Schorr & Johnstone, 2001 [24]; Smith & Lazarus, 1990
[26], 1993 [27]). As noted by Gratch and Marsella [10]:
"Appraisal theories posit that events do not have significance in of themselves, but only by virtue of their interpretation in the context of an individual's beliefs, desires, intentions and abilities" (Gratch & Marsella, 2004, p. 273). The significance of an event is supposed to be evaluated on a number of criteria such as its relevance for one's well-being, its conduciveness for one's plans and goals, and the ability to cope with such consquences.

In the framework of the Scherer's Component Process Model (Scherer 1984 [20], 2001 [24]), Sander, Grandjean
& Scherer (2005 [19]) describe emotion "as an episode of interrelated, synchronized changes in the states of all or most of the five organismic subsystems 1 in response to the evaluation of an external or internal stimulus event as relevant to major concerns of the organism." , (p.318). From this point of view, rather than static and basic states of the organism (e.g. Ekman, 1984 [8]; Izard, 1971 [11]), emotions are a dynamic process whose components are the cognitive component which function is the evaluation of objects and events, the peripheral efference component which regulates the system, the motivational component which prepares and guides the actions, the motor expression component which steadies communication of reaction and behavioural intention, and the subjective feeling component which monitors the internal state and environment interaction.  In other respects, this model postulates that changes in one subsystem will tend to elicit related changes in other subsystems.

## Appraisal-Coping Example

Based on the appraisal-coping approach, several new models have been conceived (see figure 1).  Gratch
& Marsella [10] have produced a domain independent model using cognitive maps. This model is intended to manipulate appraisal variables to analyse the present and past situations, and to design the future decisions to make and the coping strategies to adopt. Generally speaking, the appraisal-coping approach offers a very precise model of cognitive and emotional processes in decision making (previous works have been carried out on this subject, see [16]).

On the one hand, the environment is appraised with respect to one's goals and beliefs. This evaluation is realised through a certain number of variables defining the different appraising dimensions to be taken into account, such as the relevance ( Does the event require attention or adaptive reaction?) or unexpectedness ( Was the event predicted from past knowledge?).

On the other hand, one has to cope with the situation appraised before by using coping strategies. These different strategies offer a great range of possibilities, from the perfect control of the situation until the total resigntion, when facing the problem. The coping outcome alters the person-environment relationship not only by modifying the environment itself related to the problem, but also by changing the interpretation and willing through emotional aspects.

In order to represent the information about the situation, Gratch & Marsella [10] use causal maps. In the following scenario (figure 2), an oncologist, Dr. Tom, is supposed to help an eleven-year-old boy, Jimmy, for his stage 4 inoperable cancer, either by giving him morphine
(which relieves the pain but hastens death) or leaving him suffer (and letting him prolong his life). A causal map (see figure 2) represents the past and present situations, as well as the possible decisions to make and their expected consequences.

This causal map can evolve with the modification of the parameters. For example, Ujim is how Dr. Tom appreciates Jim's desirability for the corresponding event. This value can be updated after the coping process, dealing with emotional aspects.  Once Dr.  Tom re-appraises the consequences of his decision (by decreasing the probability parameter of the "Death hastened" event), he accepts to give Jim morphine, following Jim's mother request. However, the major problem when using this technique is the storage of the information taken from the environment. In fact, we have two options.

The first option is to put all the information we need explicitly on the object to be evaluated. For instance, if an individual is watching a photograph of his wife and kids, the variables indicating pleasantness or pride are to be described on the photograph. With this method, each object in the environment is clearly identified as pleasant or mysterious or annoying, etc.  The implementation is therefore easier, and the possibility of interacting with the emotional representation of the object is hence trivial. The main problem is a lack of flexibility, especially if more than one individual has to evaluate the same object.

The second option is the internal storage of the objects data, directly into the brain, using a memory strategy
(Tulving et al., 1972 [29]). With this technique, memory is divided into several categories, each of which stores different kind of information.  On the one hand, the longterm memory system is composed of the episodic memory (i.e. it refers to knowledge of episodes and facts that can be consciously recalled and related) and the semantic memory (underlying absolute knowledge and language; semantic memory is context-independent).  On the other hand, the short-term memory, also known as working memory stores the current context-related data.

For each of the above options, emotion is supposed to