When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the “mind club.” It’s easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of mind do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds—while incredibly important—are a matter of perception. Their research opens a trove of new findings, with insights into human behavior that are fascinating, frightening and funny. The Mind Club explains why we love some animals and eat others, why people debate the existence of God so intensely, how good people can be so cruel, and why robots make such poor lovers. By investigating the mind perception of extraordinary targets—animals, machines, comatose people, god—Wegner and Gray explain what it means to have a mind, and why it matter so much. Fusing cutting-edge research and personal anecdotes, The Mind Club explores the moral dimensions of mind perception with wit and compassion, revealing the surprisingly simple basis for what compels us to love and hate, to harm and to protect.

    However, as the authors of this accessible guide demonstrate, there are at least some things we do understand about the brain, things which may lead us to think quite differently about the way we view ourselves and workings of our minds. Starting off with a brief tour of the history of neuroscience, from Aristotle's view that the function of the brain was to cool the heart to the ancient practice of drilling a hole in the skull to relieve headaches, the book covers all of the key areas - including the anatomy and development of the brain, the workings of the sensory and nervous systems, the function of sleep and the capacity for language - in a clear and comprehensible manner. The authors also consider the roots - and possible treatments - of some of the most common psychological disorders, and examine the way in which science may help us to find answers to philosophical questions about the nature of consciousness and the identity of the self. to be able to extend life well beyond the standard three score years and ten, this lively and entertaining introduction assumes no previous scientific knowledge and will be suitable for readers of all backgrounds.

    B.J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University. Fogg has coined the phrase Captology(an acronym for computers as persuasive technologies) to capture the domain of research, design, and applications of persuasive computers.In this thought-provoking book, based on nine years of research in captology, Dr. Fogg reveals how Web sites, software applications, and mobile devices can be used to change people's attitudes and behavior. Technology designers, marketers, researchers, consumers--anyone who wants to leverage or simply understand the persuasive power of interactive technology--will appreciate the compelling insights and illuminating examples found inside.Persuasive technology can be controversial--and it should be. Who will wield this power of digital influence? And to what end? Now is the time to survey the issues and explore the principles of persuasive technology, and B.J. Fogg has written this book to be your guide.

    Introducing students to the many facets of neural networks, this text provides many case studies to illustrate their real-life, practical applications.

    Our brave new technologies offer incredible opportunities for work and play. But at what price?   Now renowned neuroscientist Susan Greenfield—known in the United Kingdom for challenging entrenched conventional views—brings together a range of scientific studies, news events, and cultural criticism to create an incisive snapshot of “the global now.” Disputing the assumption that our technologies are harmless tools, Greenfield explores whether incessant exposure to social media sites, search engines, and videogames is capable of rewiring our brains, and whether the minds of people born before and after the advent of the Internet differ.   Stressing the impact on Digital Natives—those who’ve never known a world without the Internet—Greenfield exposes how neuronal networking may be affected by unprecedented bombardments of audiovisual stimuli, how gaming can shape a chemical landscape in the brain similar to that in gambling addicts, how surfing the Net risks placing a premium on information rather than on deep knowledge and understanding, and how excessive use of social networking sites limits the maturation of empathy and identity.   But Mind Change also delves into the potential benefits of our digital lifestyle. Sifting through the cocktail of not only threat but opportunity these technologies afford, Greenfield explores how gaming enhances vision and motor control, how touch tablets aid students with developmental disabilities, and how political “clicktivism” foments positive change.   In a world where adults spend ten hours a day online, and where tablets are the common means by which children learn and play, Mind Change reveals as never before the complex physiological, social, and cultural ramifications of living in the digital age. A book that will be to the Internet what An Inconvenient Truth was to global warming, Mind Change is provocative, alarming, and a call to action to ensure a future in which technology fosters—not frustrates—deep thinking, creativity, and true fulfillment.

    Our memory is unreliable; we can't multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but. Drawing on striking examples and fascinating studies, neuroscientist Dean Buonomano illuminates the causes and consequences of these "bugs" in terms of the brain's innermost workings and their evolutionary purposes. He then goes one step further, examining how our brains function-and malfunction-in the digital, predator-free, information-saturated, special effects-addled world that we have built for ourselves. Along the way, Brain Bugs gives us the tools to hone our cognitive strengths while recognizing our inherent weaknesses.

    This book includes a chapter on friendship for women with ADHD.

    We're all looking for new ways of thinking that can bring about real solutions to modern problems, from the pursuit of inner serenity to solving world conflicts. In Do You QuantumThink? author Dianne Collins shares her ingenious discovery that reveals a critical missing link to make sense of our changing times. Her discovery provides us with the understanding and methodology to rise above problems of today by laying the foundation for an entirely new way to think.Part science, part philosophy, part spirituality, Do You QuantumThink? draws on a wide spectrum of sources, from cutting edge innovations in the sciences to the insights of the world's greatest spiritual leaders. This book will make you laugh, free you from limiting ideas, and introduce you to the most advanced principles and practical methods for living. Do You QuantumThink? will rock your world in the best of ways as you experience one revelation after another.

    Juan is that rarest of rarities, a scholar with a sense of humor. He fearlessly tours the brain's mysterious corridors, discussing such wide-ranging topics as phobias, compulsive water drinking, serial killers, the secrets of hypnotism, and the man who thought he was a cat. You will find this book absolutely engrossing.Do kleptomaniacs have a legitimate excuse to steal? Can excessive TV watching physically "shape" a child's growing brain?These answers and scores more fill Dr. Stephen Juan's fascinating and endlessly entertaining book The Odd Brain. Following up his popular first book, The Odd Body, Dr. Juan takes us on an animated tour of the enigmatic organ that sits on top of them all.Equal parts scholarly professor--he teaches at the University of Sydney--cultural detective, and theater of oddities tour guide, Dr. Juan explores bizarre brain disorders and the normal-but-still-weird brain phenomena that we all occasionally experience (like deja vu). Through it all, Dr. Juan pulls off the nifty trick of making the clinical both clear and entertaining.Each chapter is packed with real-life anecdotes and case studies. These include the Criminal Brain, the Savant Brain, the Shy Brain, the Suicidal Brain, the Thrill-Seeking Brain, the Obsessive-Compulsive Brain, and more than 20 others.For anyone who's ever witnessed unusual behavior and thought, "Now, what would make a person do that?" The Odd Brain is sure to have an answer.

    It is a remarkable text that makes an extraordinary amount of recent scholarship accessible and compelling. And with its dramatic new art program, new case studies and pedagogy, and new companion Web site, the Fifth Edition provides both the most up-to-date understanding of the field and the most effective ways to teach and learn it.

    But through her formidable memory and determination, she made her way to graduate school, where she chanced upon research that inspired her to invent cognitive exercises to "fix" her brain. Now the Director of Arrowsmith School, the author interweaves her personal tale with riveting case histories from her more than 30 years of working with both children and adults to restructure their own brains.The Woman Who Changed Her Brain powerfully and poignantly illustrates how the lives of children and adults struggling with learning disorders can be dramatically transformed. This remarkable book by a brilliant pathbreaker deepens our understanding of how the brain works and of the brain’s profound impact on how we participate in the world. Our brains shape us, but this book offers clear and hopeful evidence of the corollary: we can shape our brains.

    Unveiling here the kind of cutting-edge research that has made them giants in their fields, Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson show us the truth about what meditation can really do for us, as well as exactly how to get the most out of it.Sweeping away common misconceptions and neuromythology to open readers' eyes to the ways data has been distorted to sell mind-training methods, the authors demonstrate that beyond the pleasant states mental exercises can produce, the real payoffs are the lasting personality traits that can result. But short daily doses will not get us to the highest level of lasting positive change--even if we continue for years--without specific additions. More than sheer hours, we need smart practice, including crucial ingredients such as targeted feedback from a master teacher and a more spacious, less attached view of the self, all of which are missing in widespread versions of mind training. The authors also reveal the latest data from Davidson's own lab that point to a new methodology for developing a broader array of mind-training methods with larger implications for how we can derive the greatest benefits from the practice.Exciting, compelling, and grounded in new research, this is one of those rare books that has the power to change us at the deepest level.

    According to Llinas, the mindness state evolved to allow predictive interactions between mobile creatures and their environment. He illustrates the early evolution of mind through a primitive animal called the sea squirt. The mobile larval form has a brainlike ganglion that receives sensory information about the surrounding environment. As an adult, the sea squirt attaches itself to a stationary object then digests most of its own brain. This suggests that the nervous system evolved to allow active movement in animals. To move through the environment safely, a creature must anticipate the outcome of each movement on the basis of incoming sensory data. Thus the capacity to predict is most likely the ultimate brain function. One could even say that Self is the centralization of prediction.

    To meet it, you need a fully integrated text and supplements package that sets the stage for a perfectly choreographed learning experience.

    In this book you will see how commonly performed operations can be found to be useless or even harmful when properly evaluated. That these claims come from an experienced, practicing orthopedic surgeon who performs many of these operations himself, makes the unsettling argument particularly compelling. Of course no surgeon is recommending invasive surgery in bad faith, but Ian Harris argues that the evidence for the success for many common operations, including knee arthroscopies, back fusion or cardiac stenting, become current accepted practice without full examination of the evidence.