Now you see it, now you don't--the confusing case of confusion as an emotion: Commentary on Rozin and Cohen (2003).

P. Rozin and A. B. Cohen (see record 2003-02341-009) contend that confusion is an emotion because it is valenced, it has a distinct facial expression, and it has a distinct internal state. On the basis of these criteria, they call for further study of this unstudied state and challenge emotion researchers to consider "confusion" to be an emotion. The author agrees with Rozin and Cohen (2003) that confusion is an affective state, is valenced, has an (internal) object, may be expressed facially, and that laypersons may, under certain circumstances, consider it an emotion. However, its expression is likely to be an expressive component of emotions for which goal obstruction is central. Further, confusion may also not be as commonly considered an emotion by laypersons, as Rozin and Cohen contend. Finally, confusion is not unstudied, only most of the time it is not emotion researchers who do the researching. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)