Emotion and Reason - 9780198566274

Emotion and Reason presents a groundbreaking new approach to understanding decision making processes and their neural bases. The book presents a sweeping survey of the science of decision making. It examines the brain mechanisms involved in making decisions, and controversially proposes that many of our perceptual actions are essentially decision making processes. Whether looking, listening, hearing, or moving, we choose to attend to certain stimuli, at the expense of others. In some psychiatric disorders the inability to respond selectively to certain stimuli can be harmful - such pathologies of decision making are additionally considered. Berthoz also considers how many decision making processes involve an internal dialogue with our other self, and how this dialogue with our 'doppelganger' might be represented in the brain. He considers the important implications that a neuroscience of decision making can have for the judiciary - how we apportion blame and responsibility; for economics - with discussion of the growing field of neuroeconomics; and for theories of management. Lastly he examines decision making and creativity - if perception relies in part on decision making processes, how might this alter our view of the artistic process?