Researchers often disagree as to whether emotions are largely consistent across people and over time, or whether they are variable. They also disagree as to whether emotions are initiated by appraisals, or whether they may be initiated in diverse ways. We draw upon Parallel-Distributed-Processing to offer an algorithmic account in which features of an emotion instance are bi-directionally connected to each other via conjunction units. We propose that such indirect connections may be innate as well as learned. These ideas lead to the development of the Interactive Activation and Competition framework for Emotion (IAC-E) which allows us to specify when emotions are consistent and when they are variable, as well as when they are appraisal-led and when they are input-agnostic.

研究人员经常不同意人们的情绪是否随着时间的推移在很大程度上是一致的，或者它们是否是可变的。他们也不同意情绪是否由评估引发，或者它们是否可以以不同的方式引发。我们利用并行分布式处理来提供一个算法帐户，其中情感实例的特征通过连接单元双向连接。我们建议这种间接联系可能是先天的，也可能是后天习得的。这些想法导致了情绪交互激活和竞争框架 (IAC-E) 的发展，它允许我们指定情绪何时是一致的，何时是可变的，以及何时以评估为主导，何时是输入-不可知论者。