Fig. 1: Schematic of the processes of attention, construal, and appraisal.

a Potential attentional foci during an example event (blue circles): The woman notices the warmth from the sun (a), the hunger pangs in her stomach (b), the sounds of the baby in the stroller (c), and the smell of grass and flowers (d). b How the event could be conceptualized by the speaker along six possible dimensions (purple dots): dynamism (entities vs processes; 1), distance (proximal vs distal; 2), boundedness (ongoing vs finite; 3), reality status (real vs hypothetical; 4), speaker agency (subject vs object; 5), and location of emotion (self vs world; 6). c How the event could be holistically evaluated along three possible dimensions (orange dots): valence (i), intensity (ii), and certainty (iii). ‘Park graphic black white city landscape sketch illustration vector’ by Aluna1 is licensed under the iStock standard license.