Who Needs Emotions? The Brain Meets the Robot

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to prove, theoretical discussions of emotions and the brain typically reverted
back to the age-old question of feelings.
However, even if we can account for important aspects of emotion in
nonhuman animals without having to resort to subjective states, this should
not be taken to mean that subjective states exist only in humans. Nonhuman
animals might have domain-specific forms of consciousness, and in
the case of nonhuman primates domain-independent forms of nonverbal consciousness,
but only humans have verbal working memory (see below) and,
thus, language-based consciousness and the mental frills that language makes
possible (see Chapter 12, Arbib). The problem is that as soon as we rely on
subjective states to explain behavior, we confront our inability to know
whether such states really exist in creatures other than humans (LeDoux,
2002). If animals experience some subjective states of emotion, then why
not robots as well? We come back to this issue in the context of feelings.
The main lesson to be learned from this brief excursion into history is
that emotion researchers, whether in neuroscience or in other fields, need
to figure out how to escape from the shackles of subjectivity if emotion research
is to thrive. Ironically, cognitive science and artificial intelligence,
which led to the neglect of emotion research, may also be able to help in its
resurrection by providing a strategy that allows the study of emotion independently
of subjective emotional experiences. Contrary to the intuitions
that many people have about emotion, then, we shall argue that it is possible
to ask how the brain processes emotional information (e.g., detects and
responds to danger) without necessarily first solving the question of where
conscious emotional feelings come from. Indeed, emotional responses, like
cognitive processes, involve unconscious processing mechanisms (Ohman,
1992; LeDoux, 1996; Glascher & Adolphs, 2003). If we want to understand
feelings, it is very likely going to be necessary to figure out how the more
basic systems work. Failure to come to terms theoretically with the importance
of processing systems that operate essentially unconsciously has been
a major impediment to progress in understanding the neural basis of emotion.
To overcome this, brain researchers and designers of complex artificial
artifacts, such as autonomous robots, need to be more savvy about the often
unconscious nature of emotions, rather than simply relying on common-sense
beliefs about emotions as subjective feeling states. We shall speak of the
processing approach to emotion as the approach we espouse here, which
grounds emotion in possibly unconscious processes.
Any approach that omits emotions, motivations, and the like paints a
highly unrealistic view of real minds. Minds are neither purely cognitive nor
purely emotional but both, and more. Inclusion of work on emotion within
the cognitive science and artificial intelligence frameworks can help rescue
these fields from their often sterile approach to the mind as an information-