If emotions were not events we simply undergo, but constructions of the brain, how might our way of perceiving ourselves and others change?

According to neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotions, emotions are not fixed biological states inscribed in the body in response to external stimuli. Rather, they emerge as meanings constructed by the brain through a predictive process that interprets bodily sensations — such as heart rate, breathing patterns, muscle tension, and levels of arousal — in relation to context and experience, using learned concepts to make sense of these signals. As a result, emotions are profoundly shaped by cultural background.

What is (not) an emotion? translates this theoretical framework into an experiential system that combines virtual reality and real-time biometric monitoring. During the VR immersion, the participant’s heart rate is recorded and made visible to an external audience. In this way, the gap between the internal experience and the external representation of the body becomes a site where the very process of emotional construction by the observer is made visible. In the external observation of biometric data, the same physiological signal can generate different interpretations depending on the observer’s prior experience and interpretive framework.

For the participant in virtual reality, by contrast, the same principle of emotional construction manifests itself perceptually within an immersive environment characterized by predictive instability, in which the brain’s predictive system continuously updates expectations through confirmations, delays, or violations generated by the audiovisual system.

Building on this theoretical framework, the work explores the implications of this theory: if emotions are not uncontrollable entities but processes emerging from the formation of thought, to what extent might they be understood, recognized, or even shaped? And what role might this play in the structuring of social and relational dynamics? From this perspective, emotion is understood not only as an individual phenomenon, but also as an element that contributes to shaping how individuals interpret others and construct relationships, opening new possibilities for understanding and relational reconfiguration within dynamics of conflict, misunderstanding, and domination.