Book picks similar to
An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Visual Cognition by Stephen M. Kosslyn
cognitive-science
mind
science-philosophy-psychology
textbooks
Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Rules
Jeff Johnson - 2010
But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In "Designing with the Mind in Mind," Jeff Johnson, author of the best selling "GUI Bloopers," provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow. * The first practical, all-in-one source for practitioners on user interface design rules and why, when and how to apply them.* Provides just enough background into the reasoning behind interface design rules that practitioners can make informed decisions in every project.* Gives practitioners the insight they need to make educated design decisions when confronted with tradeoffs, including competing design rules, time constrictions, or limited resources.
Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions
Jaak Panksepp - 1998
However, with advances in neurobiology and neuroscience, researchers are demonstrating that this position is wrong as they move closer to a lasting understanding of the biology and psychology of emotion. In Affective Neuroscience, Jaak Panksepp provides the most up-to-date information about the brain-operating systems that organize the fundamental emotional tendencies of all mammals. Presenting complex material in a readable manner, the book offers a comprehensive summary of the fundamental neural sources of human and animal feelings, as well as a conceptual framework for studying emotional systems of the brain. Panksepp approaches emotions from the perspective of basic emotion theory but does not fail to address the complex issues raised by constructionist approaches. These issues include relations to human consciousness and the psychiatric implications of this knowledge. The book includes chapters on sleep and arousal, pleasure and fear systems, the sources of rage and anger, and the neural control of sexuality, as well as the more subtle emotions related to maternal care, social loss, and playfulness. Representing a synthetic integration of vast amounts of neurobehavioral knowledge, including relevant neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurochemistry, this book will be one of the most important contributions to understanding the biology of emotions since Darwins The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Cognition
Mark H. Ashcraft - 2001
A major section provides background and information on neurons and the brain. This text is directed primarily toward undergraduate students at junior and senior level.
Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought
George Lakoff - 1998
In addressing them, philosophers have made certain fundamental assumptions-that we can know our own minds by introspection, that most of our thinking about the world is literal, and that reason is disembodied and universal-that are now called into question by well-established results of cognitive science. It has been shown empirically that: Most thought is unconscious. We have no direct conscious access to the mechanisms of thought and language. Our ideas go by too quickly and at too deep a level for us to observe them in any simple way. Abstract concepts are mostly metaphorical. Much of the subject matter of philosophy, such as the nature of time, morality, causation, the mind, and the self, relies heavily on basic metaphors derived from bodily experience. What is literal in our reasoning about such concepts is minimal and conceptually impoverished. All the richness comes from metaphor. For instance, we have two mutually incompatible metaphors for time, both of which represent it as movement through space: in one it is a flow past us and in the other a spatial dimension we move along. Mind is embodied. Thought requires a body-not in the trivial sense that you need a physical brain to think with, but in the profound sense that the very structure of our thoughts comes from the nature of the body. Nearly all of our unconscious metaphors are based on common bodily experiences. Most of the central themes of the Western philosophical tradition are called into question by these findings. The Cartesian person, with a mind wholly separate from the body, does not exist. The Kantian person, capable of moral action according to the dictates of a universal reason, does not exist. The phenomenological person, capable of knowing his or her mind entirely through introspection alone, does not exist. The utilitarian person, the Chomskian person, the poststructuralist person, the computational person, and the person defined by analytic philosophy all do not exist. Then what does? Lakoff and Johnson show that a philosophy responsible to the science of mind offers radically new and detailed understandings of what a person is. After first describing the philosophical stance that must follow from taking cognitive science seriously, they re-examine the basic concepts of the mind, time, causation, morality, and the self: then they rethink a host of philosophical traditions, from the classical Greeks through Kantian morality through modern analytic philosophy. They reveal the metaphorical structure underlying each mode of thought and show how the metaphysics of each theory flows from its metaphors. Finally, they take on two major issues of twentieth-century philosophy: how we conceive rationality, and how we conceive language.
Theoretical Neuroscience: Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Neural Systems
Peter Dayan - 2001
This text introduces the basic mathematical and computational methods of theoretical neuroscience and presents applications in a variety of areas including vision, sensory-motor integration, development, learning, and memory.The book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the relationship between sensory stimuli and neural responses, focusing on the representation of information by the spiking activity of neurons. Part II discusses the modeling of neurons and neural circuits on the basis of cellular and synaptic biophysics. Part III analyzes the role of plasticity in development and learning. An appendix covers the mathematical methods used, and exercises are available on the book's Web site.
Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing
Richard Langton Gregory - 1969
Richard Gregory offers clear explanations of how we see brightness, movement, color, and objects, and he explores the phenomena of visual illusions to establish principles about how perception normally works and why it sometimes fails.Illusion continues to be a major theme in the book, which provides a comprehensive classification system. There are also sections on what babies see and how they learn to see, on motion perception, the relationship between vision and consciousness, and on the impact of new brain imaging techniques.
Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales
John Tyler Bonner - 2006
In his hallmark friendly style, he explores the universal impact of being the right size. By examining stories ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Gulliver's Travels, he shows that humans have always been fascinated by things big and small. Why then does size always reside on the fringes of science and never on the center stage? Why do biologists and others ponder size only when studying something else--running speed, life span, or metabolism? Why Size Matters, a pioneering book of big ideas in a compact size, gives size its due by presenting a profound yet lucid overview of what we know about its role in the living world. Bonner argues that size really does matter--that it is the supreme and universal determinant of what any organism can be and do. For example, because tiny creatures are subject primarily to forces of cohesion and larger beasts to gravity, a fly can easily walk up a wall, something we humans cannot even begin to imagine doing.Bonner introduces us to size through the giants and dwarfs of human, animal, and plant history and then explores questions including the physics of size as it affects biology, the evolution of size over geological time, and the role of size in the function and longevity of living things.As this elegantly written book shows, size affects life in its every aspect. It is a universal frame from which nothing escapes.
The Working Brain: An Introduction To Neuropsychology
Alexander R. Luria - 1973
The main part of the book describes what we know today about the individual systems that make up the human brain and about the role of the individual zones of the cerebral hemispheres in the task of providing the necessary conditions for higher forms of mental activity to take place. Finally, Luria analyzes the cerebral organization of perception and action, of attention and memory, or speech and intellectual processes, and attempts to fit the facts obtained by neuropsychological studies of individual brain systems into their appropriate place in the grand design of psychological science.
Summary and Analysis of The Handmaid's Tale: Based on the Book by Margaret Atwood (Smart Summaries)
Worth Books - 2017
Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood includes: Historical context Part-by-part summaries Analysis of the main characters Themes and symbols Important quotes Fascinating trivia Glossary of terms Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work About Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood’s dystopian literary masterpiece tells the story of Offred, a Handmaid living in the near future in what was once the United States. A new theocratic regime called the Republic of Gilead has come to power and changed life as she knew it. Once Offred had a her own name and a loving family—a husband and daughter—both of which were taken from her; now she belongs to the Commander and his hostile wife, and her only value lies in her ability to bear a child for them. She used to read books and learn; now such things are forbidden to all women. Gripping, disturbing, and so relevant today, The Handmaid’s Tale is a brilliant novel and a chilling warning about what can happen when extreme ideas are taken to their logical conclusions. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of fiction.
Essential English for Foreign Students, Book II, Students' Book
C.E. Eckersley - 1940
It is planned to give a solid basis of the structures and vocabulary of English. Each book contains material for about a year's work, the vocabulary rising to some 3,000 words.The Teacher's Books provide notes on each lesson, the vocabulary to be taught, supplementary grammatical material and answers to exercises.In this new edition some of the grammatical sections have been, rewritten and expanded, and parts of the text and many illustrations have been brought up to date. Fundamentally, however, the new edition remains the same as previous editions.
Money & Capital Markets
Peter S. Rose - 1989
This book discuses various major types of financial institutions and financial instruments present along with how and why the system of money and capital markets is changing. It also provides a descriptive explanation of how interest rates and security values are determined.
Family Nurse Practitioner Certification Intensive Review: Fast Facts and Practice Questions
Maria T. Codina Leik - 2007
Using test-taking strategies meticulously developed by the author, the Review provides unique question dissection techniques, targeted key content review, 600 in-depth practice questions, and detailed, current exam information in a fast facts style. This second edition includes new chapters on pediatrics and adolescence and an extensive new section on geriatrics that encompasses body/metabolic changes, common disorders, and hospice/ethical considerations. The book also presents an expanded, intensive pharmacology review, 100 new exam questions, and is the only review to offer a new research chapter providing elements of research needed for E-B practice.The book reviews the complete lifespan from pediatrics to geriatrics and including pregnancy, and covers non-clinical content including ethics, medico-legal issues, advanced practice law, and reimbursement guidelines. The review of primary care disorders is organized by body system. The content is applicable for certification exams for both the ANCC and the AANP. This book is also a great companion to the FNP Certification Review app, coming soon for your iPhone or iPad!New to this edition: Reorganized for greater ease of useProvides extensive new section on geriatricsContains expanded coverage of pediatrics and adolescenceOffers expanded intensive-style pharmacology reviewPresents elements of research needed for E-B practiceIncludes 100 new questions for a title of 600 high-yield questionsWhy use this review?Delineates strategic question dissection techniques for study success developed by the author, a leading provider of exam preparation education for over 20 yearsProvides precisely targeted content reviewOffers 600 in-depth practice questions and detailed exam informationIncludes Exam Tips and Clinical Tips to help prioritize test content.It is the only book to present elements of research needed for E-B practiceOutlines normal findings and benign variants in physical assessment of each body systemIncludes succinct review of diseases commonly seen in primary careIt's a great companion to the forthcoming FNP Certification Review app!
The Quantum Brain: The Search for Freedom and the Next Generation of Man
Jeffrey Satinover - 2001
To answer them, psychiatrist, researcher, and critically acclaimed author Jeffrey Satinover first explores the latest discoveries in neuroscience, modern physics, and radically new kinds of computing, then shows how, together, they suggest the brain embodies and amplifies the mysterious laws of quantum physics. By its doing so, Satinover argues we are elevated above the mere learning machines modern science assumes us to be. Satinover also makes two provocative predictions: We will soon construct artificial devices as free and aware as we are; as well as begin a startling re-evaluation of just who and what we are, of our place in the universe, and perhaps even of God.
Solutions of Selected Problems for Mathematical Methods in the Physical
Mary L. Boas - 1984
Intuition and computational abilities are stressed. Original material on DE and multiple integrals has been expanded.
Human Resource Management
R. Wayne Mondy - 1990
It reflects the latest information (in 2001), including the impact of global competition and rapid technological advances, that have accelerated trends such as shared service centres, outsourcing and just-in-time training. A number of actual company examples demonstrates how concepts are being used in several leading-edge organizations.