Review Feelings and the body: The Jamesian perspective on autonomic specificity of emotion § Bruce H. Friedman * Department of Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0436, United States Contents 1. William James: historical background ................................................................................ 384 2. The James–Lange theory of emotion.................................................................................. 384 3. Challenge: the Cannon–Bard theory of emotion ........................................................................ 385 4. Autonomic specificity and the early era of psychophysiology .............................................................. 386 4.1. Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state: the impact of Schachter and Singer .................... 386 5. The modern era of ANS specificity research ............................................................................ 387 6. ANS specificity and emotion theory .................................................................................. 388 7. Summary and conclusion .......................................................................................... 390 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... 391 References ...................................................................................................... 391 The issue of emotion-specific autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity is arguably one of the most enduring research topics in psychology. The seeds of this issue can be found in a paper by William James, published in the journal Mind in 1884, titled ‘‘What is an emotion?’’ Emotion, pleasure, and pain were perennial topics in Mind, and James’s seminal paper articulated a theory of emotional feelings that generated a line of empirical research that continues in the twenty-first century. The fertility and contemporary value of this theory attests to James’s brilliance and prescience as a theorist. In the present paper, the empirical history of James’s venerable theory is traced from its original 1884 publication to current biopsychological research. Emphasis is on a particular tenet of the model, which holds that basic human emotions have distinct physiological patterns. James acknowledged major obstacles in testing his model experimentally, but the notion of physiologic discriminability among emotions has been proven to be empirically Biological Psychology 84 (2010) 383–393 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 27 May 2009 Accepted 17 October 2009 Available online 29 October 2009 Keywords: James–Lange theory Emotion Autonomic nervous system ABSTRACT ‘‘What is an emotion?’’ William James’s seminal paper in Mind (1884) proposed the idea that physiological and behavioral responses precede subjective experience in emotions that are marked by ‘‘distinct bodily expression.’’ This notion has broadly inspired the investigation of emotion-specific autonomic nervous system activity, a research topic with great longevity. The trajectory of this literature is traced through its major theoretical challenges from the Cannon–Bard, activation, and Schachter– Singer theories, through its rich empirical history in the field of psychophysiology. Although these studies are marked by various findings, the overall trend of the research supports the notion of autonomic specificity for basic emotions. The construct of autonomic specificity continues to influence a number of core theoretical issues in affective science, such as the existence of basic or ‘natural kinds’ of emotion, the structure of affective space, the cognition–emotion relationship, and the function of emotion. Moreover, James’s classic paper, which stimulated the emergence of psychology from philosophy and physiology in the latter nineteenth century, remains a dynamic force in contemporary emotion research. ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. § Portions of this paper were presented in S.D. Kreibig (Chair), William James’s legacy: The present state of autonomic response specificity of emotion, symposium held at the annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Savannah, GA, October, 2007, and in The Mind Project: Intersections of Philosophy, Humanities, and Human Science, 1876–1920, interdisciplinary symposium held at Virginia Tech, December, 2005. * Tel.: +1 540 231 9611; fax: +1 540 231 3652. E-mail address: bhfriedm@vt.edu. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Biological Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biopsycho 0301-0511/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2009.10.006