Emotions are central to human behavior and experience. Yet scientific theory and research ignored emotions during most of the twentieth century. This situation changed dramatically during the last 30 years of that century, which witnessed an upsurge of interest in emotions in a number of disciplines. This book arises from the 24 keynote papers presented at a symposium held in June 2001 that had the same title as this volume. The aim of that meeting was to review the state of research on emotions from a multidisciplinary perspective. Each chapter is authored by an acknowledged authority in the field. Together they provide an overview of what is being studied and thought about emotions, in disciplines ranging from neurophysiology and experimental psychology to sociology and philosophy.

'I believe that this book will have an appeal for … trainees and researchers who are trying to make sense of the complexities of feelings and emotions. … the strength of this book lies within the authors' experiences of being able to summarise previous research. They add to the body of knowledge by challenging existing theories and thus providing food for thought.'

Source: Counselling and Psychotherapy Research

'… the collection of papers presented in the book gives a wide snapshot of some of the current ideas about language acquisition and disorders today, its considers a number of clinical implications which have followed from research findings and it sets the scene for further investigations and discussion in the field.'

Source: Journal of Child Language