Conscious Emotion

How do emotions affect conscious thought?

Combinations of neurochemicals, caused by reinforcement triggers (retriggers for short), seem to have a useful effect on subconscious reactions, as a benefit of instinct for each species, based on various development. I explained more about how neurochemical combinations seem to affect subconscious reactions, in my last post; Emotional Effect. In humans, the neurochemical combos which are typically the strongest and longest lasting, as an influence to cause persisting reactions, are what we call emotions. Besides the effect on subconscious reactions, how do emotions affect conscious thoughts?

Retriggers likely have an effect on conscious thought, and influence how we access 1 memory of a factor to the next, as I further mentioned in a post from last week; Conscious Reinforcement. But emotions would influence conscious thought in a different way, as emotions are much stronger and longer lasting effects of retriggers. Since emotions are based on causing an ongoing influence to pursue or avoid something which is likely highly significant for the benefit of a species, this influence may have the potential to overpower influences of more minor retriggers connected with any given memory of factor. If an emotion has been triggered by someone's previous circumstances, then in the present circumstances, a new factor is perceived, the persisting emotion may have stronger influence than what the regular influence of retrigger connected to that factor in memory, might be. This emotion could then influence conscious thought to access memory of an alternate factor, to what would have normally been accessed. This influence could then set the direction for any decision made through conscious thought.

If emotions cause someone to avoid or pursue something, depending on the emotion, it would tend to influence conscious thought and decisions in that direction, of avoiding or pursuing whatever factors are relevant to that emotion. For eg, the emotion of admiration towards your neighbors accomplishments, is an effect of a positive retrigger causing pursuance of also achieving those accomplishments. If you were feeling this emotion strongly after talking to your neighbor an hour ago, it might influence you to consciously think about steps you can take to achieve the same things, then influence your decision to take 1 of those steps. Without this emotion’s influence, you would have been thinking about something else at this time, and would have decided to do something else. 

An ongoing emotion can also influence individual factors in memory access, during conscious thought. If someone is thinking through a problem for instance, and memory of a certain factor comes to mind which is relevant to the problem, a previously enacted, ongoing emotion might trigger them to think of an alternate factor, which is perhaps connected in memory to that factor, but also connected to the emotion. For eg, if you are trying to think of which method of transportation to take to work tomorrow, but you are still feeling the emotion of anger because you had a heated argument with your roommate 15 mins ago, the anger might trigger you to think of someone who cut you off in traffic yesterday, when the consideration of driving comes to mind. If you had alternatively been feeling happy, the thought of driving might trigger a positive memory of freely driving fast down the highway. 

There is likely a huge variance, and range of degree that any emotion would influence which conscious thought to access next, in any given situation. That, combined with minor influences of retriggers subconsciously connected to any factor within memory, would make the direction of conscious thought very complex. It should be plausible to intentionally manipulate emotions to some degree, based on focus of factors and aspects, as I further hypothesized in a post from over 6 months ago; Motivation Direction. So it should be potentially beneficial, keeping the effects of these influences in mind, as; Conscious Emotion.