice.

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The difference between human beings and computers.

Emotion to me means feelings 

Emotion is a result due to interaction with some parameters/factors

Emotion (from latin "emovere"=to move out) should simply be understood as behavioral output of affective processing. It is behavior and not processing itself. It is about movement, not information processing. Feelings are felt bodily responses to affective processing. The very basis for all that is affective processing, which is the actual neural activity guiding behavior. That is my current understanding after very thorough thinking. What do you say?

Peter Walla, your answer remains entirely behaviorist, which is insufficient for any substantive study of emotions. All the arguments that doomed behaviorism -- the necessity of cognitive processes, behavior arising without external stimuli, etc. -- apply here as well. For example, many emotions are experienced internally with no accompanying affect or behavior. Saying that emotion is only "about movement" is an exceedingly and unnecessarily narrow view of emotions that leaves out the bulk of their genesis, processing, and experience of emotions. I don't see the utility in creating such limits, nor how they correspond to what we already know about emotions (see my 2013 paper for more details on this).

I would recommend to review Rosalind Picard works as she is the mother of the affective computing direction in AI.

we must distinguish between feeling and emotion and a good way is to say that emotions are there to communicate feelings. In more detail, first of all "affective processing" (which is subcortical brain activity) guides behavior (not emotions and not feelings!). This means that decision making in the brain is supported by neural activity processing affective aspects of stimuli. Feelings occur as a result of suprathreshold affective processing that leads to bodily responses. Feelings can only occur when an organism has the capacity of consciousness. Emotions then are behavioral output to affective processing leading to feelings in order to communicate them among conspecifics. Voluntarily created emotions like fake facial expressions are of course another story and have nothing to do with basic biology.

In my opinion, it is most helpful if one uses the following understanding of emotions and feelings:

"Affective Processing Guides Behavior and Emotions Communicate Feelings". If one follows that model an emoji can act as an emotion, but of course it represents only one way to communicate a feeling and it is thus very minimal. In real face-to-face situations more emotion channels exist leading to much better feeling-related communication.

Should anyone be interested, here is the reference for the respective article "Affective processing guides behavior and emotions communicate feelings":

Walla P. (2018) Affective Processing Guides Behavior and Emotions Communicate Feelings: Towards a Guideline for the NeuroIS Community. In: Davis F., Riedl R., vom Brocke J., Léger PM., Randolph A. (eds) Information Systems and Neuroscience. Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, vol 25. Springer, Cham .

My thoughts are that 'emotion' is not amenable to logical definition. It is 'in the moment' and subjective. Somewhat like trying to trap a ray of sunlight or a rainbow in a box.