The discipline of affective neuroscience is concerned with the underlying neural substrates of emotion and mood. This review presents an historical overview of the pioneering work in affective neuroscience of James and Lange, Cannon and Bard, and Hess, Papez, and MacLean before summarizing the current state of research on the brain regions identified by these seminal researchers. We also discuss the more recent strides made in the field of affective neuroscience. A final section considers different hypothetical organizations of affective neuroanatomy (...) and highlights future directions for the discipline. (shrink)

In an analysis of the role of emotion in self-deception is presented. It is argued that instances of emotional self-deception unproblematically meet Mele's jointly sufficient criteria. It is further proposed that a consideration of different forms of mental representation allows the possibility of instances of self-deception in which contradictory beliefs (in the form p and ~p) are held simultaneously with full awareness.

Bridging between psychological and neurobiological systems requires that the system components are closely specified at both the psychological and brain levels of analysis. We argue that in developing his dynamic systems theory framework, Lewis has sidestepped the notion of a psychological level systems model altogether, and has taken a partisan approach to his exposition of a brain-level systems model.

Kupperman (1995) advances an anti-essentialist view of emotions in which he suggests that there can be emotion without feeling or affect, emotion without corresponding motivation, and emotion without an intentional relation to an object such that the emotion is about that object in some way. In this reply to Kupperman's essay, I suggest a number of problems with his rejection of the essentialist position. I argue that in his discussion of feelings Kupperman is crucially not clear about the distinction between (...) the ascription of emotions by others versus the experience of emotions by an individual. Furthermore, I also question his analysis of the role of linguistic empiricism in philosophy and psychology. With respect to Kupperman's analysis of intentionality, I argue that he confuses the ability to readily identify intentional objects with the issue of their actual existence. Finally, I suggest that Kupperman confuses the concepts of action and motivation in his discussion of motivation. (shrink)

This review focuses on the theory of emotion outlined in Chapter 3 of Rolls's The brain and emotion. It is proposed that Rolls's emphasis on a relatively simple neurobiologically derived emotion scheme does not allow him to present a comprehensive account of emotion. Consequently, high-level cognitive processes, such as appraisal, end up being retained in the theory despite Rolls's skepticism about their utility. An argument is put forward that the concept of appraisal in the emotion literature is more than semantic (...) convention and actually allows us to talk about multiple functional-level routes to the generation of emotion – a characteristic of the latest generation of theories in the cognition-emotion literature. (shrink)