Workshop : Percept and Affect

Friday, 20th February, 2026 | 9:30 am-6:00 pm | Salle des Actes (ENS)

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Schedule

9.30
Luca Barlassina | Sheffield University
"The threat-detection mechanism"

10.45
Andrea Rivadulla Duro | Barcelona University
"The Format of Emotion : Toward a Theory of Affective Representation"

12.00 | Lunch

14.00
Olivier Massin | Neuchâtel University
"Affective reactions"

15.15
David Bain | Glasgow University
"Unpleasantness and Suffering : Desires upon Desires"

16.30 | Coffee Break

16.45
Frederique de Vignemont | Institut Jean Nicod
"Unpleasant seeing"

18.00 | End of the workshop

20.00 | Dinner

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David Bain | Glasgow University

“Unpleasantness and Suffering : Desires upon Desires”
Virtually all of us feel pain, undergo unpleasant experiences, and suffer. The last decade has seen a resurgence of interesting in the last of these : not pain, not unpleasantness, but suffering, conceived as a distinct phenomenon. Although a leading voice in the consensus that suffering and unpleasntness are distinct phenomena, Michael Brady’s accounts of each exhibit striking parallels, each invoking negative desires : directed at one’s own sensations, feelings, experiences, or emotions, in his account of unpleasantness ; or at unpleasantness itself, in his account of suffering. I argue against both. I argue, in particular, that the two accounts share key shortcomings. And I tentatively suggest that reflecting on what has gone wrong can tell us something about what suffering really is.

Luca Barlassina | Sheffield University

"The threat-detection mechanism "
I put forward a novel cognitive architecture for pain, fear, and anxiety, according to which these three capacities are underpinned by a common threat-detection mechanism. 

Olivier Massin | Université de Neuchatel

"Affective Reactions"
I defend the view that emotions, including suffering and attitudinal pleasure, are affective reactions to values rather than perceptions of value. After presenting this view, I present the main argument in its favour—that the reasons for emotions are evaluative—and answer the main objection to it : that there is no pre-emotional grasp of values.

Andrea Rivadulla Duro | Barcelona University

"The Format of Emotion : Toward a Theory of Affective Representation"
Both philosophers and cognitive scientists have offered influential theories of emotion, yet a fundamental question has largely been neglected : what is the representational format of emotion ? Philosophical accounts have focused primarily on the ontology of emotion—on what emotions are—and on describing their components, including phenomenology, evaluative content, physiological bases, and action tendencies. Much less attention has been paid to how these components are encoded and integrated as mental representations. At the same time, computational and cognitive-scientific models have developed sophisticated accounts of representational format in perception, thought, and action, while remaining largely silent about emotion.

This project aims to fill this gap by investigating how emotions are represented—by identifying their structure and format, the kinds of information they make explicit, and the ways they interact with other mental systems. Emotions are often modeled as computations over informational content, yet without specifying the representational medium through which that content is encoded. I argue that this omission obscures how affective states integrate with cognition. By uncovering the representational format of emotion, the project sheds light on the mechanisms through which emotions influence belief, expectation, and reasoning, helping to explain why affective states can sometimes override purely instrumental considerations and shape motivated cognition—why, for example, what we feel can reshape what we take to be true.

Frederique de Vignemont | Institut Jean Nicod

"Unpleasant seeing"
When facing something bad, we sometimes close our eyes, turn our head on the opposite side, look away, start singing to cover the noise, put our hands on our ears to stop listening, and so forth. Such behaviours might seem as irrational as killing a messenger informing us that something bad is happening. One might reply that we look away simply to avoid the anxiety that the perceived state of affairs elicits but I want to argue that it is also a way to suppress the unpleasantness of the perceptual experience itself. Here I will develop a notion of minimal affective phenomenology that is more rudimentary than full-blown emotional episodes and that can be intrinsic to visual and auditory experiences. This paper will describe how the detection of objects with negative evolutionary value alters visual processing. As a result, visual experiences are characterized by a distinctive attitude : one becomes visually engaged by the negative objects. This attitude determines the intrinsic unpleasantness of the visual unpleasantness.