1 General Introduction 17 discerning patterns of coherence would require considering comprehensive arrays of physiological measures, as well as very detailed operationalizations of emotion constructs and sharp specifications of under what conditions an experiment was performed [87, 89]. Perhaps, we contend, this lack of compelling evidence on response coherence is mainly due to too much variation in operationalizations of phenomena and yet too shallow or superficial conceptualisations of potential relationships. So, ironically, there may be a lack of ‘coherence’ across the field of research clouding relationships between emotional response systems. However, with increasing knowledge on both the extensiveness and the specificity of variables involved in the matter of response coherence in emotion, the emergence of more extensive and innovative research designs, and more clarity on what operationalizations to use for what phenomena, and how to measure them with what instruments, this should then become clear over time. Support for the latter assumption was already found in a thorough review of the evidence by Kreibig [87]. Her findings, although tentative due to the multiple assumptions she had to make and considerable degree of abstraction she needed to deal with the large variety of 143 experimental studies, suggest there is considerable ANS response specificity in emotion when considering subtypes of distinct emotions. What also is important to note, is that while dissociation among the different response systems/modalities of emotion may come across as aberrant and pathological, it may actually be quite normal [13, 86, 87]. Emotion regulation, for example, may influence subsystem coherence by influencing some response systems but not others. Emotions can be elicited by subliminally presented stimuli that do not enter conscious awareness. As with many of the neuronal (and other) processes taking place within our body, much of our cognitive and cognitive-emotional processing takes place outside of the window of consciousness [13]. This is probably for the better: being aware of all slight emotional changes would probably be highly unsettling, dysfunctional, and as a result, pathological! Thus, conditions may arise under which people do not report and/or are not aware of an emotional experience, while other subsystems, such as facial expression, physiological activation, and behavioural tendencies indicate occurrence of emotion. Still, although less than perfect coherence seems natural, and probably even functional, virtual absence of coherence will lead to dysfunction. Indeed, alexithymia can be conceptualised as a state of absence of coherence between the subsystems. Alexithymia is associated with a decoupling of experiential and physiological arousal when exposed to emotionally negative stimuli [85]. This decoupling of physical and self-reported responses - sometimes addressed as the ‘dual-processing’ [86] or ‘lower integration’ [90] of emotions – has been confirmed in BPD. What further complicates matters is that when emotional arousal reaches high levels, it begins to
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