Is there consistency and specificity of autonomic changes during emotional episodes? Guidance from the Conceptual Act Theory and psychophysiology

• Existing studies do not reveal ANS response consistency or specificity during discrete emotion episodes.
• Conceptual Act Theory generates hypotheses about when to expect and not expect ANS response consistency and specificity.
• ANS response consistency and specificity is altered by operating features of the ANS.
• ANS response consistency and specificity is also affected by afferent and efferent traffic between the ANS and the CNS.
• ANS response consistency and specificity also varies across situations and individuals.

The consistency and specificity of autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses during emotional episodes remains a topic of debate with relevance for emotional concordance. We present a recent model of how mental states are constructed, the Conceptual Act Theory (CAT), and then review findings from existing meta-analyses and a qualitative review along with studies using pattern classification of multivariate ANS patterns to determine if there is across-study evidence for consistency and specificity of ANS responses during emotional episodes. We conclude that there is thus far minimal evidence for ANS response consistency and specificity across studies. We then review the current understanding of the functional and anatomical features of ANS including its efferent and afferent connections with the central nervous system, which suggests the need to reformulate how we conceptualize ANS response consistency and specificity. We conclude by showing how this reformulation is consistent with the CAT, and how the model suggests when we would and would not expect to see consistency and specificity in ANS responses, and concordance more generally, during emotional episodes.