UC San Diego

This contribution focuses on the relation between emotion and consciousness, drawing on key insights from psychology and neuroscience. We address current controversies about the neural basis of consciousness, and about the relationship between consciousness and attention, considering their potential implications for the scope of (un)conscious emotion. We review evidence that affective responses can be elicited by unconscious stimuli, and that affective responses can sometimes remain unconscious. Finally, we discuss studies of misattribution, in which people appear to misjudge the causes of their emotional states. Throughout, we highlight the functional value of unconscious affective processing as well as the value of being conscious of one's emotion.