According to the somatic theory, it is this feedback that is vital to our emotional experience. The theory argues that there are distinct facial expressions that accompany a number of emotions including fear, excitement, joy, surprise, anger, scorn, and sadness. When an event occurs our facial muscles react with an emotional expression. The message of how the face is responding is transmitted to the brain, which uses this information to label a specific emotional state. This theory allows that autonomic arousal may occur either before or after the labeling of an emotion. If the arousal occurs before, it may be incorporated in the label, influencing the interpretation about the magnitude of the emotion.