自約1990年代後期起,對情緒的研究有所增加,其中包括心理學、醫學、史學、情緒社會學(英語:Sociology of emotions)和計算機科學等許多領域。試圖解釋情緒的起源、功能和其他方面的眾多理論促進了對該主題的更深入的研究。當前情緒概念的研究領域包括刺激和引發情緒的材料的開發。此外,正子斷層造影掃描和功能性磁振造影掃描有助於研究大腦中的情感圖像(英語:affective picture)過程。[8]
^Panksepp, Jaak. Affective neuroscience: the foundations of human and animal emotions [Reprint]. Oxford [u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press. 2005: 9. ISBN 978-0195096736. Our emotional feelings reflect our ability to subjectively experience certain states of the nervous system. Although conscious feeling states are universally accepted as major distinguishing characteristics of human emotions, in animal research the issue of whether other organisms feel emotions is little more than a conceptual embarrassment
^Ekman, Paul; Davidson, Richard J. The Nature of emotion: fundamental questions. New York: Oxford University Press. 1994: 291–293. ISBN 978-0195089448. Emotional processing, but not emotions, can occur unconsciously.
^Cabanac, Michel. What is emotion?. Behavioural Processes. 2002, 60 (2): 69–83. doi:10.1016/S0376-6357(02)00078-5. There is no consensus in the literature on a definition of emotion. The term is taken for granted in itself and, most often, emotion is defined with reference to a list: anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise. [...] I propose here that emotion is any mental experience with high intensity and high hedonic content (pleasure/displeasure).