Emotion

Abstract

Was love invented by European poets in the Middle Ages or is it part of human nature? Will winning the lottery really make you happy? Is it possible to build robots that have feelings? Emotion: A Very Short Introduction explores the latest thinking about the emotions, drawing upon a wide range of scientific research, from anthropology and psychology to neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Anthropologists have begun to question their previous views on the cultural relativity of emotional experience; cognitive psychologists have abandoned their exclusive focus on reasoning, perception, and memory, and are rediscovering the importance of affective processes; and neuroscientists and researchers in artificial intelligence have also joined the debate.