How does cognition influence emotion?  (Page 3/13)

Unconscious processing

How does the mind think? I said previously that it uses images to think, and that these are basic images like body-images or other symbols.

But how does that information reveal other significant facts about thought? If your mind uses images to think, then a human's perception of the visual world is going to influence their mental thought processes.

Or maybe you don't need a visual representation, if someone feels something around certain nature scenes, like a pond, you don't necessarily need to visualize the pond. Being near the pond is enough to evoke the emotions that scene brings up because the pond creates a certain atmosphere, it changes the humidity in the air, and the life around the pond is different. So perhaps vision doesn't create most of the strong emotions people experience anyway.

Is it simple?

People are also sensitive to different types of emotional information. For example there might be something difficult to understand emotionally that someone understands unconsciously because it is important or more obvious to their unconscious mind.

What types of information are understood unconsciously vs. consciously then? Clearly there is going to be a difference - I can think of many examples off the top of my head. There are simple things in life people do like knowing their schedule for a day, that could be considered to be emotionally simple, and there are more complex ideas emotionally that people consider during a day like how to handle a debate or argument.

Is there a type of 'emotional speculation' where someone guesses what something might feel like? You could say that people do this all the time when they make any type of emotional assessment (for instance how cool or uncool something is, or if they like or dislike someone). What is emotional subtlety then? It is defined by levels of conscious and unconscious importance, and degree of difficulty in understanding and absorbing the information.

What information is absorbed consciously vs. unconsciously?

What would be 'emotionally complex' pieces of information then? If the information is complex is it easier to understand consciously or unconsciously? Dogs often understand beforehand when their owner is going to go on a vacation, or many other complex ideas about social interaction. Dogs also understand if a person is being nice or cruel to them - does that mean that a humans understanding of kindness is at the same level as that of a dog? There must be more complicated ways a human understands what 'kindness' or 'cruelty' means than the understanding a dog has.