The cognitive significance of emotions in creative activity

Philosophy

Abstract

The author explores the cognitive role of emotions in the paradigm of embodied cognition, the activity-based approach, and 4E Cognition. The analysis demonstrates that emotions are important factors in cognitive activity. Acting as selection criteria, human feelings determine what a subject perceives as personally significant and what he considers to be secondary and not worthy of attention. They give us an opportunity to discover new meaningful connections between disparate phenomena of the surrounding reality. Emotions take part in the formation of personal meanings, which are not simply constructed like linguistic structures but are lived through in subjective experience and thus have a phenomenal character. Emotions are rooted in corporality, and sensorimotor experience with the affective sphere as its integral aspect organizes consciousness and the personal knowledge system, underlies pre-conceptual self-consciousness. The body schema contains a deep layer of tacit knowledge, the components of which serve as implicit preconditions for personal cognition. The body schema is an essential condition for interaction with the environment, aimed at the satisfaction of individual needs and desires. This process is regulated by the affective sphere, which is intentional due to its focus on the object of desire. Emotionality as one of the crucial characteristics of a creative personality influences the cognitive process at different stages. True creativity presupposes human preoccupation with the problem. Computer creativity, devoid of emotions, cannot be considered complete.