APA Dictionary of Psychology

a general theory of emotional–motivational organization, integrating cognitive and psychophysiological levels of analysis. It is concerned with how emotions are elicited and displayed and with how they interact; specifically, information about emotions is contained in associative memory networks that include action information (motor programs) and connections to subcortical motivation circuits. Emotions are viewed as context-specific action or response dispositions activated by input that modifies concepts in the emotion network. The model, originally forwarded in the 1970s as a theory of emotional imagery, was derived from research on fear and anxiety but has since evolved and acquired diverse applications across a variety of behavioral and emotional phenomena.