Are Somatic Markers My Emotions?
Somatic markers are not primary emotions, but secondary emotions that are filtered through your beliefs, judgments, fears, and opinions. These markers connect to a possible future outcome, based on memories of past experiences.
Thus they influence thoughts, sensations, and behavior in a covert manner. A negative somatic marker projected onto a possible future outcome, functions as an alarm bell. A positive marker functions as an incentive.
This elaborate system of neural circuits is programmed to function as ‘pain avoider‘ and ‘pleasure seeker‘. It is based on data from your working memory and attention paid to the sensations these circuits sent to your body, like an itch or pain signal.
The brain can thus be viewed as a center which collects feedback on bodily states, and instructs nerve cell circuits to fire when balance needs to be restored.
This clarifies the role and nature of emotions, and allows them to be studied with standard brain scanning devices.
