This paper discusses (i) the usefulness and (ii) the clarity of the concept of arousal. In discussing its usefulness, I argue that we can explain some key “arousal effects” without relying on the concept of arousal. To do so, I consider the role of the appraisal of affective relevance as a process mainly subserved by the amygdala and explaining emotional effects on attention, memory, and learning. Then, with respect to the clarity of the concept of arousal, I use the componential approach to emotion to suggest that further research may investigate whether the umbrella term “arousal” covers five different concepts (energy, sympathetic nervous system activity, intensity, strength, and salience), each corresponding to a specific component of emotion.

中文翻译：

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作为一个科学概念，“唤醒”比无用更糟糕吗？


本文讨论了 （i） 唤醒概念的有用性和 （ii） 清晰度。在讨论它的有用性时，我认为我们可以在不依赖唤醒概念的情况下解释一些关键的“唤醒效应”。为此，我认为情感相关性评估的作用是一个主要由杏仁核负责的过程，并解释了情绪对注意力、记忆和学习的影响。然后，关于唤醒概念的清晰度，我使用成分方法对情绪提出建议，进一步的研究可能会调查总称“唤醒”是否涵盖五个不同的概念（能量、交感神经系统活动、强度、强度和显著性），每个概念对应于情绪的一个特定组成部分。