How does cognition influence emotion?

Some mental factors (processes) are the link between cognition and emotion - such as basic imagery (body images), thoughts, and other cognitive associations and structures.

How exactly does the mind 'think' however? I could say that it uses images to think, and that these images are mostly unconscious. That would be similar to having a dream, in a dream simple images represent larger psychological ideas and life experiences. The images your mind uses to think are probably basic, similar to how a computer works with simple switches at the most simple level. The most basic and important mental images are used to represent more significant psychological 'code' or life experiences (like body images - since social interaction is important humans would be broken down in the mind into simple visualizations).

So I think that the mind basically thinks by breaking down the psychological factors of life into more simple images. If you have an interaction with someone, then that interaction is broken down into more simple body-images and other images that represent what occurred in the interaction. These images are probably unconscious, you would not notice in what order your mind is going through them or what they are exactly.

This means that your minds cognitions (such as images and thoughts) are going to influence your emotions. The real world is broken down into thoughts and visualizations (or psychological 'symbols') in your mind, and these mental processes influence your emotions.

Introduction (part 2)

There are two major types of emotional experience - one is the obvious one which people experience daily and that is the major emotions they are experiencing as a result of their activities. The other type of emotional experience is one that is driven by deep unconscious factors, and it relates to your strong inner motivations, hopes, fears, expectations for the future, and how you perceive reality.

If you think about it, this makes sense. Emotion is generated by obvious factors - such as person A causes an emotional reaction in person B - and less obvious factors - such as person A has a strong inner desire to save lives, so when they see things that remind them of this, strong emotions are invoked. Emotions that are generated by strong, possibly hidden inner desires are much less obvious than emotions that are the direct result of experiences.

It is hard to measure emotion in both cases though. You can guess that if someone is doing a fun activity they are going to experience the emotion of 'fun' or other 'happy' emotions, but guessing what someones inner desires and motivations are is probably going to be much more

This relates to important concepts that influence how you perceive life, and how your emotions are generated. If you think about it, it makes sense that there are going to be emotional reasons you do things that you aren't aware of the motivation for all of the time. One of these important factors is a concept called "consciousness" - something could feel differently to you simply because you became more aware of it. The thing is new or different now. This concept of consciousness applies to all emotional things, you can become more conscious of one thing or feeling, or more conscious of yourself as a person as a whole.