The goal of the theory is characterized as presenting, in computationally tractable terms, a comprehensive account of the cognitive underpinnings of the human emotion system and of the cognitions in terms of which different emotion types can be distinguished. The theory proposes three broad groups of emotions, determined by the three major perspectives people can take on what’s going on around them. These three foci are seen as giving rise to reactions to events (things that happen), reactions to the actions of agents (things that agents do), and reactions to objects (things in general). A minimal definition of emotion is proposed, and the different kinds of evidence adduced to support claims about emotions are discussed. Emphasis is placed on the fact that emotion words are not isomorphic with distinct emotion types, so that although theorizing about emotions often depends on using linguistic labels, a general theory of human emotions should attempt to be culturally neutral and should minimize its dependence on emotion words.

Some ancillary cognitive issues are raised, including the fact that characterizing emotions in terms of emergence conditions frees the theory from the bonds of everyday emotion terms, leaving room for projects that explore the relation between emotions cast in terms independent of language-culture and the emotion words of particular languages. Additionally, some functions of emotions relating to attention, coping, and memory are discussed, as is the fact that emotions, construed as necessarily conscious experiences, can have unconscious bases. Finally, the possibility that the emergence conditions of an emotion might not be sufficient to generate an actual emotional experience leads to the introduction of the concepts of emotion potentials and emotion thresholds, wherein the magnitude of an emotion potential must exceed a context-sensitive threshold to allow for an emotion to emerge and its intensity to be computed. With the help of these key constructs, the computational tractability of the theory is illustrated using detailed examples of how characterizations of emotions presented in earlier chapters might be formalized.