Final answer:
The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon showing that familiarity breeds liking, which supports the independence of cognition and emotion. Zajonc and LeDoux's work exemplifies emotions that do not require cognitive processing, pointing to a direct, rapid emotional pathway in the brain. This challenges theories that posit emotions as primarily derivative of cognitive processes or physiological arousal.
Step-by-step explanation:
The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon where people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. This effect supports the hypothesis that cognition and emotion can be independent, as posited by researchers like Robert Zajonc. Zajonc believed that emotions can be experienced without prior cognitive processing. For example, encountering a sudden loud noise might provoke an immediate fear response, bypassing the cognitive appraisal. Joseph LeDoux's research on the amygdala's function in emotional response further bolsters this idea. Emotional responses like fear can follow two pathways in the brain: a fast, direct route from the thalamus to the amygdala, or a slower route involving cognitive processing via the cortex.
Differing theories of emotion such as the James-Lange theory, the Cannon-Bard theory, and the Schachter-Singer model all discuss the relationship between cognition and emotion, some suggesting that physiological arousal is cognitively interpreted to form an emotional experience. Studies have shown that individuals with spinal injuries that inhibit the sensation of physiological changes still experience emotions, which challenges some of these theories and underscores the complexity of the emotion-cognition relationship.