Cognition and Emotion: Interactions

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about some of the modern evidence which has changed our view on the interactions between cognition and emotion, focusing in particular on: (i) defining cognition as the logical and rational conscious thinking process; (ii) defining emotion as the feelings-based subconscious thought process; (iii) the overlap between emotion and cognition, including that cognition evolved from emotions; (iv) the guiding role of emotions, due to the cognitively demanding nature of cognition limiting its breadth of usability; (v) debunking the view that the left brain hemisphere is responsible for logic and the right brain hemisphere is responsible for emotions; (vi) the updated view, that the left brain hemisphere is more involved with ‘big picture’ processing, while the right brain hemisphere is more focused on detail processing; (vii) the triune brain model, which proposes that our brain is split up into human, mammalian (limbic) and reptilian portions; (viii) the assumption that the limbic brain is responsible for emotional functions; (ix) the updated view that dedicating brain regions to specific functions is an oversimplified view; (x) the anterior cingulate cortex, which has roles in emotional processing and how it interacts with cognition; (xi) modern evidence which shows that the anterior cingulate cortex handles emotional and cognitive information on the same neural circuit.

About the lecturer

Dr Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist, author and honorary research associate in the Centre for Medical Education at Cardiff University. Dr Burnett’s research interests are in neuroscience, science communication and psychology. Some of Dr Burnett’s recent books include Psycho-Logical (2019) and Why Your Parents Are Driving You Up The Wall And What To Do About It (2019).