British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Volume 51, Issue 4, pp. Issue 4, pp.
Moods have global and profound effects on our thoughts, motivations and behavior.
To understand human behavior and cognition fully, we must understand moods. I lay the foundations of a new theory of moods that identifies them with processes of our cognitive functional architecture. Moods differ fundamentally from some of our other affective states and hence require distinct explanatory tools. The computational theory of mood I propose places them within the context of other mental phenomena and is consistent with the empirical data on moods.