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Who hasn't already said to himself, during a family argument, or a profound disagreement with his team or N+1, that it was absolutely necessary that “I put my emotions aside”Hey, what do IDon't know, that's the only way I'll be able to find THE solution ” ! Often with the justification: “These emotions, whether positive or negative, can only undermine my decision, put me in a bad mood. On a wrong path and in trouble ”.
Do we really have to inhibit our emotional feelings in order to act intelligently? So is that knowing how to “manage your emotions well”?
Far too often we oppose emotion and intelligence. Far too often we get confused emotion and cognitive or even intellectual limits. But what does cognitive science tell us about our emotions and their role in our daily lives? Are they also so useless? Do they absolutely have to be set aside in order to have so-called “intelligent” reasoning?
However, scientific studies on the role of emotions in humans are Unanimous : our emotions are not there by chance, quite the opposite! They are information Precious help to the decision, to the reasoning and are at the hub of our apprenticeships !
What if emotion were the very property of an intelligent system?
In the recent sci-fi television series Westworld, it describes a futuristic theme park where humans and robots coexist. In this park, “host” androids have been created to interact with human “guests” and fulfill their wildest dreams and fantasies. During one of the episodes, the android Dolores (one of the main characters of the series) is questioned by a human about an event that occurred in the park. During the interview, Dolorès' answers to the examiner are initially emotionally charged. Dolorès is incomprehensible, the answers are confusing, the examiner is losing patience and asks her to respond by ordering her system to respond in the following manner. 'cognition alone'. So Dolorès then answers without any trace of emotion, which makes her understandable and clear.
This fictional story is not trivial, since this vision of artificial intelligence corresponds in several respects to a certain ideal of human intelligence ! Intelligence should be based on logic, and emotion should not interfere with our communications, actions, and decision-making. As if The ultimate intelligencewould reside in our ability to completely dissociate our emotions from our “cognition.” But is that really the case?
On the contrary for Dr. Luiz Pessoa1, a researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Maryland, any intelligent system (human or artificial) must not only feeling emotions, but must also integrate emotional feelings into each cognitive task (for example, what to focus on, how to plan a movement, make a decision; solve a problem...). To this end, he presents two major scientific discoveries of recent decades: on the one hand, our emotions help us to organize/categorizeour perceptions, decisions, and actions; on the other hand our brain is naturally built to integrate our emotions into any task.
What if our emotions were the essential ingredients for categorizing our perceptions, decisions, and actions?
No, our emotions are far from being a signal superfluous. On the contrary, they are information. very valuable that allows us to adapt to our environment at any moment. Indeed, emotion should be seen as a faculty, which allows us to assess the benefits and associated costs to every perception and every action. For example, we experience joy when we are confronted with situations that are beneficial to us, on the other hand, we feel apprehension and anxiety about situations that are potentially harmful to us, and this allows us to rectify future decisions or actions.
In particular, neuroimaging studies show that emotions have a crucial and automatic influenceabout how we perceive the world around us and especially how we categorizations ! Indeed, depending on the context in which we are located, we will select the relevant items to act on this environment and our emotions have a crucial role in this process. In particular, the brain regions responsible for visual and auditory processing respond more strongly to the images and sounds we associate with. A certain emotion2. From a behavioral point of view, this will mean, for example, in general paying more attention and reacting more quickly to emotionally charged stimuli compared to neutral ones. For example, we notice a happy or frightened face more easily and quickly than a expressionless face3. Emotions therefore influence directly our perceptual systems by categorizing informationto allow us to deal effectively and quickly with what is happening in front of us and adapt.
So what these recent data suggest to us is that emotion reflects A value Who helps categorizing sensory information and shelve in order of priority! Blocking these emotional feelings would mean putting aside this valuable information of valency, and potentially making inappropriate decisions in relation to the context!
What if our emotions and our cognition were interconnected?
Finally, if emotion and reason were often put in opposition, it was because we did not have enough information at our fingertips to be able to study. This very complex phenomenon. Thanks to technological advances, and in particular neuroimaging techniques, we have had access to information that we did not have. Never had about the interaction between processing emotional information and our decision-making!
Cognitive neuroscience research confirms that emotion, reasoning and decision making are closely intertwined And that the brain integrates these functionalities persistently4. The latest research5 in functional MRI in particular, allowed us to highlight the anatomy of the brain networks associated with each cognitive function. This research show that the processing of emotions recruits a complex networkincluding numerous brain regions. In particular, the amygdala and the sula, areas of the brain that respond preferentially to emotions, are connected to the striatum and fronto-parietal cortex, brain regions linked to executive functions and decision-making. Our brain is therefore wired so that the structures that are responsible for the perception and production of emotional feelings are directly connected to the structures that manage and are responsible for our decisions, reasoning, and actions. So our emotions are not not disconnected from our reasoning, far from it, they work together all the time!
To conclude, research data shows us that our emotions are far from being a defect or a noise in our functioning to be put aside! Wanting to separate our emotions from our actions is not only a mistake but also nonsense from a neurobiological point of view. Because our brain is far from having separate “emotion” and “cognition” modules, and our brain architecture is naturally organized so as to integrate our emotions into the processing of each cognitive task. Let's put behind us our false beliefs, which are far too attached to the “disorder of the soul and reason.” Let's work to identify, analyze, and manage our emotions to have the smartest reasoning possible! Let's redefine so intelligence in the light of cognitive science, and let's put emotion back at the heart of it!
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