Of Emotion Tancies and Be Externalized As Social Sensu Strictu Is Restricted

Home , Evolution of emotion

7~~~ ______BOOKREVIEVVS ______N_A_TU__ R_E_V_O_L_.3_2_3~ __ O_CT __ OB_E_R_l_~_6 vides a new feeling system that coincides whose evolutionary origin and brain struc Great expectancies with the evolution of mammals; and (3) ture are quite different from those of these feelings can in turn modify expec mammals, to whom, apparently, emotion of emotion tancies and be externalized as social sensu strictu is restricted. Eric A. Sa/zen signals of emotional states. Students might find Parts I-III of this Livesey thus effectively matches his book valuable in appreciating the theore earlier definition of emotion, no doubt tical propositions of Part IV. The special Learning and Emotion: A Biological to his satisfaction and pleasure. His thesis ist reader, however, might have preferred Synthesis. Volume 1, Evolutionary Pro implies that the evolution of emotion de the relevant facts to have been referenced cesses. By Peter J. Livesey. Lawrence pended on the evolution of learned expec and integrated into the presentation of the Erlbaum:i986. Pp.312. $32.50, £22. tancies. He also proposes that the function theory. In Vol. 2 of the work (which, I'm of emotion is to feed back and influence told, will not be published until 1988 or EMOTION has been variously seen as expectancies and so act as a "teaching so), Livesey proposes to identify the providing emergency support responses, mechanism". If emotion guides learning neural systems for directing attention to energizing and response amplification, as Livesey implies, one wonders what relevant stimuli and for organizing appro motivation through incentive and re guided Oscar Wilde when, in The Picture priate behaviour on subsequent encoun inforcement, and adaptive instinctive of Dorian Gray, he wrote: "The advan ters, with special reference to the role of responses, or as being non-functional tage of the emotions is that they lead us the limbic system in the mediation of this response disorganization. In this book, astray". Livesey's theory fails to account learning. 0 for the evolution of emotional behaviours Livesey sets out to establish emotion as a Eric A. Salzen is Anderson Professor in the system for registering what is or is not which are present throughout the verte Department of Psychology, University of Aber relevant for learning. To do this he re brates and are especially evident in birds, deen, Old Aberdeen AB9 2UB, UK. views the evolution of the brain, learning and emotion, with emphasis on species putatively related to the evolutionary line and Wilkinson, pipped to the discovery by leading to man. Universal classics perhaps a year. Part I gives an elementary introduction Michael Rowan-Robinson Finally there is a batch of papers on the to evolution and a thumbnail sketch of the new synthesis of particle physics and cos evolution of man drawn from literature of mology, though it is probably too soon to the 1950s and 1960s. Part II, the longest, Cosmological Constants: Papers in Mod say that any of the work is on the right describes the evolution of the nervous ern Cosmology. Edited by Jeremy Bern lines. We have the insight of Sakharov system from amoeba to man, based on lit stein and Gerald Feinberg. Columbia Uni (1967), in his happier days, on baryon erature of the 1960s and 1970s. It gives a versity Press:i986. Pp.328. $38. non-conservation, and its realization in useful summary for the mammalian brain. grand unified theories by Yoshimura, Part III critically reviews comparative THE twentieth century has seen the most Weinberg and others; Kibble (1976) on studies of learning in vertebrates, and cov remarkable development in our under cosmic strings; Preskill (1979) on the ers much the same ground as E.M. Mac standing of the Universe, and Bernstein monopole problem; and Guth's proposal phail's Brain and intelligence in Verte and Feinberg's idea of collecting together (1981) of the inflationary universe. brates (Clarendon, 1982) and Animal In some of the classic papers of the great Not all of the papers included are of the telligence, edited by L. Weiskrantz (Clar modern age of cosmology was an excellent same standing as those mentioned above. endon, 1985). Livesey, however, is more one. Most of the really important ones are The editors have chosen quite the wrong selective and considers the learning-task here. The first tentative speculations by one by Sandage on the Hubble constant performance studies of traditional com Einstein in 1917 about a homogeneous a minor 1968 paper, using globular clus parative psychology, Bitterman's work on and isotropic, but static, universe; de Sit ters, instead of that of 1956 in which he the systematic variation of a single ter's disturbing revelation (also of 1917) revised Baade's distance scale by a factor learning-task, and the theoretical views of that Einstein's equations allowed the of nearly four to arrive at a Hubble con Thorpe, Lorenz and Razran on the evol possibility of an expanding universe; stant of 75. The famous 1941 paper by ution of learning. Unlike Macphail, Friedmann's spectacular solution of the McKellar, measuring a background tem Livesey concludes that there has been a cosmological problem in general relativity perature of 2.3 K, is absent, as are the qualitative change in learning processes (1922 and 1924), giving us the models near-miss papers of Hoyle and Tayler and that "expectancy" is a crucial con which have formed the basis for cosmo (1964) and Doroshkevich and Novikov cept in this respect. logical studies ever since; Robertson's (1964) on helium production, and there In the fourth and final part, Livesey (1929) elegant reformulation of these is nothing from the ever-influential gives his views on the contribution of solutions with far more satisfactory under Zeldovich. affect to this evolution of learning. He lying assumptions. And then there are the The book has been produced in camera begins by defining emotion as "a reactive observations, as usual limping along be ready format, so I do not understand why state evolving from the confluence of the hind theory, with Hubble's 1929 state the editors opted to retype every paper affects of reward and punishment and of ment, on the basis of the flimsiest of evi rather than reproduce them in facsimile. I expectancies generated through associa dence, of his immortal law. think most readers would have been will tive learning" (p. 231). After a brief and There is quite a gap until the hot Big ing to do a bit of work on the notation to selective consideration of some literature Bang of Gamov (1948) and Alpher and get that breath of history. But even if it on emotion, Livesey presents his scheme Herman (1949), and then another long reads like the ultimate summer school of the evolution of affect. He claims that: gap until those two remarkable papers proceedings, this anthology will be irre (1) the brain reward/punishment system which appeared back-to-back in Astro sistible to all with a serious interest in postulated by Olds does indeed promote physical Journal in 1965: the two-page cosmology and the history of science. 0 feelings or signals of the effectiveness of announcement by Penzias and Wilson of behaviour and is present in all vertebrates; the discovery of the microwave back Michael Rowan-Robinson is Reader in Astro nomy in the School of Mathematical Sciences, (2) the evolution of learning involving the ground, with virtually no realization of the Queen Mary College, Mile End Road, London anticipation of outcomes and the match significance of the discovery, and the has E1 4NS, UK, and author of The Cosmological ing of expectancies and outcomes pro- ty interpretation by Dicke, Peebles, Roll Distance Ladder (W.H. Freeman, 1985).