How does cognition influence emotion?  (Page 11/13)

An emotion that is strongly influenced by a motivation or desire is probably subjective. An emotion that is sensory, like a physical emotion, is more objective because you aren't influencing the emotion with your mind. People respond differently to different situations because they are different people and have different background beliefs, ideas, feelings, experience, etc.

I suppose you could say that some people respond to social situations more 'logically' than other people. If they aren't as influenced by their internal beliefs - earlier in this paper I cited the definition of 'mentalizers' - people who have their actions guided by beliefs, desires, goals, fears, etc. vs. 'systemizers', who rely on a problem solving strategy instead of intentions - then does that mean they are responding more logically? Someones emotions could be influenced by logical data just as much as someones emotions could be influenced by internal intentions (though I would guess in general the mentalizers are more emotional).

Do emotions arise from a persons problem solving strategy? One that is logical (systemizers) or one that is based on internal motivations (mentzlizers)? If that were the case, then systemizers would be distinctinly different emotionally than mentalizers. Or do emotions arise from perceiving external actions differently? Perceiving actions would be learned from experience, while someones problem solving strategy is based upon what they are thinking about. - So emotions could arise from perceptions of bodily changes (which is Damasio's theory) which I suppose could be observing other people in your environment, or they arise from a more internal, mental process which is based upon what you are thinking about, how you are thinking, etc. (systemizers vs mentalizers for example).

Observation vs. inference

When someone observes their environment they think about it in some way. This type of thinking is different from thinking that isn't based off of immediate vision. How do the two types of thinking differ? What is different when you think from when you are observing your environment, versus when you think about things that aren't dependent on what you are looking at (a more 'inferential' type of thinking)? Fodor (Fodor, Jerry (1990)) states - "For one thing, observationally fixed beliefs tend, by and large, to be more reliable than inferrentially fixed beliefs."

Based upon the same visual observations, will two organisms reach the same conclusions? Why don't I try to compare a deer and a human. There is a similar way in which both species process basic information about the environment (along with the animals in it), for instance if someone is attacking them both species recognize that as a threat. And i'm sure both species process data about environments without other animals or humans in it in a similar fashion as well. They both need to function in the environment, to look at the flora and fauna and decide what they want to eat, etc. It must be more complicated or 'theoretical' ideas that humans hold which separate our thinking from that of other animals (like deer). Here Fodor states that two organisms will reach the same observational beliefs 'however much their theoretical commitments may differ':