Yep... I know it isn't electrocuting animals. I was just writing shorthand (sorry).
For fear of sounding like a broken record (or CD) you should have a fairly good idea of how I might appraise Panksepp v Barrett:
1. physiological mechanisms are innate and
qualitatively relevant—consistent with Panksepp's primal affective areas. These are not "emotions" as I would define them but then there is no consensus on emotion anyway. [insects have thes primal areas too—Panksepp agrees with me, and is a ripe area for research... this is a differential prediction (As I understand it). The reseachers in this area have not even dreamt of the possibility that insects might have these primal affective sites.]
2. These primal qualitative areas are utilised through realtime appraisal and reflection of sensory inputs (in animals that have more than innate behaviours, i.e. in animals that can learn) to evoke a subtle experientially changing landscape of phenomenal impressions about the world.
3. Humans alone, conceptualise about these impressions and classify various phenomenal feelings; calling them emotions. The concepts drive subtle distinctions, for example, what one believes (beliefs being conceptually constructed) should be an appropriate emotion given certain cultural/social contexts etc.
Point 1 aligns with Panksepp whilst point 3 aligns with Barrett; each arguing about their stance for want of a single narrative (to explain all).
So, Barrett resonates with HCT with the following:
The conceptual act model,
"is not strictly dimensional because it integrates both dimensional and categorical perspectives. The dimensional aspect can be found in the suggestion that all emotional events, at their core, are based in a psychologically primitive kind of affective response to events in the world as positive or negative, helpful or harmful … . The categorical aspect can be found in the suggestion that people automatically and effortlessly categorize the ebb and flow of core affect using conceptual knowledge for emotion. To categorize something is to render it meaningful: to determine what it is, why it is, and what to do with it. … In the conceptualization of emotion, categorizing core affect as anger (or as any other emotion) performs a kind of figure-ground segregation, so that the experience of an emotion will pop out as a separate event from the ebb and flow in ongoing core affect (in which core affect is associated with the direction and urgency of initial behavioral responses). "
(Barrett, L. F., Lindquist, K. A., Bliss-Moreau, E., Duncan, S., Gendron, M., Mize, J., & Brennan, L. (2007) Of Mice and Men: Natural Kinds of Emotions in the Mammalian Brain? A Response to Panksepp and Izard, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(3), pp. 297–312., p. 12)
I have read about 5 papers by Panksepp and 1 by Barrett.
@Constance I don't want to pursue this issue at present. It is something I will return to but I am knuckling down on other stuff at mo. My stance is fairly obvious I think... they both are exciting scientists and this is a field that will yield important discoveries (particularly with insects and in medical advances)... there is value in both to be had.
One of the points I was making is that the experimental neuroscience seemed to be done first, and then a theory matched to the observations (a technique borrowed from psychology perhaps).
Another approach in science is to have a theory (e.g. there is a thing called a higgs boson) and then to use experiments to confirm the theory.
I am not so kean on the first of the two approaches... and so often, so very often, the theoretical models derived from observation are fraught with problems. (on this point, read the intro to Fodor's "The language of thought" 1975ish pdf). Analytic Philosophy has a similar problem, using rational argument, using logic to come to 'unassailable' theoretic conclusions... which are false because the inferences are made through a restricted tunnel-like scope, despite pretences to develop counter arguments.
Re academic infighting, I've seen a lot of it but it rarely gets down to the gang-warfare level seen in some of these encounters over OOO. 
