The Affective and Intuitive Forms of Trust: The Confidence We Inspire - Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model - page 132

motor behavior but just the preliminary, central and preparatory part of a motor response.
And pleasure/displeasure simply is the activation of neural centers.
(2) This associated response can be merely central , because the somatic-emotional component
can also be reduced to its central trace (Damasio's somatic markers) and because emotions
have a central response component which is fundamental. But of course this response can
also be more complete involving peripheral overt motor or muscle responses or visceral
emotional reactions.
(3) This associated response is automatic, and frequently unconscious .
Appraisal is a way of 'feeling' something , thanks to its somatic (although central)
nature.
Appraisal gives 'valence' to the stimulus because it makes it attractive or repulsive, good
or bad, pleasant or disagreeable.
Appraisal has 'intentionality' i.e. the association/activation makes what we feel 'about'
the stimulus, makes it nice or bad, fearful or attractive. It gives the stimulus the character
that Wertheimer called 'physiognomic'. (How this happens, how the associated response
is 'ascribed to', 'attributed to', and 'characterizes and colors' the stimulus; how it does
not remain concurrent, but dissociated, is not so clear - at least to us - and probably just
the effect of a neural mechanism).
(4) When it is a response just to the stimulus it is very fast, primary . It anticipates high level
processing of the stimulus (like meaning retrieval) and even its recognition (it can be
subliminal). In this sense the old Zajonc's slogan 'preferences need no inferences' proves
to be right (although not exclusive: there are preferences which are based on reasoning
and inferences; and also emotions based on this).
(5) There can be an analogous associative, conditioned, automatic response to high level
representations : to beliefs, to hypothetical scenarios and decisions (Damasio, 1994), to
mental images, to goals, etc.
We have to change our usual view of cognitive 'layers', where association and conditioning
are only relative to stimuli and behaviors, not to cognitive explicit mental representations .
Any emotion as a response implies an appraisal in the above mentioned sense.
It implies the elicitation of a central affective response involving pleasure/displeasure,
attraction/repulsion, and central somatic markers if not peripheral reactions and sensations.
This is what gives emotions their 'felt' character. (While not all emotions presuppose or imply
a cognitive evaluation of the circumstances).
5.5 Relationships Between Appraisal and Evaluation
Evaluation and affective appraisal have much in common: in particular, their function
(Castelfranchi, 2009). Evaluations favor the acquisition of adequate means for one's goals,
and the avoidance of useless or dangerous means, and precisely the same function can be
attributed to emotions.
More than that: emotions - though they have traditionally been attributed the negative role
of clouding and altering rational thought - seem to help at least some kind of reasoning. In
fact, they provide 'non-conscious biases' that support processes of cognitive evaluation and