How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

情緒不是天生而是你自己創造的，世界頂尖的神經科學家Lisa Feldman Barrett如是說。理解情緒的由來與本質，在未來的審判、醫療、警察執法等各方面，都對我們帶來極大的影響。

「《情緒如何產生》(How Emotions are Made)這本書，標示了情緒科學的典範移轉。除此之外，本書以一種清楚、非凡的寫作方式，巧妙地傳達出新的情緒神經科學。Lisa Barrett作品的影響(“只不過”是兩千年來人類對大腦的臆測)絕對是驚人的，更讓人驚訝的是她傑出的成就。」- Nancy Gertner (美國麻州地區法院前聯邦法官，哈佛法學院資深法律講師)

大部分的科學家都同意，情緒來自大腦特定區域，我們之所以感到不同的情緒，是因為環繞我們周遭的事物啟動該區域的緣故。所以我們看見老友感到興奮，看令人落淚的電影感到悲傷，失去摯愛感到害怕，這些感受都在我們體內自動且無法控制地升起，使我們臉部有不同表情並影響我們的行為。

這種對情緒的理解自亞里斯多德開始便有，但是，這樣的理解是正確的嗎？勇於開創的心理學家Lisa Feldman Barrett透過最新的科學證明顯示，我們對情緒的理解已經過時了，並且已經為此付出了代價。作者解釋，情緒並非像是內建於硬碟一般，天生地存於我們體內，而是根據我們個人在生理與環境的經歷所建構的心理經驗。

不管是法官對激動情緒所犯下罪行的判決，警察對嫌疑犯開槍，或者醫生在兩種診斷之間做選擇，這種對情緒做出的嶄新觀點，將對我們的未來產生很大的影響，對我們社會的幸福與健康至關重要。

When you feel anxious, angry, happy, or surprised, what's really going on inside you? Most scientists would agree that emotions come from specific parts of the brain, and that we feel them whenever they're triggered by the world around us. The thrill of seeing an old friend, the sadness of a tear-jerker movie, the fear of losing someone you love - each of these sensations arises automatically and uncontrollably within us, finding expression on our faces and in our behaviour, and carrying us away with the experience. This understanding of emotion has been around since Aristotle. But what if it's wrong? In How Your Emotions Are Made, pioneering psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett draws on the latest scientific evidence to reveal that our ideas about emotion are dramatically, even dangerously, out of date - and that we have been paying the price. Emotions don't exist objectively in nature, Barrett explains, and they aren't pre-programmed in our brains and bodies; rather, they are psychological experiences that each of us constructs based on our unique personal history, physiology and environment. This new view of emotions has serious implications: when judges issue lesser sentences for crimes of passion, when police officers fire at threatening suspects, or when doctors choose between one diagnosis and another, they're all, in some way, relying on the ancient assumption that emotions are hardwired into our brains and bodies. Revising that conception of emotion isn't just good science, Barrett shows; it's vital to our wellbeing and the health of society itself.