Hot cognition explained

Abstract

Reviews the book, Emotion and Decision-Making Explained by Edmund T. Rolls (see record 2014-00966-000). The book is a comprehensive survey of the tremendous advances made in 'affective neuroscience' over the past 50 years or so, in the context of the many significant contributions and exciting discoveries of Rolls himself and of his collaborators, covering basic anatomical principles, neurophysiology, behavior and modeling. The volume thus serves to track Rolls' own intellectual development and research career from early studies in single unit behavioral electrophysiology conducted in macaques, to pioneering experiments on the central substrates of taste and pleasure in humans using functional brain resonance imaging, to the most recent forays into theoretical neuroscience, including computational modeling. The pedagogical value of the book is enhanced by its clever organization, by 80 pages or so of explanatory appendices and glossary which lighten the burden for the main text, by ample illustrations, and a rich collection of sumptuous color plates. The book is handsomely produced, apparently being typeset by the author himself, with few obvious errors. Rolls makes a stimulating attempt to at least address the mysteries of qualia, aesthetics, ethics and free will, in the context of attempting to explain the origin of emotional feelings and their subjective expression via language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)