Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience
A Beginner's Guide
- 1st Edition - January 25, 2012
- Authors: Bernard Baars, Nicole M. Gage
- Language: English
Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience is a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide to cognitive neuroscience. Winner of a 2013 Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Text and… Read more
Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience is a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide to cognitive neuroscience. Winner of a 2013 Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association, this book was written by two leading experts in the field to be highly accessible to undergraduates with limited neuroscience training. It covers all aspects of the field—the neural framework, sight, sound, consciousness, learning/memory, problem solving, speech, executive control, emotions, socialization and development—in a student-friendly format with extensive pedagogy and ancillaries to aid both the student and professor.
This introductory text takes a unique thematic approach, guiding students along a clear path to understand the latest findings whether or not they have a background in neuroscience. It includes case studies and everyday examples designed to help students understand the more challenging aspects of the material. It is richly illustrated with carefully selected color graphics to enhance understanding. Enhanced pedagogy highlights key concepts for the student and aids in teaching. Chapter outlines, study questions, glossary, and image collection are also available on the student's companion website. Ancillary support saves instructors time and facilitates learning; test questions, image collection, and lecture slides are available on the instructor's manual website.
This book will be of interest to undergraduate students in Neuroscience, Psychology, and related disciplines that teach cognitive neuroscience.
- Provides a complete introduction to mind-brain science, written to be highly accessible to undergraduates with limited neuroscience training
- Richly illustrated with carefully selected color graphics to enhance understanding
- Enhanced pedagogy highlights key concepts for the student and aids in teaching - chapter outlines, study questions, glossary, and image collection are also available on student's companion website
- Ancillary support saves instructors time and facilitates learning - test questions, image collection, and lecture slides available on instructor's manual website
Undergraduate students in Neuroscience, Psychology, and related disciplines in which cognitive neuroscience is taught.
Preface
Chapter 1. Mind and brain
1.0. An invitation
2.0. Basic concepts
3.0. Hot debates
4.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 2. A useful framework
1.0. Brain regions and their functions
2.0. Cognitive functions
3.0. Using the functional diagram
4.0. Small and large mental capacities
5.0. Summary
6.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 3. The nerve cell
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Basic features
3.0. How neurons combine
4.0. Neural computing
5.0. The brain code: maps + waves
6.0. Learning and adaptation
7.0. Summary
8.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 4. The brain
1.0. Introduction
2.0. The cortex
3.0. Below the cortex
4.0. Summary
5.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 5. Brain imaging
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Electrical and magnetic fields
3.0. Functional neuroimaging: a bold new world
4.0. Correlation and causation
5.0. Summary
6.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 6. The art of seeing
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Functional organization of the visual system
3.0. Theories of visual consciousness: where does it happen?
4.0. Brain areas necessary for visual awareness: lesion studies
5.0. Now you see it, now you don't!
6.0. Summary
7.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 7. Sound, speech, and music perception
1.0. Introduction
2.0. The central auditory system
3.0. Functional mapping of auditory processing
4.0. Speech perception
5.0. Music perception
6.0. Learning and plasticity
7.0. Auditory awareness and imagery
8.0. Summary
9.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 8. The brain is conscious
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Waking: purposeful thoughts and actions
3.0. Attention
4.0. Executive control
5.0. Dreaming
6.0. Deep sleep: ups and downs
7.0. Exceptional states of mind
8.0. Summary
9.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 9. Learning and memory
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Episodic learning
3.0. Making memories last
4.0. When memories are lost
5.0. A debate: is consciousness needed for episodic learning?
6.0. Does semantic memory come from episodic traces?
7.0. Control of memory
8.0. Summary
9.0. Drawing exercises
Chapter 10. Thinking
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Explicit thinking
3.0. Mental effort
4.0. Concepts
5.0. Implicit thinking
6.0. Summary
7.0. Study questions
Chapter 11. Language
1.0. Introduction
2.0. The nature of language
3.0. Speaking
4.0. Words and meanings
5.0. Syntax and sequencing
6.0. Speech and melody
7.0. Meaning
8.0. Thoughts before language
9.0. Summary
10.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 12. Decisions, goals, and actions
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Structure of the frontal lobes
3.0. A closer look at frontal lobe functions
4.0. Neuroimaging the executive brain
5.0. Damage to the executive brain
6.0. A current view of organizing principles of the frontal lobes
7.0. Toward a unified theory of frontal lobe function
8.0. Study questions and drawing exercises
Chapter 13. Social cognition
1.0. Overview
2.0. An organizing framework for social cognition
3.0. Social cognition in the brain
4.0. Emotion and the social brain
5.0. Chapter review
6.0. Study questions
Chapter 14. Growing up
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Prenatal development: from blastocyst to baby
3.0. The developing brain: a lifetime of change
4.0. Developing mind and brain
5.0. Early brain damage and developmental plasticity
6.0. Summary
7.0. Study questions
Glossary
References
Index
"This introductory textbook on cognitive neuroscience is a welcome addition to the field...The book won the 2013 Most Promising New Textbook Award in the life sciences from the Text and Academic Authors Association, an award that recognizes excellence in first-year edition textbooks and learning materials."—The Quarterly Review of Biology, June 2014
"This introductory text offers a comprehensive and easy-to- follow guide to cognitive neuroscience. Chapters cover all aspects of the field…in a student-friendly format with extensive pedagogy and ancillaries to aid both the student and professor. Throughout the text, case studies and everyday examples are used to help students understand the more challenging aspects of the material. Written by two leading experts in the field, the text takes a unique thematic approach, guiding students along a clear path to understand the latest findings whether or not they have a background in neuroscience."—Doody.com, April 24, 2013
"Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience: A Beginner's Guide should be widely used as the required text in focused cognitive neuroscience courses taught at the undergraduate level. Additionally, the information it contains will likely be of use to those professors teaching a variety of psychology and biology elective courses and should be consulted for applicable reading material due to its clarity and style."—MedicalScienceBooks.com (2012)
"This introductory text offers a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide to cognitive neuroscience. Chapters cover all aspects of the field - the neural framework, sight, sound, consciousness, learning/memory, problem solving, speech, executive control, emotions, socialization and development - in a student-friendly format with extensive pedagogy and ancillaries to aid both the student and professor. Throughout the text, case studies and everyday examples are used to help students understand the more challenging aspects of the material. Written by two leading experts in the field, the text takes a unique thematic approach, guiding students along a clear path to understand the latest findings whether or not they have a background in neuroscience."—MedicalScienceBooks.com
"There was a lot of ambiguity in the previous texts that I used for my undergraduate cognitive neuroscience course. There was so much waffling between positions and opinions in the other books that it was hard for beginning students to get a handle on basic concepts. Overall the student feedback was quite poor. I think the new Baars/Gage Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience book is much more straight forward and to the point with the concepts."— Michael S. Cannizzaro, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, University of Vermont
- Edition: 1
- Published: January 25, 2012
- Language: English
BB
Bernard Baars
Dr. Baars is a former senior fellow at the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California, and a worldwide leader in the study of cognitive architecture and consciousness. He cofounded both the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness and the Academic Press journal Consciousness & Cognition.
Affiliations and expertise
Affiliated Fellow, Theoretical Neurobiology, The Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla, California, USANG
Nicole M. Gage
Dr. Gage is a researcher at the University of California, Irvine, and the director of UCI’s Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory. She actively teaches in the area of consciousness and cognition and is the coauthor, with Bernard Baars, of our highly successful graduate-level cognitive neuroscience textbook on which Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience is based.
Affiliations and expertise
Associate Researcher, Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USARead Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience on ScienceDirect