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Taxonomy of Emotions

chris lofting

Tuesday, 07 Jul 2009 07:38 UTC

Given the association of consciousness with mediation dynamics and the development of languages, the focus is on the ‘first language’, that of emotions and their derivation from neurological dynamics in the form of recursion of the fight/flight dichotomy; this pattern manifest in the ‘interdigitation’ of the elements of that dichotomy ‘across’ the amygdala of our brains (where interdigitations of the elements of a dichotomy are indicative of recursive development).

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    • On the now closed “defining consciousness” thread, Omar wrote:

      Chris wrote: love(sex)

      I wonder why you juxtapose love and sex. All species are all involved in a cooperative venture, upon which all earthly existence rests. This cooperation that I speak of is based on love, and that love has a biological as well as a spiritual basis.

      So, first I ask, do animals have emotions, are there instances of love among them, or are they acting on blind instinct?

      The love and cooperation that forms the basis of all life shows itself in many ways. Sexuality represents only one aspect. It is as natural in frienship for a man to love a man, and for a woman to love a woman, as it is to show love for the opposite sex. In the Western world, our species equates sex and love. We imagine that sexual expression is the only one natural to love. Love, in other words, must it seems express itself through the exploration, in one way or another, of the beloveds sexual portions.

      Since love and sex are equated, obvious conflicts arise. For example, mother love is considered wholesome, and therefore nonsexual.

      So Chris, what about familial love, friendship and cooperation? What about the love for an animal, or for a certain place, or for nature itself? What about the proclaimed love for some religious personage such as Jesus Christ or God or Allah?"

      Your jumping the gun. The taxonomy of emotions stems from recursion of instinctive fight/flight to give us (after three loops):

      loop1 : fight(anger)/flight(fear)

      loop2 : anger, acceptance, rejection, fear

      loop3 : anger, love(sex), acceptance, surprise, anticipation, rejection, grief, fear

      These labels cover generic qualities, vague in expression, wide in scope, very ‘waving of hands’. They also form PAIRS both through repetition and reflection and rotation (symmetry focus).

      Thus the PAIR of anger/sex cover context REPLACEMENT either through removal of competition immediately, aggressively, or subtly through delay in the form of self-replication. As such both focus on taking over context and ‘sticking out’, being noticed.

      The PAIR of grief/fear cover context COEXISTENCE and a focus on using the current context for protection – they disappear into the context and so hide.

      Reflection across the full dimension of the classes of generic primary emotions give us Sexual love and grief forming a pair in that they cover the overall notion of PASSION (the agapeness of sexual love vs the suffering of a lost love etc)

      The RECURSION involved will encode all of the above in EACH after six loops thus within each category is a form of love.

      Religious experiences, especially Christianity, Buddhism etc focus on SUFFERING and as such occupy the emotional space of GRIEF. As recursion develops so the realm of grief enables a positive aspect to emerge we call ‘DISCERNMENT’ – also know as quality control. IOW the ‘love’ you speak of is here, in this realm grounded in suffering and the issues with a lost love or an impossible, unfulfillable, love.

      In the realm of sexual love we also find emerge self-love, aka narcissism.

      At the level of 64 classes of emotions we have eight ‘octets’, each containing eight classes grounded in the one generic class dominating the octet. Thus sexual love has eight sub-classes, as does grief (and so 16 classes covering PASSION). Furthermore, each of the other octets will have TWO of their eight sub-classes influenced by passion… so ‘love’ is ‘everywhere’ ;-)

      The dynamics of emotion cover dealing with context and so issues of mediation. The lack in precision in these dealings covers the lack of differentiation where such can develop with environmental pressures to go beyond the basics of ‘fight/flight’. The emergence of consciousness covers the refinement of differentiating, of distinction making, to a high level of precision that extends into rich symbolic language usage and so the ability to ‘transcend’ our primary emotions – our spoken/written words focus on communication of precise emotional meanings (down to the precise emotion, as a ‘feeling’) of such as ‘correctness’ that we equate with the notion of syntax.

      Chris.

    • To extend the coverage of the taxonomy of emotions, when fight/flight is recursed to six levels we have 64 classes of emotions with local contexts customising such through use of labels to give is instances of classes.

      In studying recursion we find that the mechanistic, potential ‘infinite regress’ of recursion in fact transforms ‘magically’ into an organic form where the classes derived become defined enough to present us with a ‘proto language’ in that each class will reflect properties of all of the other classes – all due to the recursion – and as such we can get the whole set of classes to describe itself by reference to itself and so move from ‘recursion’ to ‘self-referencing’. We note that this transformation from the mechanistic to the organic works as a brake to any ‘infinite regress’.

      This pattern is reflected in other recursively-derived ‘languages’ such as music or the genetic code. Thus one class of meaning can serve (a) as a note or genotype and (b) as key or phenotype where (b) is context that customises the expression of (a).

      The organic element of recursion DEMANDS depth such that it is not observable at the initial steps in recursion where the potential for an infinite regress is sensed and so recursion is ignored as being a source of meaning with depth. My IDM work shows otherwise and in this thread’s focus, the example is of classes of emotions developing into a language that allows emotions to describe themselves by self-referencing.

      Chris.

    • Omar wrote:“Please consider the nonverbal language of love.

      Due to the use of ONE set of meanings so all languages ‘reduce’ to the single context that generates those meanings. In other words there is a ‘fractal’ element present such that the same patterns repeat in all specialist perspectives. If we focus on PASSION then we have a dichotomy of JOY/GRIEF, OR we can just focus on JOY or just focus on GRIEF – these set the context for analysis. Recursion of dichotomies within the context, aka universe of discourse, will elicit a dimension of classes of meanings that cover the same generic classes of emotions but now customised into the specialist context.

      The ‘language of passion’ emerges after we go to six levels or more of recursion where each class is describable by analogy to all of the other classes where this link is due to the operation of recursion that encodes the whole (the original, all-encompassing dichotomy made within the ‘universe of discourse’ that is ‘passion’) in all ‘parts’.

      The essential feature to understand is the focus on CONTEXT that customises the ‘universal’ meanings, the sensations of wholeness, partness, static relatedness, dynamic relatedness and their composites.

      From a mediating perspective, where the dichotomies are asymmetric in interpretation and as such reflect a ‘compressed’ form of trichotomy, the dimension of classes takes on the form of a spectrum akin to light and covering high sample rates (blue end) to low sample rates (red end).

      Thus the spectrum at the generic, eight classes level where language is not yet manifest but core qualities are, we have:

      PASSION as differentiating wholeness
      PASSION as differentiating static relatedness (sharing of space)
      PASSION as differentiating partness
      PASSION as differentiating dynamic relatedness (sharing of time)
      PASSION as integrating dynamic relatedness
      PASSION as integrating partness
      PASSION as integrating static relatedness
      PASSION as integrating wholeness

      Zoom-in on JOY or GRIEF and the SAME distinctions are made for each where we use the ONE set of classes of meanings for all contexts and labels allow us to refine such meaning in a specialist context.

      The focus on a spectrum covers analogy to light itself – we experience the ONE light spectrum but the richness of experiences is through the many contexts that that light is expressed.

      Our emotions are STRONGLY tied to responses to secondary sensory harmonics – the colours of vision, the chords of audition etc etc. and the interpretation/communication of these harmonics get categorised as above into sensations, the pointed, holistic, sensation of a differentiated ‘whole’ as compared to the diffuse, holistic, sensation of an integrated ‘whole’ – the former being a concentrated, particularised, version of the latter.

      The sharing of emotions through the recursion of fight/flight allow for non-verbal communication through resonance. The issues are in the overwhelming sensation of these emotions to an untrained or under-developed consciousness where our reason, and on into our consciousness, can be overpowered by instinctive emotional intensities.

      An essential feature to note here is the differentiation of TWO forms of experience – the magnitudinal and the sequential (scalar vs vector, parallel vs serial). A magnitudinal experience can be all-encompassing and disturbing if it comes with no history (and so sequence element). This is especially so on first experiences of intense emotions such our first true love etc.

      A look can transmit complex emotional states (e.g. the combination of adoration with grief) that can, over time, elicit emotional resonance if the look is not questioned (and so no history, no reason, is supplied – this gets into emotional communication through mirroring etc etc). These sorts of experiences are like a bull in a china shop with our consciousness unable to ‘ground’ the sensation in a history and so having to create one and that take time! This creation acts to ‘serialise’ the emotion and brings out the use of ‘talking about it’ where such serves to spread the intensity of the magnitude over time.

      Chris.

    • Omar wrote:“Why do you propose that natures first reaction is one of fight or flight?

      I don’t. I propose an earlier focus on context management, to replace it with one’s own or to fit-in with the existing. The COMMUNICATION of such in a social species has led to the development of emotions where the fight/flight dichotomy is hard-coded into our brains and the interdigitation that comes with recursion of such dichotomies is identified ‘across’ the ‘surface’ of the amygdala etc – see the invasive research in such as:

      Gainotti, G., and Caltagirone, C., (eds) (1989) “Emotions and the Dual Brain” Springer-Verlag

      Implicit in this is the development of the interdigitations from the core elements of the dichotomy – if F = fight and f = flight then we have development in the form of:

      FFFFFFFF-ffffffff general form
      FFFFffff-FFFFffff
      FFffFFff-FFffFFff
      FfFfFfFf-FfFfFfFf particular form (clear interdigitation)

      These patterns are across the brain in other formats such as visual cortex left/right fields of vision or frontal cortex left/right hemisphere associations etc etc. and dyes bring out banding/stripes in the brain associatable with the general dynamics of recursion of dichotomies.

      (See such oldies but goodies as:

      Constantine-Paton, M., and Law, M.I.,(1982) “The Development of Maps and Stripes in the Brain” IN “The Workings of the Brain” A.H. Freeman. )

      The above is of course an IDEAL format, genetically-determined, as POTENTIALS. Expose to context will customise to give us such particular forms as:

      FfFfFFff-FffffFFf etc

      See the invasive research of such as Goldman-Rakic -

      Goldman-Rakic, P.S., (1984) “Modular organization of the prefrontal cortex” IN Trends in Neurosciences Nove 1984 pp 419-424

      Goldman-Rakic,P.S., and Friedman, H.R., (1991) “The Circuitry of Working Memory Revealed by Anatomical and Metabolic Imagery” IN “Frontal Lobe Function and Disfunction”

      and such as:

      Glas,A., (ed) (1987) “Individual Differences in Hemispheric Specialization” Plenum Press.

      Non-invasive work (use of MRI etc) don’t pick up the full scope of these patterns – you have to elicit all possible behaviours to get all patterns to be identified, to ‘light-up’! – invasive work allows us to see the possibles as well as the actuals.

      Close scrutiny of the dimension of emotions derived from fight/flight, with introduction of a symmetric focus on conservation of energy etc, brings out the emergence of fight from flight – and so a grounding in the realm of the reactive and a focus on fear/protection. (generic anger is associated with the blue end, high sample rates, high energy, local contexts, particular, pointed, precise, pulse-like, what IS etc when compared to generic fear that is more red end, lower sample rates, multi-contexts, general, field-like, wave-like, approximate, what COULD BE etc – mix the two to give us variations that include ‘wave-like’ anger and ‘pulse-like’ fear etc) – the protection focus leads into an emerging dynamic or protection/exploitation.

      Passion does not emerge until level three of the recursion and this covers the transition from an archetypal format that is competitive to a typal format that is cooperative. As such androgyny is more fundamental than male/female, mitosis prior to meiosis, asexuality prior to sexuality, fight/flight prior to joy/grief, replace/coexist prior to fight/flight etc etc

      Chris.

    • Omar wrote: “‘Context management’? Is this rational or is it instinctual as a result of chance? Fight/ flight could be seen as a form of context management. So what comes first, context management, fight/ flight, or do they arise simultaneously? In humans, emotions are generated by beliefs, but I am not clear that it works in animals the same way.

      Context management covers a life form fitting in or transcending context or a mix of both. The emergence of emotions covers the communication of such and indicating that emotions stem from the context management dynamic. The REACTIVE element, the focus on protection and fitting-in with the surroundings bring out the ground of context management. The development of the PROACTIVE leads us into exploration and exploitation of context and genetic diversity can seed the benefits of the proactive establishing strong instincts in being proactive. But early life is more reactive than proactive overall.

      The movement from reactive to proactive introduced exploration and that moves us into territorial claims etc (assertion of ‘my’ context over the existing) and the use of bluff to defend that territory leads into development of emotions in a competitive environment and on into collective behaviours and a cooperative environment (use of colours/sounds for display/warnings/attractions etc as asexual moves into sexual)

      The tie of emotions with sensory secondary harmonics associates meanings with such as colours but a lot of ‘lesser’ life forms are colour blind and many don’t have fight/flight encoding at the neurological level, there are hormonal dynamics limited to endocrine system functions (direct release of hormones into the blood stream etc). IOW sophisticated emotional dynamics are not originating.

      The bias in mammals for fear links in the amygdala function, see:

      http://www.physorg.com/news166161392.html

      with the strong amygdala tie to the limbic system area of the brain that covers a later neural development from the reptilian biased elements etc.

      All of that said, secondary harmonics being used to communicate goes back to insects and plant life with a focus on spectrum exchange so our adaptations reflect refinements of such and a universalisation in the form of a wider spectrum for use in communication (plants etc exploit infrared as do reptiles etc for detection and attraction of food/fertilisation etc in addition to olfactory methods – something we humans have surrendered to some degree (or more so not fully developed post birth) for the benefits of strong visual and auditory skills.

      Territorial natures and use of colours etc are early developments and map to aquatic life and neuron-dependent life forms so the focus on context management goes back a long way and even into single cell life forms with sensitivities to context variations in chemicals etc but not formal hard-coding of fight/flight as such (no neurology etc). At these levels we deal with expand/contract and so move into/take-over a context (expand) vs withdrawal (contract) and the game of replace/coexist. We can map the dynamics to the emergence of blending(wholeness), bonding(static relations), bounding(partness), and binding(dynamic relations) that seed refined emotions later on and so identify the dynamics of differentiating/integrating being ‘fundamental’ and all else specialist expressions of such.

      With respect to the beginning of your first post (00:37) So it would be OK if we use the same words, but each uses their own meaning. I have tried doing this with Alfredo in my thread, ‘finding common ground’. Perhaps, as RKS said in another post, ‘consciousness’ means one thing for me and another for you. As long as we both applied one consistent method to form our statements, we can both claim a fractally produced structure.

      CONSCIOUSNESS” maps to the SAME classes of meanings given for emotions and ties-in emotional ‘seeding’ of personas and so strategies in dealing with environments. There is the indication there of the possibility of people being ‘born’ angry or depressed etc and issues with such where the sensations demand a seeking of a reason why where there is none other than genetic diversity at work.

      This moves us into the dynamics of motivations covering foundations in nature, nurture, or a mix. As specialists of the species each of us will develop preferences in points of view and so be partial in expression but feeling ‘whole’ in the act of such! The development of our singular natures as conscious beings makes us naturally competitive but also too focused on the trees for the forest. To get the forest perspective we have to map out all of the POSSIBLE trees and work from there – which is what the IDM work does with its focus on a ‘language of the vague’ that seeds all meaning.

      Is generalized passion the accidental/ chance result of evolution? I’ve said it to you before, and not intending to be demeaning, but you are one cold fish Chris. The end result is a contextually managed life that has no meaning outside of itself and whatever social context you happen to temporarily create

      The mapping of meaning to recursion and the emergence of self-referencing from such introduces us to the concept of Maya. ;-)

      As a SOCIAL species we create meaning with all universal forms being reflections of our filtering system where the methodology used to derive meaning determines what is meaningful. LOCAL contexts develop ‘small world network’ structures where our genetically-determined regular network of POSSIBLES is customised by exposure to the random network of everyday living and so layers of meanings develop, many isolated and open to diffusion when ‘higher levels’ are discovered – globalisation as such can kill the nuances, the subtleties of unique meanings/customs etc all derived from ‘genetic drift’-like developments.

      That said, the success of the neuron goes back way before the diversity of neuron-dependent life turned up, such that our filtering system ‘reflects’ the basics of the universe in general and so the success of all of our maps as well as the fun of all of our imagined maps. IOW patterns of differentiating/integrating in an environment favoured cellular development adapting and communicating such patterns.

      BUT of note is the development of the species in a symmetric form and so a response to a thermodynamic universe where conservation of energy is an essential for survival. This brings out another synonym for differentiating/integrating, namely the dichotomy of difference/sameness and the dynamics of anti-symmetry/symmetry where such leads into the emergence of the asymmetry of mediations through consciousness and language development.

      Thus our models of reality are instinctively attracted to the ‘perfection’ of symmetric forms where such is a ‘lie’ in that closed systems are NOT the case – there is always the ‘difference’ side of interactions with local contexts and so an OPEN system dynamic locally – the issue THERE being that open systems are energy expending and so we can get attracted to the energy conserving but in doing so lose all sense of direction! – Emotionally, transcendence comes through context replacement not context coexistence so if the symmetry gets too much it is in need of breaking for us to sustain consciousness.

      Chris

    • Omar wrote:“Can you say that transcending the context manages it?

      The management is the life form’s interactions. Transformation covers fitting-in with the existing, transcending means replacing the existing with one’s own, considered ‘better’ context.

      From a reactive position the transcending is in the form of chance symmetry breaking, a failing habit is broken by chance where such a break benefits the life form. The dynamics of the neuron cover habits and the flow of data from dendrites to axon. Timing issues in the context of synchronisation of responses to stimuli allow for abilities to break that flow. When we move into proactive behaviours the play with delay becomes intentional – the mediation element at work where life forms that have such a capability ‘do better’ than those that don’t.

      The energy-conservation focus of instincts/habits and stimulus/response are ‘generals’ reflecting extraction of ‘sameness’ from repeated experiences where such allows for immediate response without repeated high energy expending. Issues are then in the identification of differences within the sameness. In our brains this an anti-symmetry position, use of NOT/XOR logic etc for high speed differentiating of particular, local context, aspects of some general whole. (e.g. leaf colour differences between two types of tree)

      This local context dynamic borders difference/sameness but is biased to a context of overall sameness and so of symmetry. Positive feedback allows for a degree of discretisation and amplification of some aspect for analysis etc.

      The realm of the anti-symmetric is capable of leading into the development of the asymmetric (positive feedback and local context interactions – open system as compared to symmetry’s closed system – when under extreme pressures elicit autopeiotic dynamics – emergences etc) The asymmetric covers mediation dynamics that ‘transcend’ basic aspects analysis – we move into the realm of the IMPLIES operator of logic and so become increasingly proactive, anticipation being the emotion most proactive in a reactive set of emotions (anticipation, rejection, grief, fear) where the proactive set covers anger, joy, acceptance, surprise.

      Next: So I would say, emotions communicate from the individual to the context, right?

      They also apply within the individual as a sense of self develops to one being aware of being angry as compared to holistically being angry. Consciousness has the ability to repress primary emotional expressions, to add delay to such and so calm down the expression and/or articulate it through precise words etc. The neural hierarchy shows a development from the general to the particular, the vague to the crisp, the approximate to the precise.

      The parallel operation of the levels in the neural hierarchy allow for primary emotional assessments of some context to be prone to a lack in precision where consciousness can be more precise and so block the emotional response where it is not appropriate (but also repress a response that is valid but not socially appropriate where our development of self has included learning social rules etc – we can feel the anger coming but learn to ‘bit our tongue’ etc.)

      When you say emotions stem from the context management dynamics, is that really different from saying that your emotions follow your belief?”

      Instinct/habits and their focus on sameness reflect encoding of expectations so you could classify that as ‘belief’ except that there is no awareness of such and these sorts of ‘beliefs’ are very much on/off, there is no changing of instincts, some changing of habits but that can take time. When we move into consciousness we can change ‘beliefs’ in seconds as a consequence of experiences and re-assessment of expectations ;-)

      Instead of ‘proactive’ I would use the term ‘aggressive’. Thus, the development of natural aggression leads us into exploration and exploitation.”

      I would not equate being proactive as being aggressive as I would not equate being reactive as being fearful. The proactive/reactive dynamic covers energy utilisation, to expend (proactive, expecting conservation over the long run) or to conserve (reactive, conserve energy regardless of conditions).

      The generic classification of ‘anger’ covers wholeness through differentiation and as such gets into self-respect, single-mindedness, competitiveness, perpetual mediating etc – perpetual engaging/re-engaging of context to refine/test one’s skills etc. It is the realm of the ‘warrior’ if you like but it also covers cooperative dynamics (sex for example) where the cooperative serves the underlying single-mindedness focus on self.

      The issues with aggression being a later development is in the costs of aggression, the high energy expenditure that is not very conserving of energy.

      The mix of the classes of meanings introduce the proactive in the context of the reactive through the mix of fear + anger. This position is incapable of killing, all it does is neutralise oppositions – all very energy conserving with a focus grounded on maintaining the status quo in a shared context (coexist focus dominates). At the other end we have anger + fear, this position is more focused on harmonising and so mediating for some future state (as compared to neutralising to maintain some existing state into the future).

      You say early life is more reactive than proactive, but isn’t birth an aggressive (proactive) act?

      mitosis precedes meiosis, asexuality precedes sexuality, androgyny precedes male/female ;-) IOW there is a hierarchy of development covering reactive to proactive etc, whole to fragmentation/re-configuration of such.

      I liked your description of the tie between emotions and harmonics.” – the language of the neuron covers frequencies/wavelengths/amplitudes and as such sensory data is converted to such.

      Chris wrote: Consciousness maps to the same classes of meanings given for emotions.

      Yes, I fully agree. I take emotions to be energy forms moving around inside our brains and bodies. That is e-motions are energy in motion. One can feel the surges of energy pulsating within the brain and body when in an emotional state. Emotions charge you with the impetus to act. Since I characterize consciousness as awareized energy, and all energy is awareized, emotions are a concentrated form of consciousness, a concentrated form of awareized energy.

      I don’t find any need for such a model.

      So there is a reason why consciousness maps to the same classes of meanings given for emotions.

      your confusing map with territory. the ‘reason’ for the same classes is in our DESCRIPTION of the concepts where such is grounded in the ONE set of classes of generic meanings used for ALL descriptions. This is the underlying SAMENESS across all specialist perspectives.

      When we focus our attention in making distinctions we use the ONE methodology to do so and so create all possible meanings from that method. LABELS then serve to differentiate specialist perspectives. Thus the classes of primary emotions will be found to equate with the classes of consciousness as they do with the classes of numbers we use in Mathematics or the patterns of yin/yang in the I Ching!

      As such, consciousness is NOT ‘number’ but it shares the same set of generic qualities with numbers (or more so the classes of numbers). The SHARING of the classes allows for the experience of emotions when doing mathematics – equations can be sensed as ‘beautiful’ or ‘ugly’ etc where the sharing allows for analogy/metaphor creations.

      Our sensory systems, as they develop, can share the same neurons and this can lead into experiences of synaesthesia etc which is a form of translation of one perspective into another!

      With respect to the taxonomy of emotions, given that I recognize only one emotion, I would picture the variety and species of that one emotion using an inverted tree. At the first level is love. At the second level there is love and fear, where fear is a distortion of love. There are five emotions at the next level, grief, anger, envy, fear , all distortions of love, and love. Below that, all other kinds of emotions are varieties of one of each of these. There is also the possibility of mongrel emotions. For example one may be simultaneously be in a state of love and fear.

      I suggest you go through the recursion focus and the empirical evidence derived coving such for fight/flight. See the text and associated references in Categories of Mediation – Practice

      At the end is a section covering ‘superposition’ and transference of emotions such as a mix of adoration and grief.

      The classes of emotions can all be described using the SAME method in deriving the classes. This covers the use of positive feedback to discretise and amplify. Thus expressions of anger cover ‘slight irritations’ to full blown ‘rage’ where this scale applied to all classes (as such, given, say, 64 classes there are 64 ‘degrees’ of expression of each class in that our language applies to all analysis).

      Chris.

    • In the context of consciousness suppression/repression of more ‘primitive’, lacking-precision, emotional behaviours:

      Science 13 July 2007:
      Vol. 317. no. 5835, pp. 215 – 219
      DOI: 10.1126/science.1139560

      Prefrontal Regions Orchestrate Suppression of Emotional Memories via a Two-Phase Process
      Brendan E. Depue,1,2* Tim Curran,1,2,3 Marie T. Banich1,2,3,4

      Whether memories can be suppressed has been a controversial issue in psychology and cognitive neuroscience for decades. We found evidence that emotional memories are suppressed via two time-differentiated neural mechanisms: (i) an initial suppression by the right inferior frontal gyrus over regions supporting sensory components of the memory representation (visual cortex, thalamus), followed by (ii) right medial frontal gyrus control over regions supporting multimodal and emotional components of the memory representation (hippocampus, amygdala), both of which are influenced by fronto-polar regions. These results indicate that memory suppression does occur and, at least in nonpsychiatric populations, is under the control of prefrontal regions.

      1 Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
      2 Center for Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
      3 Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
      4 Department of Psychiatry, University of Denver Health Sciences, Denver, CO 80208, USA.

      Of note here is that damage to prefrontal areas elicit changes in consciousness where we fall back onto more ‘animalistic’, primary emotion instincts behaviours and so equating consciousness with top-down focus on the neural hierarchy.

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