Neuroscience: Exploring Emotions, Cognitive Skills, Analysis of Sleep, Thinking and Decision Making
- ISBN-10
- 1705604781
- ISBN-13
- 9781705604786
- Series
- Neuroscience
- Pages
- 72
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2019-12
- Author
- Natalie Brooks
Description
The idea that the brain should be treated as an impenetrable black box that should be deemed irrelevant in behavioral experiments severely limited the explanatory power of the behavioral model. Cognitive psychology was a breath of fresh air allowing the investigation and elaboration of the multitude of brain dependent cognitive processes. It was after the formation of cognitive neuroscience that cognitive psychologists once again began the study of emotions. The field of cognitive neuroscience, as the name suggests, was the natural and inevitable combination of the separate disciplines of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Basic or core emotions, such as fear, and anger, are universal, short-lasting, extremely powerful, and phylogenetically ancient emotions. They lie below the cortex, run on unconscious dedicated neural pathways, and have no involvement with cognition. On the other hand, complex emotions, like jealousy and hate, can last over a long period. Something like happiness, a basic emotion, is accepted by now to be universal, cross-cultural, innate, short-lived, with characteristic facial expressions, with a characteristic behavioral response and most definitely associated with a subjective emotional experience. This new book by Natalie Brooks, the bestselling author of "Neuroplasticity" and "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy," sheds light on what is going on in our brains when we think, make decisions, fall in love, get overwhelmed by emotions, and sleep.
