Cognitive Books - Page 12

Come to Your Senses: Demystifying the Mind Body Connection

Stanley Block

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The last self help book I'll ever need 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This book has been like a miracle for me. It tells you HOW to
reach that beautiful spiritual place so many of us have strived
for with little or no success. It's so simple! I can't thank Dr. Block enough for quite literally changing my life. I hope to
get a chance to meet him in person one day. By the way, this is the first book I've ever written a review on.

Editorial Review:

There is such a thing as a quick fix, says former Beverly Hills psychoanalyst Stanley Block. In Come to Your Senses, he explains the (I-System) Identity System, a pioneering way of breaking through limitations and allowing the natural self to thrive. How does it work? By simply "coming to their senses" (taste, smell, touch, sight, and sound), readers recognize — and overcome — that constant mental tug-of-war that promotes defeat and depression.

With his trademarked techniques of mapping and bridging, Dr. Block enables readers to recognize and befriend the thoughts and fears that encourage them to set, stifling patterns. Using these techniques, alcoholics have started their transformation within days; athletes have improved performance; obese patients have lost weight and kept it off; and everyday people have altered their lives, within hours, in profound ways.

Human Learning

Jeanne Ellis Ormrod

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Human Learning 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

This is an amazingly well written text. Ms Ormrod actually practices what she preaches, so the book is organised as an exemplar of how to help students learn. I bought the book as an optional text for a Masters in Education, then I sat up one night to check it out. It became compulsive reading, very hard to put down. It gives a broad overview of Educational Psychology thinking over a wide period of time, and encapsulates it. It is full of useful references. Many of my colleagues have borrowed this book for various courses and for course development for educational projects.

Editorial Review:

This best-seller covers a wide range of theories—conditioning, social-cognitive, information processing, and social constructivism—while providing solid material on the psychology of motivation. The author's lucid prose demonstrates how different concepts of learning relate to one another; dozens of proven examples emphasize meaningful learning and the implications of the latest research. Clearly and entertainingly written, this book covers the following topics: learning and the brain; behaviorism and classical conditioning; effects of aversive stimuli; social-cognitive theory; long-term memory; complex learning and cognition; and motivation. An obvious resource for teachers of students of all ages and backgrounds, this book can be an interesting read for those involved in any facet of the learning process; as well as psychologists and therapists.

The Rainbow Machine: Tales from a Neurolinguist's Journal

Andrew T. Austin

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Hypnosis

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Funny, irreverent, and wise 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I got this book in the mail on a busy day and didn't surface until I finished it some five hours later, smiling. Full of outrageous stories showing therapeutic NLP in action, this book is loads of fun. Although intended for people already familiar with NLP and/or therapy, it's accessible to anyone. I've read it twice so far and learned lots both times. Prepare to be shocked, to laugh, to change, and to look at the world differently after you're done.

Wilma Keppel, NLP developer

Entertaining, Provocative and Enlightening 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is a most surprising lesson in the unexpected. Andrew comes up with unique and innovative responses that get the person to think, interpret and change. A forward moving book that readjusts your thinking as you read it.Flexibility and freedom from frozen maps of reality breathes life into this work.Thank you for your courage and inspiration.
Tobias S. Schreiber, LPC,CTS

Editorial Review:

The Rainbow Machine: tales from a neurolinguist s journal, by Andrew T. Austin, offers fascinating glimpses into the personal change work of a top NLP practitioner and registered nurse, in settings from mental hospitals, emergency rooms, and neurosurgery departments, to individual hypnosis and psychotherapy. Rollicking, creative, lively, funny, outrageous, touching, profound. A must read romp for anyone interested in therapy or personal change.

How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age

Theodore Schick, Lewis Vaughn

List Price: $21.95 By: Mayfield Publishing Company Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $1.50

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Logic & Language

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Don't waste your money 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This book isn't so much about developing better thinking skills as it is a collection of the authors' opinions presented as science. It can help you practice your ability to locate logical fallacies in arguments, since almost every argument in the book contains at least one. My favorite is the voodoo-math that they use to explain apparent pre-cognition as the result of statistical probability. The first half of the formula that they present relies on the notion that the average person knows a very large number of people who are all, for some reason, dying off at a rate faster than one person every four days. The second half of the formula is omitted entirely, and they instead skip directly to their conclusion. I think that the authors were relying on the intimidation that some people feel when faced with a series of big numbers to keep anyone from analyzing their absurd argument.
The authors also frequently use straw man arguments and several variations of the argument from intimidation in an attempt to reinforce their opinions as facts. If you are really interested in developing your thinking skills, then checking out de Bono's books and The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools would be a good start. There are many great books on the topic, and there's also lots of good information for free online.

Editorial Review:

Step-by-step procedures for evaluating the New Age claims that permeate our culture.

Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy)

John R. Searle

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Confused, Muddled Thinking 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 8 people found this review helpful.

John Searle provides what he thinks is a corrective to other introductory works in the philosophy of mind. In traditionally Searlean prose, he guides us through what he sees as the major problems of philosophy of mind, giving a background and providing some solutions of his own to the major problems. The writing style is clear, simple, and concise, which makes the book quite readable and indeed pleasant at many points. It is when you begin to dig beneath the words and extract Searle's arguments that the book falls apart.

In the beginning, we see a rather good explication of Descartes' views on the mind, which lead into contemporary approaches to the subject. This is where the book runs into problems. The first approach other than dualism that Searle considers is behaviorism. Here, he betrays philosophical superficiality by completely ignoring the valuable points made by behaviorists and painting a terrible caricature that barely qualifies as a straw man. As he continues, it becomes obvious that Searle has failed to understand virtually every argument in the history of the philosophy of mind. His treatment of functionalism is terribly vague and while his outline of various anti-functionalist arguments is useful, his characterization of their rebuttals is not.

As the work goes on, we get more into Searle's positive work, which is even more muddled than his critical work. He freely contradicts himself, such as in the chapter on free will, where he goes against one of his core philosophical principles (common sense). There is also his theory of consciousness, in which the brain causes the mind, which is separate and sits on top of the brain, but it is not dualism. Such conceptual muddles plague this book, making it difficult to even make sense of what Searle wants to say.

In the end, the book deserves two stars because it causes violent disagreement and is a suitable starting place for discussions and inquiry. However, anyone reading this book would do well to get another introductory book (I recommend Kim) or a good anthology (I recommend Chalmers) to accompany it, because alone the book is wholly inadequate at mapping the field or providing a positive position. It is probably more valuable as an introduction to John Searle, and someone interested in Searle's philosophy of mind would find this an easy way to get acquainted with his ideas.

Editorial Review:

The philosophy of mind is unique among contemporary philosophical subjects, writes John Searle, "in that all of the most famous and influential theories are false." One of the world's most eminent thinkers, Searle dismantles these theories as he presents a vividly written, comprehensive introduction to the mind. He begins with a look at the twelve problems of philosophy of mind--which he calls "Descartes and Other Disasters"--problems which he returns to throughout the volume, as he illuminates such topics as materialism, consciousness, the mind-body problem, intentionality, mental causation, free will, and the self. The book offers a refreshingly direct and engaging introduction to one of the most intriguing areas of philosophy.

Human Error

James Reason

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Human Error - by James Reason 5 out of 5 stars.
22 of 22 people found this review helpful.

An excellent treatise on the subject of human error, written with a cognitive psychology approach. The treatment of the subject matter is more theoretical and less practice-oriented. The book begins with clear definitions, classifications and explanations on the different types of errors, quickly runs through the relevant literature and scientific studies and expands on the typology using Rasmussen's classification as a base. The author then goes on to describe his well-known Swiss Cheese model and provides an excellent overview of accident causation from a system-thinking perspective. He ends with a note on the methodological assessment of error risks which is perhaps more relevant to safety practitioners. The entire book is written in clear simple language that is easily understood, fascinating and intellectually stimulating, even to non-psychologists.

Editorial Review:

Modern technology has now reached a point where improved safety can only be achieved through a better understanding of human error mechanisms. In its treatment of major accidents, the book spans the disciplinary gulf between psychological theory and those concerned with maintaining the reliabiblity of hazardous technologies. Much of the theoretical structure is new and original, and of particular importance is the identification of cognitive processes common to a wide variety of error types.

Handbook of Competence and Motivation

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

short review 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

I found this book to be very comprehensive in combining topics related to achievement motivation. It offers an amazing overview of cutting edge and recent literature, e.g., motives, goals, values, culture, and gender, which all tie into the concept of competence and motivation. Helpful and great to read!

Editorial Review:

This important handbook provides a comprehensive, authoritative review of achievement motivation and establishes the concept of competence as an organizing framework for the field. The editors synthesize diverse perspectives on why and how individuals are motivated in school, work, sports, and other settings. Written by leading investigators, chapters reexamine central constructs in achievement motivation; explore the impact of developmental, contextual, and sociocultural factors; and analyze the role of self-regulatory processes. Focusing on the ways in which achievement is motivated by the desire to experience competence and avoid experiencing incompetence, the volume integrates disparate theories and findings and sets forth a coherent agenda for future research.

Music, Language, and the Brain

Aniruddh D. Patel

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the first comprehensive study of the relationship between music and language from the standpoint of cognitive neuroscience, Aniruddh D. Patel challenges the widespread belief that music and language are processed independently. Since Plato's time, the relationship between music and language has attracted interest and debate from a wide range of thinkers. Recently, scientific research on this topic has been growing rapidly, as scholars from diverse disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, music cognition, and neuroscience are drawn to the music-language interface as one way to explore the extent to which different mental abilities are processed by separate brain mechanisms. Accordingly, the relevant data and theories have been spread across a range of disciplines. This volume provides the first synthesis, arguing that music and language share deep and critical connections, and that comparative research provides a powerful way to study the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these uniquely human abilities.

Eye and Brain

Richard L. Gregory

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Since the publication of the first edition in 1966, Eye and Brain has established itself worldwide as an essential introduction to the basic phenomena of visual perception. In this book, Richard L. 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. Although successive editions have incorporated new discoveries and ideas, Gregory completely revised and updated the book for this publication, adding more than thirty new illustrations. The phenomena of illusion continue to be a major theme in the book, in which the author makes a new attempt to provide a comprehensive classification system. There are also new sections on what babies see and how they learn to see, on motion perception, and tantalizing glimpses of the relationship between vision and consciousness and of the impact of new brain imaging techniques. In addition, the presentation of the text and illustrations has been improved by the larger format and new page design. The thousands of readers of the previous editions of Eye and Brain will find this new revised edition even more attractive and enthralling.

Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture (October Books)

Jonathan Crary

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner, 2000 Lionel Trilling Award given by Columbia College.

Suspensions of Perception is a major historical study of human attention and its volatile role in modern Western culture. It argues that the ways in which we intently look at or listen to anything result from crucial changes in the nature of perception that can be traced back to the second half of the nineteenth century.

Focusing on the period from about 1880 to 1905, Jonathan Crary examines the connections between the modernization of subjectivity and the dramatic expansion and industrialization of visual/auditory culture. At the core of his project is the paradoxical nature of modern attention, which was both a fundamental condition of individual freedom, creativity, and experience and a central element in the efficient functioning of economic and disciplinary institutions as well as the emerging spaces of mass consumption and spectacle.

Crary approaches these issues through multiple analyses of single works by three key modernist painters—Manet, Seurat, and Cezanne—who each engaged in a singular confrontation with the disruptions, vacancies, and rifts within a perceptual field. Each in his own way discovered that sustained attentiveness, rather than fixing or securing the world, led to perceptual disintegration and loss of presence, and each used this discovery as the basis for a reinvention of representational practices.

Suspensions of Perception decisively relocates the problem of aesthetic contemplation within a broader collective encounter with the unstable nature of perception—in psychology, philosophy, neurology, early cinema, and photography. In doing so, it provides a historical framework for understanding the current social crisis of attention amid the accelerating metamorphoses of our contemporary technological culture.