my mind on books

Face Perception by Vicki Bruce and Andy Young (Psychology Press, 2012)

(amazon.co.uk – 22 Dec 2011)

Book description from the publisher:

Human faces are unique biological structures that convey a complex variety of important social messages. Even strangers can tell things from our faces – our feelings, our locus of attention, something of what we are saying, our age, sex and ethnic group, whether they find us attractive. In recent years there has been genuine progress in understanding how our brains derive all these different messages from faces and what can happen when one or other of the structures involved is damaged.

Face Perception provides an up-to-date, integrative summary by two authors who have helped develop and shape the field over the past 30 years. It encompasses topics as diverse as the visual information our brains can exploit when we look at faces, whether prejudicial attitudes can affect how we see faces, and how people with neurodevelopmental disorders see faces. The material is digested and summarised in a way that is accessible to students, within a structure that focuses on the different things we can do with faces. It offers a compelling synthesis of behavioural, neuropsychological and cognitive neuroscience approaches to develop a distinctive point of view of the area.

The book concludes by reviewing what is known about the development of face processing and re-examines the question of what makes faces ‘special’. Written in a clear and accessible style, this is invaluable reading for all students and researchers interested in studying face perception and social cognition.

Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are by Sebastian Seung (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

We know that each of us is unique, but science has struggled to pinpoint where, precisely, our uniqueness resides. Is it in our genes? The structure of our brains? Our genome may determine our eye color and even aspects of our personality. But our friendships, failures, and passions also shape who we are. The question is: how?

Sebastian Seung, a dynamic professor at MIT, is on a quest to discover the biological basis of identity. He believes it lies in the pattern of connections between the brain’s neurons, which change slowly over time as we learn and grow. The connectome, as it’s called, is where our genetic inheritance intersects with our life experience. It’s where nature meets nurture.

Seung introduces us to the dedicated researchers who are mapping the brain’s connections, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse. It is a monumental undertaking—the scientific equivalent of climbing Mount Everest—but if they succeed, it could reveal the basis of personality, intelligence, memory, and perhaps even mental disorders. Many scientists speculate that people with anorexia, autism, and schizophrenia are “wired differently,” but nobody knows for sure. The brain’s wiring has never been clearly seen.

In sparklingly clear prose, Seung reveals the amazing technological advances that will soon help us map connectomes. He also examines the evidence that these maps will someday allow humans to “upload” their minds into computers, achieving a kind of immortality.

Connectome is a mind-bending adventure story, told with great passion and authority. It presents a daring scientific and technological vision for at last understanding what makes us who we are. Welcome to the future of neuroscience.

Google books preview:

See also: Book website

The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique (Jean Nicod Lectures) by Kim Sterelny (MIT Press, 2012)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Product description from the publisher:

Over the last three million years or so, our lineage has diverged sharply from those of our great ape relatives. Change has been rapid (in evolutionary terms) and pervasive. Morphology, life history, social life, sexual behavior, and foraging patterns have all shifted sharply away from other great apes. No other great ape lineage–including those of chimpanzees and gorillas–seems to have undergone such a profound transformation. In The Evolved Apprentice, Kim Sterelny argues that the divergence stems from the fact that humans gradually came to enrich the learning environment of the next generation. Humans came to cooperate in sharing information, and to cooperate ecologically and reproductively as well, and these changes initiated positive feedback loops that drove us further from other great apes. Sterelny develops a new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the gradual evolution of information sharing practices across generations and how information sharing transformed human minds and social lives. Sterelny proposes that humans developed a new form of ecological interaction with their environment, cooperative foraging, which led to positive feedback linking ecological cooperation, cultural learning, and environmental change. The ability to cope with the immense variety of human ancestral environments and social forms, he argues, depended not just on adapted minds but also on adapted developmental environments.

Google books preview:

See also: “The Evolved Apprentice” at On the Human (onthehuman.org)

A Tour of the Senses: How Your Brain Interprets the World by John M. Henshaw (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012)

(amazon.co.uk – 9 Feb 2012)

Product description from the publisher:

Ever wonder why some people have difficulty recognizing faces or why food found delicious in one culture is reviled in another? John M. Henshaw ponders these and other surprising facts in this fascinating and fast-paced tour of the senses.

From when stimuli first excite our senses to the near-miraculous sense organs themselves to the mystery of how our brain interprets senses, Henshaw explains the complex phenomena of how we see, feel, taste, touch, and smell. He takes us through the rich history of sensory perception, dating back to Aristotle’s classification of the five main senses, and helps us understand the science and technology behind sensory research today.

A Tour of the Senses travels beyond our human senses. Henshaw describes artificial sensing technologies and instruments, unusual sensory abilities of the animal kingdom, and techniques for improving, rehabilitating, and even replacing sense organs.

This entertaining introduction to sensory science is a clever mix of research findings and real-world stories that helps us understand the complex processes that turn sensory stimuli into sophisticated brain responses.

Google books preview:

Although the W.W Norton hardcover edition has never appeared, Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape Our Lives by Jesse Prinz is now available in a kindle edition and in hardcover at amazon.co.uk.

(Here’s a link to Free Kindle Reading Apps.)

Product description from the publisher:

In this provocative, revelatory tour de force, Jesse Prinz reveals how the cultures we live in – not biology – determine how we think and feel. He examines all aspects of our behaviour, looking at everything from our intellects and emotions, to love and sex, morality and even madness. This book seeks to go beyond traditional debates of nature and nurture. He is not interested in finding universal laws but, rather, in understanding, explaining and celebrating our differences. Why do people raised in Western countries tend to see the trees before the forest, while people from East Asia see the forest before the trees? Why, in South East Asia, is there a common form of mental illness, unheard of in the West, in which people go into a trancelike state after being startled? Compared to Northerners, why are people in the American South more than twice as likely to kill someone over an argument? And, above all, just how malleable are we? Prinz shows that the vast diversity of our behaviour is not engrained. He picks up where biological explanations leave off. He tells us the human story.

See also: Roger Scruton review in Prospect Magazine.