Chapter published in:
Surprise at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Linguistics
Edited by Natalie Depraz and Agnès Celle
[Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 11] 2019
► pp. 23–42

Chapter 2
Shock, twofold dynamics, cascade

Three signatures of surprise. The micro-time of the surprised body

Surprise is commonly seen as a sudden instantaneous, intensively emotional, exclamative interjective, bodily startling “shock”. I would like to show that it would better be also understood as a processual dynamics, which presupposes a deep transformation of its commonly taken-for-granted experiential meaning as a shock. Such a dynamics unfolds along multifarious vectors, exemplarily time, emotion, cognition, language, inter-subjectivity and body. Since I already focused elsewhere on four of these vectors of the dynamics of surprise, namely time, emotion, cognition and language, I will deal here with the bodily time of surprise and reveal how the latter cannot be reduced to startle but refers to a multifaceted generative embodied process.

Keywords: surprise, body, microphenomenology, time, shock, twofold dynamics, cascade
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The motor-bodily shock: An unseen unfolding
  • 2.The double-stage rhythmic dynamics of body-emotion-cognition
    • 2.1A two-fold body-emotion dynamics: A first sub-signature of surprise
    • 2.2A two-fold body-cognitive dynamics: A second sub-signature of surprise
    • 2.3A two-fold cognitive/emotional dynamics: A third sub-signature of surprise
    • 2.4Some atypical dynamics
    • 2.5The layered threefold synchronicity of an integrated surprise
  • 3.The third signature of surprise: The ‘cascade’ as illustrating an overlapping generative process
    • 3.1A visuo-motor-cognitive cascade
    • 3.2A sensory-startle-emotional-multifaceted cognitive cascade
    • 3.3A cognitivo-cognitive process of cascade
    • 3.4Ch. S. Peirce’s series of surprises
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 06 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/ceb.11.02dep
References
Deleuze, G.
(1969) Logique du sens, Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
De Preester, H.
(2013) (Ed.), Moving Imagination. Explorations of gesture and inner movement, Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Publishing Compagny. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Depraz, N.
(2001) Lucidité du corps. De l’empirisme transcendantal en phénoménologie, Heidelberg: Springer, Phaenomenologica.Google Scholar
(2013a) An experiential phenomenology of novelty: the dynamic antinomy of attention and surprise. In S. Stuart (Ed.), Journal of Constructivist Foundations, vol. 8, n°3, http://​www​.univie​.ac​.at​/constructivism​/journal​/8​/3​/280​.depraz.Google Scholar
(2013b) Moving without Moving: A first person experiential phenomenological approach. In H. De Preester (Ed.), Moving Imagination. Explorations of gesture and inner movement, Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Publishing Compagny. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014a) The Non Sense of Surprise. In M. Cappuccio & T. Froese (Eds), Enactive Cognition at the Edge of Sense-Making, Palgrave: McMillan.Google Scholar
(2014b) Attention et vigilance. A la croisée de la phénoménologie et des sciences cognitives, Paris: P.U.F., Epiméthée.Google Scholar
(2015) La surprise: une dynamique circulaire de verbalisation multivectorielle. In N. Depraz & Cl. Serban (Eds), La surprise à l’épreuve des langues (pp. 14–34). Paris: Hermann.Google Scholar
(2016) Husserl et la surprise. Alter. Journal for Phenomenology, La surprise, n°24 (N. Depraz ed.), Paris: Alter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) Surprise and Unconscious. In D. Legrand (Ed), Is there a phenomenology of unconsciousness ? Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
(2018) The emotional valence of surprise. In N. Depraz & A. Steinbock (Eds), Surprise! An emotion? Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Depraz, N., Desmidt T.
(2018) Cardiophenomenology: a refinement of Neurophenomenology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2018.Google Scholar
Depraz, N., Varela, F. J. & Vermersch, P.
(2003) On becoming aware. A pragmatics of experiencing, Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Press. French version: A l’épreuve de l’expérience. Pour une pratique phénoménologique (2011) Bucharest: Zeta Books. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Depraz, N., Zeltner, L. & Mauriac, F.
(2009) Les figures de la mobilité dans le travail avec les adolescents: déplacement, mobilisation, créativité. In S. Tordjman (Ed.), Les équipes mobiles auprès des adolescents en difficulté (pp. 51–79). Paris: Masson.Google Scholar
Depraz, N. & Desmidt, T.
(2015) Cardio-phénoménologie. In J.-L. Petit (Ed.), La naturalisation de la phénoménologie 20 ans après. Cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg, n°38: 47–85.Google Scholar
submitted). Cardiophenomenology: an extension of neurophenomenology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, revised and submitted again.
Depraz, N., Gyemant, M., Desmidt, T.
(2017) A First-Person Analysis Using Third Person-Data as a Generative Method. A Case Study of Surprise in Depression. Constructivist Foundations Vol. 12, n°2, Neurophenomenology, A. Riegler & C. Valenzuela eds., 192–218.Google Scholar
Desmidt, T., Lemoine, M., Belzung, C. & Depraz, N.
(2014) Temporal dynamics of emotional emergence. Phenom Cogn Sci. 13:557–578. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Friston, K.
(2010) The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? National Review Neurosciences, 11, 127–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Husserl, E.
(1975) Experience and Judgement (1939) Translated by J. Churchill and K. Ameriks. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
(1991) Collected Works: On the phenomenology of the consciousness of internaltime (1893–1917). Kluwer Academic Pub.Google Scholar
(2001) Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis: Lectures on Transcendental Logic, trans., Anthony J. Steinbock. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
to appear). Studien zur Struktur des Brwußtseins: Affective Acts and axiological data (vol. II). Ü. Melle and T. Vongehr Eds. Heidelberg Springer German edition and partial french translation in preparation (N. Depraz, M. Gyemant
Grillon, C. & Baas, J.
(2003) A review of the modulation of the startle reflex by affective states and its application in psychiatry. Clinical Neurophysiology, 114(9), 1557–1579. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Le Brun, Ch.
(1713/2010) Conférence sur l’expression générale et particulière des passions (1668) Amsterdam: B. Picart (Ed.). Numerisation: http://​bibliotheque​-numerique​.inha​.fr​/collection​/14885​-conference​-de​-monsieur​-le​-brun​-sur​-l​-expres/
Meinck, H. M.
(2006) Startle and its disorders. Neurophysiol Clin 36(5–6): 357–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peirce, C. S.
(1994) The Collected Papers. Electronic edition by John Deely, 5092p. reproducing Vols. I-VI eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931–1935) and Vols. VII-VIII ed. Arthur W. Burks. (same publisher, 1958).Google Scholar
Ricœur, P.
(2009) Philosophie de la volonté I: Le volontaire et l’involontaire (1950) Paris: Seuil, coll. Points. Am. Transl. Kohak E. V. (1966/1987) Freedom and Nature: the Voluntary and the Involuntary. Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Sheets-Johnstone, M.
(2016) If The Body Is Part of Our Discourse, Why Not Let It Speak? Five Critical Perspectives. In N. Depraz, & A. J. Steinbock (Eds.), Surprise, an Emotion? Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Smith, A.
(1982) Essays on Philosophical Subjects, W. P. D. Wightman & J. C. Bryce (Eds.), Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith vol. III, Section I: Of the Effect of Unexpectedness, or of Surprise [1795], Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Tschumi, R.
(1987) A la recherche du sens, Lausanne: L’Âge d’homme.Google Scholar
Vermersch, P.
(1994/2011) L’entretien d’explicitation, Paris: ESF.Google Scholar
Vila, J., Guerra, P., Muñoz, M. A., Vico, C., Viedma-del Jesús, M. I., Delgado, L. C. & Rodríguez, S.
(2007) Cardiac defense: from attention to action. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 66(3): 169–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vrana, S. R., Spence, E. L. & Lang, P. J.
(1988) The startle probe response: a new measure of emotion? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97(4): 487–491. DOI logoGoogle Scholar