Abordagens mecanicista e ecológica das emoções: um estudo comparativo

The aim of this article is to analyze and problematize the mechanistic and functionalist perspective of emotional processes in light of the ecological theory of perception/action. To this end, we present Marvin Minsky's (2006) proposal for emotional machines, for which emotional processes would be brain states that operate according to principles defended by the classical computational theory of mind. In contrast, we will present a proposal for the analysis of emotional processes inspired by the propositions of the ecological theory of perception/action (Gibson, 2015), in particular based on the concept of social affordance, that is, the possibilities of action that the bodily/gestural dynamics of agents offer directly to other agents, without the need for representational mediation. In such an analysis, we will try to highlight the relevance of co-evolutionary processes according to the principle of reciprocity and the adaptive role of emotional processes in social agents, which are overlooked by the classical computational approach to the mind, but are necessary for the effective instantiation of emotions, and not only for their recognition or simulation in robotic systems.