TEG-Blue·Interactive tools on .com →

Research Platform

Open science publishing for emotional regulation research

Open science platform for understanding emotional regulation through the nervous system. Built on established research, proposing new connections between fields.

Theoretical Foundations

Established research that TEG-Blue builds on. These theories have been developed and validated by independent researchers across neuroscience, psychology, and related fields.

GlossaryEstablished

Neuroception

Coined by Stephen Porges, neuroception describes how the nervous system scans the environment and internal states to determine: Is this safe, dangerous, or life-threatening? This evaluation happens before conscious thought and shapes what emotions, perceptions, and behaviors become available.

coreF1polyvagalnervous system
GlossaryEstablished

Regulatory State

A regulatory state is the nervous system's current operating mode, shaped by neuroception and expressed through physiology, cognition, and behavior. TEG-Blue identifies four primary regulatory states in the Four-Mode Gradient.

coreneurosciencenervous systemregulation

TEG-Blue Research

Original contributions from the TEG-Blue project. This work proposes new connections between established theories and is in early stages of independent validation.

The originality is not in the individual theories — it is in the connections between them.

Working PaperDraft

TEG-Blue: The Emotional Gradient Blueprint — An Integrative Architecture for Emotional Intelligence

Presents the complete theoretical architecture of TEG-Blue, synthesizing polyvagal theory, attachment theory, dual-process cognition, trauma research, and systems thinking into a unified framework with four core components.

emotional intelligenceintegrative frameworkpolyvagal theoryattachment theory
PublicationSource Verified

Detecting Regulatory States in Natural Language

A validation study testing whether the Four-Mode Gradient framework can reliably detect emotional regulatory states in natural language, with implications for therapeutic and educational applications.

emotional regulationfour-mode gradientnatural languagevalidation
Glossary

Calibration

The nervous system is not born knowing what is safe or dangerous — it learns through experience. Calibration describes how early environments teach the system what to expect, creating templates that persist into adulthood unless updated through corrective experience.

coreF1developmentattachment
Glossary

Four-Mode Gradient

The Four-Mode Gradient is TEG-Blue's core mapping tool, identifying four distinct regulatory states along a continuous gradient. Connection represents safety; Protection represents recoverable threat response; Control represents chronic threat managed through controlling others; Domination represents entrenched control with empathy offline.

coreF1regulatory statesemotional regulation
Glossary

Pattern Hijack

Pattern hijack describes what happens when the nervous system detects a match between current experience and past threat. The shift into defensive mode happens in milliseconds, bypassing conscious thought. By the time awareness registers, the body has already acted.

coreF1traumatriggers
Glossary

Real Self

The Real Self is not a mystical concept but a biological baseline. It includes innate temperament, emotional instincts, and pre-cognitive information about safety, threat, need, and limit. It exists prior to the Role Mask and persists beneath it.

coreF2identitydevelopment
Glossary

Role Mask

The Role Mask is not pathology but functional adaptation. It includes behaviors adopted to be accepted, beliefs repeated for belonging, roles taken on for survival, and emotions hidden for safety. It forms when the Real Self couldn't secure connection through authenticity alone.

coreF2identityadaptation
Glossary

State-Dependent Capacity

State-dependent capacity explains why the same person can be warm and cold, insightful and rigid, empathic and dismissive — depending on where their nervous system is positioned. This is not a character flaw or choice; it is neurobiological reality.

coreF1capacitynervous system
Glossary

Threat Lock

When pattern hijack occurs repeatedly without resolution, the nervous system can become locked in defensive mode. The baseline shifts toward chronic protection. Connection becomes difficult to access, and the system operates as if threat is continuous even when the environment is objectively safe.

coreF1chronicdysregulation