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Tomkins, 1982, p. ” However, if she sees a car about to hit her child, she will scream “Watch out” with a level of physical intensity that will clearly be processed by the child in a different way. In both cases, the basic verbal message communicated is similar, but in the latter case, tremendous urgency amplifies the message and changes the context. In his extensive psychobiological theory of emotion, Buck (1999) expands on Tompkins’ theories but argues that it is not necessary to postulate a separate mechanism for affects and that basic drives indicative of bodily needs have their own powerful motivational force associated with them.

J. (1993). Voluntary smiling changes regional brain activity. Psychological Science, 4, 342–345. Fridlund, A. J. (1994). Human facial expression. New York: Academic Press. Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press. , & Rizzolatti, G. (1996). Action recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain, 119, 593–609. , & Goldman, A. (1999). Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2, 493–500. , & Rizzolatti, G. (1998). Activation of human primary motor cortex during action observation: a neuromagnetic study.

My cat has never seen crustaceans but, upon noticing my son’s new pet crayfish, immediately engaged in characteristic feline predatory stalking behavior. Another good example of fixed action patterns is taste reactivity. Many species, including human neonates, show stereotypical facial and oral behaviors when a sweet (positive hedonic) or bitter/sour (negative hedonic) stimulus is applied to the tongue (Steiner, Glaser, Hawilo, & Berridge, 2001; and see Fig. 1). 38 brains Although instinctual behaviors in animals may not reflect the complexity of human emotions, the origin of the word instinct, from the Latin instiguere meaning “to incite, to impel,” reminds us of the Latin origins of the word emotion (“to move out”) and suggests a conceptual link between instinct and emotion.