Lisa Feldman Barrett

University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University; Director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory. Key contribution: Theory of Constructed Emotion — the model of how emotions are built from physiological raw material, context, and past experience.

Key Contributions

Theory of Constructed Emotion: Barrett's challenge to the "classical view" of emotion (that emotions are hardwired brain programs that get "read off" in fixed ways). Instead, she proposes that emotions are actively constructed in the moment from three ingredients: core affect (arousal + valence), context, and past experience. See theory-of-constructed-emotion. (Lesson 7)

Interoceptive Granularity: Barrett's research identified that people differ in how finely they can categorize their internal states. High granularity (distinguishing subtle emotional shades) is associated with better emotional regulation, lower reactivity, and more flexible responses to stress. See interoceptive-dimensions.

Affect as Foundational: Barrett places core affect (undifferentiated arousal and valence) as the raw material from which all emotion is constructed. This makes interoceptive training directly relevant to emotional health — improving the resolution of the physiological input improves the quality of the constructed emotion.

How It Appears in This Domain

Barrett's work integrates with the course at Lessons 6–7: the predictive body framework (aligned with Karl Friston's predictive processing) and the body-first model of emotion. Her emphasis on interoceptive granularity as trainable and clinically significant provides the "why it matters" for body scan and yoga practice.

Barrett's framework is referenced alongside stephen-porges's polyvagal model — they operate at different scales (Porges: autonomic circuits; Barrett: cortical emotion construction), and they are complementary rather than competing.