Reflections on the “body loop”: Carl Georg Lange's theory of emotion

Abstract

During the 1890s William James and Carl Georg Lange's works on emotion were discussed in psychological journals under the heading of the “James–Lange theory” of emotion. Yet Lange's work is much less known because it was linked with James' theory and because later neurophysiological research demonstrated that Lange's proposed mechanism for processing emotion could not be correct. However, a reappraisal of his work is warranted for several reasons: For his attempt to ground the emotions in physiology at a time when psychologists advocated a purely spiritual conception of emotions, for his insights in biological psychiatry, for postulating a neuroanatomical centre for processing emotion. Finally, in the light of contemporary research, because Lange deconstructed the emotions into combinations of components, which makes his work a precursor to component and appraisal theories of emotion.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• Autonomic nervous system
• Component models
• Causation of affective states
• James

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two reviewers for their gracious comments and the generous help they provided, which significantly improved the manuscript. All remaining mistakes are mine.

Notes

¹The translations from Lange are mine.

²See Damasio (2003); but see Rolls (2005).

³James’ translation was based on the German edition of Lange's work and appeared only posthumously in 1922. For a review of the discussion at the time, see Alfred Binet (1894). For a contemporary review, see Ellsworth (1994).

⁴On physiological, see Mosso (1879, 1880).

⁵See in particular Wundt (1863, II, pp. 2–3, 19–25, 25–43). See also Wassmann (2009).

⁶Lange cited Wundt (1880, II, Ch. 13).

⁷But see Lange (1887, footnote 20, pp. 87–88).

⁸A century later Schachter and Singer (1962) conceptualised emotions in terms of situational interpretations of uniform physiological arousal of the autonomic nervous system.

⁹Plethora, in German “Blutandrang”, “Fülle”, specifies the amount and the quality of the blood flow. The plethysmograph, for instance, was an instrument used in research on emotion for recording variations in the size and volume of extremities and organs by measuring changes in their blood volume, the amount of blood passing through or present in the body part.

¹⁰For the beginning of modern psychiatry at the turn of the century see Kraepelin (1913).

¹¹For Hauptmann's personal, annotated copy of Lange's monograph consult the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin's rare books collection.

¹²For Lange's argument see in particular p. 41ff, 65ff, footnote 20, p. 87.

¹³For research on the question a century later, see for example LeDoux, Thompson, and Iadecola (1983).

¹⁴Professor Ellsworth pointed out that Lange's hypothesis is very close to Ivan Pavlov's later work during the 1890s and 1900s on the gastric function of dogs. Pavlov (1927) developed the concept of the “conditioned reflex” in the early 1900s.

¹⁵Hermann von Bremen was a figure in a social satire by Ludvig Holberg, Den politiske Kandestøber.

¹⁶Perfusion is the process of nutritive delivery of arterial blood to a capillary bed in the biological tissue. Perfusion can be calculated with a formula that includes mean arterial pressure, mean venous pressure, and vascular resistance.

¹⁷For the beginning historiography of the science of emotion, see Dror (1998) or Wassmann (2005).

¹⁸I thank Prof. Jänig for the following summary: In dogs where the spinal cord was cut at a low cervical level, the brain can no longer send impulses via the sympathetic outflows to the body tissues; and activity in spinal afferent neurons below the spinal lesion (including visceral ones) no longer reaches the brain (supraspinal centres). In dogs where the spinal cord is cut at a low cervical level and the vagus nerve is cut as well, the vagal (parasympathetic) efferent outflow to internal organs and the afferent inflow from these organs to the brain are additionally interrupted. Only the trigeminal system, the phrenic nerve, the afferent inflow to the cervical levels rostral to the spinal cord transsection and the afferents of the carotid arterial baro- and chemoreceptors are intact.

¹⁹Sherrington (1899–1900) cited the Principles of Psychology, which reiterate James’ (1884) earlier article.

²⁰Fritsche and Hitzig (1870) demonstrated by experiment that “a part of the convexity of the hemisphere of the brain of the dog is motor. Another part is not motor. The motor part, in general, is more in front, the non-motor part more behind. By electrical stimulation of the motor part, one obtains combined muscular contractions of the opposite side of the body”.