Theoretical Paper · For Clinicians & Researchers
The Upstream Signal Model
The full theoretical synthesis — original contributions, source attributions, testable hypotheses, and academic references. PDF available for download, sharing, and citation.
The Upstream Signal Model synthesizes established research from predictive processing, constructed emotion theory, and allostatic regulation into an integrated mechanistic architecture. The paper presents both the synthesis and the original contributions that extend beyond the source literature — clearly labeled as such. This is working theory, not established clinical protocol.
Download · March 2026
The Upstream Signal Model
A Predictive Processing Framework for Emotional Experience, Symptomatic Presentation, and the Problem of Downstream Intervention
25 pages. Includes: theoretical foundations with full citations, the four-domain constitutional architecture, compression stack, permeability as the missing clinical variable, identity-layer rigidity in two directions, the label problem, research directions with seven falsifiable hypotheses, and full reference list.
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Original contributions
What the paper adds beyond the source literature — clearly distinguished from established findings.
01
Temperature architecture (hot / warm / cool)
Water temperature as the functional variable determining what the nervous system can do with a signal. Follows tank level and burner state, not the triggering event.
02
Four constitutional domains — Viability, Bonds, Autonomy, Orientation
Constitutional constraint architecture organized around four dimensions of nervous system care, prior to conscious awareness. Distinguishes constitutional sensitivity (accommodate) from learned prior (revise).
03
Relief vs. completion distinction
Structural account, grounded in predictive processing, of why cognitively-mediated interventions produce relief without lasting change. Completion requires revision at the generating prior level.
04
Permeability as the missing clinical variable
Safety creates permission to open. Permeability is the opening. The field has been working on prediction error engineering while missing the permeability condition that makes prediction error land as revision rather than noise.
05
Identity-layer rigidity in two directions
Confidence-rigidity (acting outward to protect the self-prior) and shame-based rigidity (acting inward on the self-prior to protect the relational world-prior) as structurally identical operations in opposite directions. Both are active inference. The field has primarily addressed one direction.
06
Honest contact as the clinical target
The goal of updating is not flexibility (revised too readily in either direction) or certainty (too defended). It is honest contact — the map remaining close enough to the territory that perception reflects reality.
07
Granularity reinterpretation
The regulatory benefit of emotional granularity may derive from the pre-conceptual tuning the labeling task requires, not from the precision of the label itself. The label as invitation upstream rather than destination.
08
Mechanistic emotion classification — illustrative proposal
Four proposed types — somatic signal, constructed strategy, process/feedback signal, permeability state — as an illustration of what mechanistic granularity looks like when classification is organized by function in the stream rather than phenomenological similarity.
Citation
APA Format
Martinez, S. (2025). The Upstream Signal Model: A predictive processing framework for understanding emotional experience, symptomatic presentation, and the problem of downstream intervention. Inside Attunement. https://upstreammap.netlify.app
This paper may be shared freely for educational and research purposes with attribution. © 2025 Sarah Martinez / Inside Attunement.