Researchers have developed several theories of how human emotions arise and are represented in the brain. The Cannon–Bard theory of emotion was developed by researchers who criticized the James–Lange theory for its limited ability to account for the wide variety of emotions experienced by human beings. While the James–Lange theory proposes that emotions arise from physical arousal the Cannon–Bard theory argues that physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously, yet independently (Lang, 1994).
Cannon–Bard theory of emotion
The Cannon–Bard theory states that physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously, yet independently.
This theory posits that when you see a venomous snake in your backyard, you feel fear at exactly the same time that your body initiates its physiological fight-or-flight response. Even though they occur at the same time, your emotional reaction and your physiological reaction would be separate and independent.
According to the Cannon–Bard theory, emotional expression results from activation of the subcortical centers of the brain. The optic thalamus, in particular, is a region that contains the neural organizations for different emotional expressions. An individual's sensory organs take in an emotional stimulus, and then information about that stimulus is relayed to the cerebral cortex. It is in the cortex where such information is associated with conditioned processes, which in turn determine the direction of the response and stimulate the thalamic processes.