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Human emotions, from a scientific perspective, is still quite a blurry topic. There is no clear distinction between feelings, emotions, affects. Even in scientific context most of the time we are using those terms with their dictionary, or rather 'common-sense' meaning. There is no clear scientific definition (afaik).

In the science of psychology it was poisoned by the "mind-body dualistic" superstitions, even among the famous researchers.

Already Charles Darwin shined some light on evolutionary function of emotions.

Paul Ekman coined his famous theory of basic/prototypical emotions and shown their direct linkage with facial expressions among human species. But already it was shown not to be accurate, if not disproved.

Robert Plutchik build a nice classification model of emotional responses in a psychoevolutionary context. I am not sure how extensively this particular theory was tested and proven.

Lisa Feldman-Barret proposed recently theory of constructed emotions which emphasises their cognitive (and social-adaptive) aspect.

In the field of neuroscience researchers like Mark Solms have shown some underlying mechanisms in a deep brain and cortex that are directly involved in generating 'things' that we usually call emotions or feelings.

Question

What is the current (2021 CE) state-of-the-art theory of emotion/affect/feelings? Who among the top researchers and institutions is trying to solve this problem from a scientific perspective?

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    $\begingroup$ The way this question is titled and written initially is fine but the last paragraph turns it into more of a discussion which is not really the way StackExchange works. If you want to know about the latest findings, then that is fine, but to ask for a discussion on the top researchers and whether their latest findings are scientific or not, StackExchange is not the place. This is a question and answer site. For an overview on the science/pseudoscience of psychology see my meta answer and others $\endgroup$
    – Chris Rogers
    Sep 11, 2021 at 7:52
  • $\begingroup$ Sure. I tried my question to be 'what are the current state-of-the-art theories regarded by the scientific community', which I expect to be here, who is working on it. I might elaborate too much on the topic, but only to show that I did some digging on my own, which I don't expect to be extensive. $\endgroup$
    – Pawel
    Sep 11, 2021 at 14:27

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