Modelling the reciprocal interaction between believing and feeling from a neurological perspective

Abstract

By adopting neurological theories on the role of emotions and feelings, an agent model is introduced incorporating the reciprocal interaction between believing and feeling. The model describes how the strength of a belief may not only depend on information obtained, but also on the emotional responses on the belief. For feeling emotions a recursive body loop is assumed. The model introduces a second feedback loop for the interaction between feeling and belief. The strength of a belief and of the feeling both result from the converging dynamic pattern modelled by the combination of the two loops. For some specific cases it is described, for example, how for certain personal characteristics an optimistic world view emerges, or, for other characteristics, a pessimistic world view. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.