How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

This book is certainly complicated and deals with a lot of excellent, modern concepts in neuroscience. As a professional in the field, I find Barrett's theory to be very intriguing and incredibly compelling. The ideas contained in this book have the potential to create a major paradigm shift the field.From an academic's perspective, I will examine a few of the major premises of the book.The biggest and most important thesis of this book is that the human mind constructs emotions via what she terms "predictions" and "affect." Barrett defines predictions (or concepts) in a similar way to previous theorists who call these ideas "schema or schemata." Her definition includes a very simple use that is similar to the colloquial term, or basically a concept or an idea of what we think will happen informed on what has happened to us in the past. Simple enough and very easy to understand. Affect, by her account, is the brain's ability to interpret signals coming in from the various parts of the body and t turn it into something meaningful for us. According to her, the brain is not very good at interpreting these signals at times, and our methods of interpretation come by way of external teaching rather than internal methods of defining them. She says that this is what separates the average person from those with Autism Spectrum Disorder; that they have not successfully incorporated these emotional keywords into their lives. All of these assertions are backed up by strong evidence, and by all accounts are consistent with most previous research in the field of cognition. Emotions and predictions or concepts all function in a similar fashion to heuristics, which are shortcuts and best guesses about what the brain things will happen. This is indeed how most people use emotions to function, as a methodology for interpreting how they feel and how others feel.I have noticed in other reviews some have questioned her evidence of questioning the objectivity of emotional perception, and I think these readers are missing the point. If something is completely arbitrary, as is the case with the social determination of emotions, then there can be no objective method for determining what someone is feeling. Objective, in this sense, is used in a scientific term to mean "Constant regardless of the observer." Typically this definition is applied to mathematical constants of the universe, such as the law of gravity which affects all things at the same rate proportional to mass and acceleration. Emotions do not function in the same way as the laws of physics do objectively, and therefore cannot be considered anything more than subjective; that is reliant on interpretation or our own experiences. With this in mind, her theory is far more comprehensive than any other that I have seen in my career, and is far more down to earth than other decisionmaking theories that tend towards a neat equation-style method of explaining how people work. People work based upon their "emotions" and the majority of people make decisions based on what "feels the best." In this case since Barrett has discovered the methodology by which these people govern their daily lives, there are huge implications for further studies down the road.On to the part about the applications of this resarch, which I find to be less infromative than the theory part, but that is likely because I'm an academic. In the second half of her book, Barrett uses the information she's discovered to apply it to how you, the reader, can use it to change your behavior and thoughts. You are in control of your emotions, and with some training, you can de-condition yourself from using them as a crutch for everything. Her advice is rather easily summarized as "be more self aware" and "Meditate to relax." To briefly editorialize, it seems unlikely to me that the average person would be able to complete changes like these on their own without the help of a therapist. That is, after all, (and this is something she admits in her book), why people seek the help of therapists in the first place---to reframe issues in a new light. Despite this, barrett does make an attempt to help the reader use this new information, despite how little it will likely mean.

There are a few pros and a few cons, but in a "is it worth the investment" of a lot of time frame of reference, the answer is mixed. It is well written, and is "pop" oriented in that, though thorough and deep, is a fun and relatively easy read. If you're an expert in the field, nothing new here. If you have even 1% interest in the human spirit as beyond the physical, not for you. If you don't have a lot of experience with the topic, it will be an eye opener, and well worth a careful read.Here's the balance. As an academic, Lisa can't really (even if she wanted to) go beyond the physicalist, "we are our brains" model of human beings. Which is a drag. Is the Love of God merely an on the spot stochastic prediction to avoid pain and balance the P and L of the brain's energy needs?Speaking of stochastics, Lisa describes the move from classical emotional theory (the one-two punch of sense and act) to stochastic, as revolutionary. Maybe in pop neuro, but certainly not in many other fields, including robotics. With a background in affective programming in robotics, it is axiomatic in our field that the old "just attach a video camera to a bot and the processor can use the video input to calculate the robot's steps" was eclipsed a decade ago by the need for stochastic, predictive, bayesian algorithms, a lot like Lisa's baseball analogies.On the topic of Bayesian, Barrett uses a feedback diagram (p. 63) to illustrate a prediction loop-- interesting and innovative in this field, but very common for decades in control theory and most recently in Bayesian feedback and feed-forward loops in learning and perception.One big personal disappointment, though I enjoyed the book immensely from many other perspectives, is the lack of mention of music. There is only a single page and a couple of notes on audio in general (the Zen tree in the forest analogy), yet the whole field of expectation and anticipation in music, story hooks and stakes, and many other real life, advanced analyses of emotion is strangely missing. Recent breakthroughs in the emotional science of voice leading, for example, by David Huron (Voice Leading: The Science behind a Musical Art (MIT Press)) goes into fascinating depth on the relation of prediction, expectation, anticipation and emotion.From a "know yourself" view, though well written, the book is dry. It doesn't cover truly breakthrough ideas helpful to relationships despite the social grounding of Lisa's model, such as Glasser's "four wheel drive" analogy of thought and perception being the drivers with the "rear wheel drives" being emotion and physiology, both driving yet not steering, as very helpful images of the answer to a question Barrett doesn't tackle: "Can we choose our emotions?"That question is the central topic of a book also not mentioned, Halstead's (This is Your Brain on God: Algorithmic Psychology for Suffering Bio-Computers) which both tackles the higher spiritual possibilities of emotion and also coined "Halstead's Rule" which is "You can't think your way to joy" -- an exploration of deep links, and failings, of cognitive approaches to emotion. Glasser would agree that you can't think your way to joy, but also, even in the four wheel drive analogy, stops short of Halstead's assertion that emotion IS a choice, directly, and not through a "way" or "series" of controlling thoughts. All the authors above do agree on one thing, though: the purpose of both emotion and spiritual systems, is behavior control.Well worth a read if you adjust your expectations and can set aside the "we are our brains" assumption in most of these academia-based pop neuro titles. Recommended for the right audience.

I would have liked a little more detail on how emotions were the brain reacting to bodily imbalances. I wasn't entirely satisfied that most of the specifics of our understanding of emotion are culture-specific.

I read this alone and loved it so much that I read it again with my partner. Then I bought a copy just to lend out to friends.

Es un libro excelente. Muy digerible e importante dentro de las ciencias de la emoción

Excelente material, disruptivo

A nice and well researched book about how emotions are constructed in the brain. I must say I was particularly impressed by the amount of data and bibliography that went into this book. I also love the author’s language for lay audience.I bought this book as means to gain more self-knowledge (complement to my therapy) and ended up learning so much more. I strongly recommend as this is a fun read.

Lisa is one of the best pioneers and thinking out of the box Scientists out there. The way I see and think of emotions completely changed and it changed my perspective on me and Social Reality