# The Brain Does Not Separate Cognition From Emotion by Lisa Feldman Barrett > "Some topics in psychology have advanced beyond essentialist views. Memory, for example, was once thought to be a single process, and later was split into distinct subtypes like semantic memory and episodic memory. Memories are now considered to be constructed within the brain's functional architecture and not to reside in specific brain tissue. One hopes that other areas of psychology and neuroscience will soon follow suit. For example, cognition and emotion are still considered separate processes in the mind and brain, but there is growing evidence that the brain does not respect this division. This means every psychological theory in which emotions and cognitions battle each other, or in which cognitions regulate emotions, is wrong." > **— Lisa Feldman Barrett**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready for Retirement?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [Essentialist Views of the Mind](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25400) — Edge published this passage in its 2014 Annual Question collection, *What Scientific Idea Is Ready for Retirement?*. The full response preserves the qualifications and argument surrounding this exact extract. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2014 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2014 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first archive record for the complete yearly response cohort. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] - **Article:** [[articles/Escape Hatch in the Skull|Escape Hatch in the Skull]] - **Article:** [[articles/Science of Digital Consciousness|Science of Digital Consciousness]] - **Article:** [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Host Infrastructure Overview]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Predictive Processing|Predictive Processing]] - [[wiki/Biological Intelligence Operating System|Biological Intelligence Operating System]] - [[wiki/world and embodied models|world and embodied models]] - [[wiki/Neural Plasticity|Neural Plasticity]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "Some topics in psychology have advanced beyond essentialist views. Memory, for example, was once thought to be a single process, and later was split into distinct subtypes like semantic memory and episodic memory. Memories are now considered to be constructed within the brain's functional architecture and not to reside in specific brain tissue. One hopes that other areas of psychology and neuroscience will soon follow suit. For example, cognition and emotion are still considered separate processes in the mind and brain, but there is growing evidence that the brain does not respect this division. This means every psychological theory in which emotions and cognitions battle each other, or in which cognitions regulate emotions, is wrong." — Lisa Feldman Barrett, 2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready for Retirement?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-lisa-barrett-brain-cognition-emotion-not-separate ```