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"Highly accessible...LeDoux's musical and literary references reveal a man clearly in touch with his own emotional feelings. All said, "The Emotional Brain" is a stimulating and thoughtful work and is essential reading for any serious student of human emotion."
-- Raymond J. Dolan, "Nature" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
The science behind David Goleman's Emotional Intelligence
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 44 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
LeDoux shows how the evolution of brain structure directly influences behaviour, emotion and thought. Knowing the simple fact that the amygdala has temporal perceptual dominance over the cerebrum (and for that matter more'control' as measured through the ratio of outbound-to-inbound neural connectors between the amygdala and the cortex) is the sort of basic scientific fact that will hopefully temper many of the more esoteric claims of psychology. This is an excellent book if you are interested in a scientific understanding of human behaviour. If you are more interested in 'philosophical' issues and language games - give it a miss.
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For the layperson, LeDoux's book is an excellent account of the scientific search for understanding what emotions are and what they do. Comparing it to the several trendy books about measuring emotional intelligence isn't quite fair--this is not a self-help book that stresses the importance of good social skills (which to me, seems what emotional quotient boils down to). Instead, this book nicely weaves the best of psychological, biological, and cutting-edge neuroscientific research to give the reader a good picture of what scientists currently know about emotions and how emotions are experienced in the body and the mind. But despite the comprehensive scientific explanations, the book is extremely readable and filled with real-world implications. For a professor of neural science, LeDoux writes creatively (love those subheadings!), and I think this book can do for the study of emotions what Carl Sagan's Cosmos did for astronomy.
For psychologists, particularly psychotherapists, this book should be required reading. Despite dealing with people's emotions everyday, few therapists can give more than a basic explanation of what exactly an emotion is, and how it influences human functioning. This is partly because most textbook discussions of emotions are either too basic or too difficult, are just plain boring, or don't make the implications for therapists clear. LeDoux's book changes all that--I've reviewed several academic books, articles, and texts on understanding emotions, and kept coming back to this one. Do your graduate students (who may be groaning under the pressure of a dry neuroscience text!) a favor and make them all read The Emotional Brain--they'll be just as educated, and a lot more excited as well.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have a special interest in training the mind to reduce negative thoughts and emotions with meditation exercises. I was therefore curious to find out if this book could give me some useful insights on this point.
It does. In emotions we depend on two competing systems. The "low road" or fast system that is very similar for all vertebrae animals and "high road" slow system that adds the Cortex for thinking into the circuit. That thinking capability is most strongly developed in the human species. The low road -slow systems follows the following steps:
Emotional stimulus -Sensory Thalamus - Amygdala -Emotional response
The competing parallel, slow system with half the speed has an additional link as follows:
Emotional stimulus- Sensory Thalamus-Sensory Cortex- Amygdala- Emotional response
The fast system is the best in case of real danger requiring instant reaction. But it can create trouble when a reaction is triggered by a false alarm leading to the wrong reaction. The slow system involving the Cortex evaluates the emotional stimulus, considers the context, and examines the options before deciding on the reaction and thus avoiding wrong reactions. It also has learning capability. Mistakes are not repeated. Training the mind will strengthen the influence the Cortex will have on the reaction. When I feel a sudden burst of anger, I now realise that it is probably the result of the fast road short-circuiting the Cortex circuit. So I pause to gain control of my anger.
The second useful idea is that memory of past experiences colour our views without us being aware of it. For example I had a bad experience working with a fast talker that turned out to be unreliable. The next time I met a fast talker I was instantly negative to that person without being aware why. I now ask myself before taking a position. Am I prejudiced?
The third point is awareness of the enormous advantage humans have of having a large fore brain that allows us instead of reacting automatically to emotional stimulus being able to make plans, analyse risk and analyse consequences. Analytical meditation strengthens this planning and evaluation capability.
The fourth point is that I understand better why it is so hard to reduce egocentric tendencies. The fast circuit is excellent for survival because it leads to instant action. But survival reactions without thinking only consider my survival without considering the consequences of my actions on others. Bringing the "primitive" system under control is therefore hard work.
The fifth point is the irreparable damage excessive continuous stress does to the memory system in the Hippocampus. That illustrates the merits of meditation to develop the ability to stay calm under high stress circumstances.
Complex systems are explained with excellent diagrams. The book may be a bit long for leaders in business, 300 pages. But, I think that the benefits make the effort to read it worthwhile. Understanding how your brain works helps you in training your mind.
It does. In emotions we depend on two competing systems. The "low road" or fast system that is very similar for all vertebrae animals and "high road" slow system that adds the Cortex for thinking into the circuit. That thinking capability is most strongly developed in the human species. The low road -slow systems follows the following steps:
Emotional stimulus -Sensory Thalamus - Amygdala -Emotional response
The competing parallel, slow system with half the speed has an additional link as follows:
Emotional stimulus- Sensory Thalamus-Sensory Cortex- Amygdala- Emotional response
The fast system is the best in case of real danger requiring instant reaction. But it can create trouble when a reaction is triggered by a false alarm leading to the wrong reaction. The slow system involving the Cortex evaluates the emotional stimulus, considers the context, and examines the options before deciding on the reaction and thus avoiding wrong reactions. It also has learning capability. Mistakes are not repeated. Training the mind will strengthen the influence the Cortex will have on the reaction. When I feel a sudden burst of anger, I now realise that it is probably the result of the fast road short-circuiting the Cortex circuit. So I pause to gain control of my anger.
The second useful idea is that memory of past experiences colour our views without us being aware of it. For example I had a bad experience working with a fast talker that turned out to be unreliable. The next time I met a fast talker I was instantly negative to that person without being aware why. I now ask myself before taking a position. Am I prejudiced?
The third point is awareness of the enormous advantage humans have of having a large fore brain that allows us instead of reacting automatically to emotional stimulus being able to make plans, analyse risk and analyse consequences. Analytical meditation strengthens this planning and evaluation capability.
The fourth point is that I understand better why it is so hard to reduce egocentric tendencies. The fast circuit is excellent for survival because it leads to instant action. But survival reactions without thinking only consider my survival without considering the consequences of my actions on others. Bringing the "primitive" system under control is therefore hard work.
The fifth point is the irreparable damage excessive continuous stress does to the memory system in the Hippocampus. That illustrates the merits of meditation to develop the ability to stay calm under high stress circumstances.
Complex systems are explained with excellent diagrams. The book may be a bit long for leaders in business, 300 pages. But, I think that the benefits make the effort to read it worthwhile. Understanding how your brain works helps you in training your mind.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Excellent
This is about the nuts and bolts of emotion - from a top world scientist. At times the writing is technical - as in, not written in a populist way. Stick with it and learn.
Published 9 months ago by Fergus McClelland
Review for The Emotional Brain
In Joseph LeDoux's book, The Emotional Brain, he tries to track down which part(s) of the brain emotions come from. Read more
Published 18 months ago by jalexan301
Discussion of current theories of cognition and emotion
Joseph LeDoux works very hard in this book, but in many ways, his fairness and ambition get in his way. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 2007 by Rolf Dobelli
Readable but technical book about conditioned responses
A readable but quite technical brain science book about learned fear and conditioned responses. If you want to learn about 'Hebbian Plasticity' this is the one for you. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2004 by Andy Smith
Philosophy left out
This is a dissapointing book. LeDoux sets out to correct the concentration on rationality rather than emotion in explaning brain function. Read more
Published on 24 Mar 1999
Emotionality in a nutshell
Ledoux outlines contemporary research related to emotionality from a neuroscientific perspective, yet retains a sense of humanity by exploring the psychological implications of... Read more
Published on 22 Jan 1999
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