DOI: Crossref DOI pending · Also available as 10.5281/zenodo.23676657
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@techreport{cezjah2026wp03,
author = {C{\'e}zjah},
title = {The Constructivist Semiotic Model of Emotions: Affect, Feeling, and Emotion as Non-Substitutable Constructs},
institution = {New Intellectual LLC},
address = {Miami, FL},
type = {Working paper},
number = {3},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://newintellectual.com/pages/how-to-design-an-emotion-wp-03},
note = {Crossref DOI pending. Also available as https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23676657}
}Abstract
Many theories of emotion treat physiological affect, conscious feeling, and emotion as stages of one continuous process. They then cannot explain why substantially the same feeling supports different emotions, and they leave no standard by which an emotion can be correct or mistaken. I present the Constructivist Semiotic Model of Emotions (CSME), which treats the three as non-substitutable constructs with distinct identity conditions. Affect is the physiological and regulatory substrate. Feeling is the conscious metaperceptual awareness of that substrate, which makes it available for interpretation without giving it meaning. Emotion is a goal-governed, context-sensitive semiotic interpretive act by which an agent assigns meaning and significance to feeling. The model applies the five-part Constructivist Semiotic Sign to emotion and adds four operations: interpretation, meaning, significance, and commitment. I describe the comparative trade study through which the model preserves contributions from appraisal theory, the Component Process Model, affective neuroscience, and the theory of constructed emotion; a thirteen-stage architecture in which prediction, perception, allostasis, and metaperception prepare emotional meaning without constituting it; and five executable specifications that check the model’s internal consistency. I close with the objections the book anticipates and with what the model shares with its neighbors and adds.
Contents
- 1. Introduction: The Missing Bridge
- 2. Selecting What to Preserve: The Trade Study
- 3. Three Non-Substitutable Constructs
- 4. The Bridge: Availability Without Meaning
- 5. Governance: Intentionality, Interpretation, and Commitment
- 6. The Formal Architecture
- 7. Five Executable Specifications
- 8. Objections and Replies
- 9. What Is Shared and What Is New
- 10. Scope and Limits
- 11. Conclusion
- Appendix: Code, UML Diagrams, and Input/Output
- References
Relation to the book
This paper restates, in new prose, the argument of Chapter 9 and Appendices G to J of How to Design an Emotion (Cézjah 2026, chap. 9, apps. G–J). The book is the full treatment.
Record
- Constructivist Semiotic Model of Emotions
- affect
- feeling
- emotion
- metaperception
- interpretation
- commitment
- semiotic availability
- theory of constructed emotion
- appraisal theory
- Component Process Model
- affective neuroscience
- reappraisal
- executable specification
- Emotional Constructivism
- Constructivist Semiotics
- Constructivist Semiotic Sign
- Theory of Constrained Identity
- Emotionese
- Emotional Meaning Architecture
- Constructivist Linguistics of Emotion
- misattribution
- affect, feeling, and emotion
- theory of emotion
- concept theory
- semiotics
- affective science
- philosophy of emotion
- social and affective neuroscience
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