Consciousness and Cognition
Fragments of Mind and Brain
- 1st Edition - February 6, 2007
- Imprint: Academic Press
- Editors: Henri Cohen, Brigitte Stemmer
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 0 8 - 0 9 7 5 7 3 - 3
- Hardback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 3 7 3 7 3 4 - 2
- eBook ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 0 8 - 0 4 7 1 1 9 - 8
What were the circumstances that led to the development of our cognitive abilities from a primitive hominid to an essentially modern human? The answer to this question is of… Read more
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Request a sales quoteWhat were the circumstances that led to the development of our cognitive abilities from a primitive hominid to an essentially modern human? The answer to this question is of profound importance to understanding our present nature. Since the steep path of our cognitive development is the attribute that most distinguishes humans from other mammals, this is also a quest to determine human origins. This collection of outstanding scientific problems and the revelation of the many ways they can be addressed indicates the scope of the field to be explored and reveals some avenues along which research is advancing. Distinguished scientists and researchers who have advanced the discussion of the mind and brain contribute state-of-the-art presentations of their field of expertise. Chapters offer speculative and provocative views on topics such as body, culture, evolution, feelings, genetics, history, humor, knowledge, language, machines, neuroanatomy, pathology, and perception. This book will appeal to researchers and students in cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy.
- Includes a contribution by Noam Chomsky, one of the most cited authors of our time
Cognitive neuroscientists, experimental psychologists, and cognitive scientists.
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: How Did Modern Human Cognition Evolve?
- Publisher Summary
- OUR LARGE BRAIN: DOES SIZE MATTER?
- TOOLS, DECORATION AND ART
- WHERE DID MODERN HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS COME FROM?
- CONCLUSION
- Chapter 2: Taking Up Arms
- Publisher Summary
- THINKING BIG
- THE QUESTION OF LANGUAGE
- LANGUAGE IS A HAND-ME-DOWN!
- CONVINCING MYSELF
- BOOK FOR SALE
- OBJECTIONS
- WHEN DID AUTONOMOUS SPEECH EMERGE?
- NOT WITH A BANG, BUT WITH A WHIMPER
- Chapter 3: Celebrating 300 Million Years of the Mind: A Bird’s-Eye View
- Publisher Summary
- WHAT DO WE MEAN BY ‘THE MIND’?
- FLYING WITHOUT FRONTAL LOBES
- WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE, AND HOW CAN THIS BE MEASURED IN BIRDS?
- BIRDS, LIKE HUMANS, LEARN FROM CAREFUL OBSERVATION
- HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE WITH SO LITTLE NEOCORTICAL TISSUE?
- FROM STORIES TO CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS
- TALKING WITH ALEX
- BIRD PLAY
- IF MY BIRD LOOKS HAPPY, IS SHE REALLY HAPPY?
- ANTHROPOMORPHISM
- CONCLUSION
- Chapter 4: Was Medieval Cell Doctrine More Modern Than We Thought?
- Publisher Summary
- A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH – THE STANDARD VIEW
- NEW VERSION – IT WAS IN THE BRAIN ALL ALONG
- EARLY STUDIES OF PATIENTS WITH BRAIN DAMAGE
- A LITTLE LATIN TO HELP SORT OUT THE PUZZLE
- INFORMATION FLOW – MAKING THE MODEL DYNAMIC
- THE BRAIN’S CONTROL OF MOVEMENT
- A SUMMARY AND OUTLINE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Chapter 5: Can Evolution Produce Robots?
- Publisher Summary
- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
- HOW DOES ARTIFICIAL EVOLUTION WORK?
- HOW ARTIFICIAL NEURONS WORK
- HOW TO GET ROBOTS TO BEHAVE
- WHAT ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETS CAN DO
- A USEFUL APPLICATION: GETTING RID OF TRASH
- LEARNING AND EVOLUTION
- WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF THINGS?
- OF WHAT IMPORTANCE IS EVOLUTIONARY ROBOTICS?
- FUTURE VISIONS
- ACKNOWLEDGMENT
- Chapter 6: The Thought-Translation Device
- Publisher Summary
- USING BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACES (BCIs) TO TRANSLATE THOUGHTS INTO ACTION
- COMMUNICATING WITH SLOW CORTICAL POTENTIALS
- THE ORIGIN OF SLOW CORTICAL POTENTIALS IN THE HUMAN BRAIN
- THE TTD IN A NUTSHELL
- SETTING UP AND USING THE TTD
- HOW THE LANGUAGE SUPPORT PROGRAM WORKS
- THE TRAINING PROCEDURE
- THE TRAINING OF PATIENT E.M.
- TTD – VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Chapter 7: Babes in Arms: Studies in Laterality
- Publisher Summary
- THE LEFT SIDE RULES
- A BIAS REDISCOVERED
- PROBLEMS FOR A HANDEDNESS EXPLANATION
- IS THE BIAS A MATTER OF POSTURE?
- WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BABIES AND BOOKS?
- TYPES OF HOLDS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS
- STATES OF ‘ACTION-APPROACH’
- THE ANATOMY OF EMOTION
- EMOTIONS, ATTENTION, AND SIDE OF HOLDING
- CAN THE ATTENTION HYPOTHESIS ACCOUNT FOR OTHER DETAILS OF THE HOLDING-SIDE BIAS?
- AN EXCEPTION TO THE LEFT-SIDE RULE
- WHY DON’T LEFT-HAND PROHIBITIONS DECREASE LEFT-SIDE HOLDING?
- IN SUM
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Journals
- Web sites and electronic resources
- Chapter 8: Why a Creative Brain? Evolutionary Setups for Off-Line Planning of Coherent Stages
- Publisher Summary
- CREATIVITY IS AN EVOLUTIONARY NEWCOMER
- CREATIVITY FOR LANGUAGE INSTEAD?
- WHEN AN ADVANCE PLAN IS NEEDED
- INNOVATION DURING GET-SET
- THE DARWINIAN PROCESS
- SPEEDING UP THE DARWINIAN PROCESS
- NEW USES FOR OLD THINGS
- LONG SENTENCES AND COHERENCE
- CREATING NEW LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION
- Chapter 9: Creativity: Method or Magic?
- Publisher Summary
- WHAT IS NOT CREATIVE?
- CREATIVE TRAIT OR CREATIVE STATE?
- UNDERLYING MECHANISMS
- CONCLUSIONS
- Chapter 10: The Cross-Cultural Brain
- Publisher Summary
- ALEXITHYMIA
- THE LATERALITY HYPOTHESIS OF ALEXITHYMIA
- A ‘FLASHY’ WAY TO DO EXPERIMENTS
- THE EXPERIMENTS
- AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN OUR ONLINE EXPERIMENTS
- Chapter 11: Where’s the Missing Body? A Puzzle for Cognitive Science
- Publisher Summary
- ACT I
- ACT II
- ACT III
- ACT IV
- Chapter 12: Whose Free Will is it Anyway? or, The Illusion of Determinism
- Publisher Summary
- IS FREE WILL MORE THAN A FEELING?
- NEUROSCIENCE, NEURAL REDUCTIONISM, AND DETERMINISM
- THE IMPLICATIONS OF REDUCTIONISM AND DETERMINISM FOR SOCIETY AND PSYCHOLOGY
- PSYCHOLOGY AND MATERIALISM OF THE MIND
- MODERN NEUROSCIENCE AND NON-DETERMINISM: RADICAL CHANGES OF THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY
- THE CRUX OF THE FREE-WILL DEBATE: IS BRAIN ACTIVITY PREDICTABLE?
- FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
- Chapter 13: Affective Neuroscience and the Ancestral Sources of Human Feelings
- Publisher Summary
- SOME PERSONAL LESSONS AND LESSNS ABOUT THE EVOLVED NATURE OF EMOTIONS
- ARCHAEOLOGY OF MIND: THE AFFECTIVE SOURCES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
- FIVE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN AFFECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS AND COGNITIVE CONSCIOUSNESS
- THE EMOTIONAL UNDERPINNINGS OF HUMAN NATURE – TOWARD A NEUROEVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOBIOLOGY
- LEARNING IN EMOTIONAL SYSTEMS AND MORE ON THE PERVASIVE EMOTION-COGNITION INTERACTIONS
- DEVELOPMENT OF NEW PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATIONS
- MIND VIEWS: EMOTIONAL STATES AND COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING
- IN SUM
- Chapter 14: The Funny Meat Behind Our Eyes
- Publisher Summary
- HUMOR AND LAUGHTER FOR FUN AND (MAYBE) HEALTH
- HUMOR AND LAUGHTER FROM A BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
- THE FUNCTIONAL COGNITIVE ANATOMY OF A JOKE
- WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
- Chapter 15: Practicing Safe Stress: A Selective Overview of the Neuroscience Research
- Publisher Summary
- STRESS AND STRESSORS
- ACUTE STRESS AND MEMORY
- CHRONIC STRESS, BRAIN STRUCTURE, AND FUNCTION
- STRESS AND MENTAL HEALTH
- HOW STRESS SCULPTS THE DEVELOPING BRAIN
- GENDER, STRESS, AND THE BRAIN
- COPING WITH STRESS
- Chapter 16: Petrol Sniffing, the Brain, and Aboriginal Culture: Between Sorcery and Neuroscience
- Publisher Summary
- PETROL SNIFFING
- ABORIGINAL CULTURE
- NEUROSCIENCE
- BOTH WAYS
- CONCLUSION
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Chapter 17: Chatting with Noam Chomsky
- Publisher Summary
- Index
- Edition: 1
- Published: February 6, 2007
- Imprint: Academic Press
- No. of pages: 288
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN: 9780080975733
- Hardback ISBN: 9780123737342
- eBook ISBN: 9780080471198
HC
Henri Cohen
Dr. Henri Cohen’s research interests focus on speech and language development and neurological disorders, learning and emotion in Parkinson’s disease, complexity and learning, skill acquisition and interference, and origin of language. He is Professor of Psychology (ret.) at Université du Québec à Montréal, and visiting scholar, at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de la Frontera, Chile. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, and edited two books (with Elsevier) on cognition and consciousness, and on categorization, and a book on the origins of language (Benjamins). He is the current editor of Brain and Cognition (Elsevier), and past editor of Journal of Neurolinguistics (Elsevier).
Affiliations and expertise
Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Dept of Psychology, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, CanadaRead Consciousness and Cognition on ScienceDirect