Understanding the Human Mind PDF Download

Author: John Edward Terrell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000093565
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Drawing on current research in anthropology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the humanities, Understanding the Human Mind explores how and why we, as humans, find it so easy to believe we are right—even when we are outright wrong. Humans live out their own lives effectively trapped in their own mind and, despite being exceptional survivors and a highly social species, our inner mental world is often misaligned with reality. In order to understand why, John Edward Terrell and Gabriel Stowe Terrell suggest current dual-process models of the mind overlook our mind’s most decisive and unpredictable mode: creativity. Using a three-dimensional model of the mind, the authors examine the human struggle to stay in touch with reality—how we succeed, how we fail, and how winning this struggle is key to our survival in an age of mounting social problems of our own making. Using news stories of logic-defying behavior, analogies to famous fictitious characters, and analysis of evolutionary and cognitive psychology theory, this fascinating account of how the mind works is a must-read for all interested in anthropology and cognitive psychology.

Author: Mark Schaller
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1136950494
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
An enormous amount of scientific research compels two fundamental conclusions about the human mind: The mind is the product of evolution; and the mind is shaped by culture. These two perspectives on the human mind are not incompatible, but, until recently, their compatibility has resisted rigorous scholarly inquiry. Evolutionary psychology documents many ways in which genetic adaptations govern the operations of the human mind. But evolutionary inquiries only occasionally grapple seriously with questions about human culture and cross-cultural differences. By contrast, cultural psychology documents many ways in which thought and behavior are shaped by different cultural experiences. But cultural inquires rarely consider evolutionary processes. Even after decades of intensive research, these two perspectives on human psychology have remained largely divorced from each other. But that is now changing - and that is what this book is about. Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind is the first scholarly book to integrate evolutionary and cultural perspectives on human psychology. The contributors include world-renowned evolutionary, cultural, social, and cognitive psychologists. These chapters reveal many novel insights linking human evolution to both human cognition and human culture – including the evolutionary origins of cross-cultural differences. The result is a stimulating introduction to an emerging integrative perspective on human nature.

Author: Alan G. Fields
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781537220451
Category : Human behavior
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Understanding the human mind is a complicated array of wirings of the past combined with the physical and chemical inclinations of the present. Psychology is the study of the human brain, but it's so much more than a mere dissection of the gooey gray mass trapped in our skulls; it's a study of what makes us tick as individuals and as a species. Human Psychology 101: Understanding the Human Mind and What Makes People Tick is meant to show you the facets of a human being and how they work together to make a person tick. It's not a psychological treatise or a DSM-V. It's a collection of my own research of psychology and stories from my life and those of my friends and acquaintances that help illustrate the principles I'm going to be telling you about. I will be dividing this book into seven aspects of human psychology: emotions, personality, decision-making, morality, perception, behavior, and relationships. To understand what makes someone tick is to have mastered a sort of psychological sleight of hand, and I hope that this book serves as a useful step on your way to mastery over that brand of magic trick. How human beings think and behave is an unendingly fascinating study, one that reveals how simple and elegant and, on the other hand, complex and mysterious we all are. I hope you are as pumped as I am to think about the inner workings of how people tick.

Author: John Edward Terrell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367855789
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Drawing on current research in anthropology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience and the humanities, Understanding the Human Mind explores how and why we, as humans, find it so easy to believe we are right--even when we are outright wrong. Humans live out their own lives effectively trapped in their own mind and, despite being exceptional survivors and a highly social species, our inner mental world is often misaligned with reality. In order to understand why, John Edward Terrell and Gabriel Stowe Terrell suggest current dual-process models of the mind overlook our mind's most decisive and unpredictable mode: creativity. Using a three-dimensional model of the mind, the authors examine the human struggle to stay in touch with reality--how we succeed, how we fail and how winning this struggle is key to our survival in an age of mounting social problems of our own making. Using news stories of logic-defying behavior, analogies to famous fictitious characters and analysis of evolutionary and cognitive psychology theory, this fascinating account of how the mind works is a must-read for all interested in anthropology and cognitive psychology.

Author: Janet Jones
Publisher: Trafalgar Square Books
ISBN: 1646010272
Category : Pets
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
An eye-opening game-changer of a book that sheds new light on how horses learn, think, perceive, and perform, and explains how to work with the horse’s brain instead of against it. In this illuminating book, brain scientist and horsewoman Janet Jones describes human and equine brains working together. Using plain language, she explores the differences and similarities between equine and human ways of negotiating the world. Mental abilities—like seeing, learning, fearing, trusting, and focusing—are discussed from both human and horse perspectives. Throughout, true stories of horses and handlers attempting to understand each other—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—help to illustrate the principles. Horsemanship of every kind depends on mutual interaction between equine and human brains. When we understand the function of both, we can learn to communicate with horses on their terms instead of ours. By meeting horses halfway, we achieve many goals. We improve performance. We save valuable training time. We develop much deeper bonds with our horses. We handle them with insight and kindness instead of force or command. We comprehend their misbehavior in ways that allow solutions. We reduce the human mistakes we often make while working with them. Instead of working against the horse’s brain, expecting him to function in unnatural and counterproductive ways, this book provides the information needed to ride with the horse’s brain. Each principle is applied to real everyday issues in the arena or on the trail, often illustrated with true stories from the author’s horse training experience. Horse Brain, Human Brain offers revolutionary ideas that should be considered by anyone who works with horses.

Author: John Parrington
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192521640
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
John Parrington argues that social interaction and culture have deeply shaped the exceptional nature of human consciousness. The mental capacities of the human mind far outstrip those of other animals. Our imaginations and creativity have produced art, music, and literature; built bridges and cathedrals; enabled us to probe distant galaxies, and to ponder the meaning of our existence. When our minds become disordered, they can also take us to the depths of despair. What makes the human brain unique, and able to generate such a rich mental life? In this book, John Parrington draws on the latest research on the human brain to show how it differs strikingly from those of other animals in its structure and function at a molecular and cellular level. And he argues that this 'shift', enlarging the brain, giving it greater flexibility and enabling higher functions such as imagination, was driven by tool use, but especially by the development of one remarkable tool - language. The complex social interaction brought by language opened up the possibility of shared conceptual worlds, enriched with rhythmic sounds, and images that could be drawn on cave walls. This transformation enabled modern humans to leap rapidly beyond all other species, and generated an exceptional human consciousness, a sense of self that arises as a product of our brain biology and the social interactions we experience. Our minds, even those of identical twins, are unique because they are the result of this extraordinarily plastic brain, exquisitely shaped and tuned by the social and cultural environment in which we grew up and to which we continue to respond through life. Linking early work by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky to the findings of modern neuroscience, Parrington explores how language, culture, and society mediate brain function, and what this view of the human mind may bring to our understanding and treatment of mental illness.

Author: Stephen S. Clark
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1524519162
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 535

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Book Description
This book is based on the premise that humankind is, first and foremost, the outcome of the process of biological evolution. Recognition of this is fundamental to our understanding of who we are and how we behave. All living things have evolved the physical and mental attributes that promote their prospects for survival; they are good at doing the things that enable them to pass on their genes to succeeding generations, and we are no exception. Of course, through the development of culture, we have gained some freedom from our biological origins. Nevertheless, evolution has constructed the foundation upon which culture is built. The first part of the book, Ourselves Interacting with the World, presents an overview of the main capabilities that evolution has endowed us with and that enable us to interact with the environment in advantageous ways. This includes our senses, which act as windows on the world and also, of great importance, our emotions and ability to remember. Our ability to think is perhaps the crowning achievement of our evolutionary journey, and, of course, we must be able to act in a timely and effective manner. The second part of the book, Living Together, traces the history of how we became social creatures. To be truly human, we had to be capable of sharing and cooperation. We also needed to be able to control our aggressiveness and talent for deception. We settled down, making the transition from hunter-gatherers to urban dwellers, and agreed upon values and norms of behavior that enhanced our ability to get along. Ultimately, we came to see good and bad as a morality of right and wrong, further augmenting group cohesiveness. In the final part of the book, Challenges and Opportunities, attention turns to a consideration of the constraints and possibilities that must be considered in looking to the future. These realities can be seen to play out in four social arenas: the pursuit of fairness, the seeking of justice, the interplay of political beliefs and good government, and ultimately, a united society that is, at the same time, a true community. Our quest for these things will be greatly aided by a deep knowledge and appreciation of our evolutionary past and the indelible imprint it has left upon us. It may even lead us to that most elusive of all things, happiness.

Author: Philip Ball
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226822044
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the “space of possible minds.” By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball’s brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.

Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393334775
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
Explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life.

Author: Isabella Sarto-Jackson
Publisher: Cognitive Science and Psychology
ISBN: 9781622733316
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
The human brain has a truly remarkable capacity. It reorganizes itself, flexibly adjusting to fluctuating environmental conditions - a process called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity provides the basis for wide-ranging learning and memory processes that are particularly profuse during childhood and adolescence. At the same time, the exceptional malleability of the developing brain leaves it highly vulnerable to negative impact from the surroundings. Abusive or neglecting social environments, as well as socioeconomic deprivation and poverty, cause toxic stress and complex traumas that can severely compromise cognitive development, emotional processing, self-perception, and executive brain functions. The neurophysiological changes entailed impair emotional regulation, lead to heightened anxiety, and afflict attachment and the formation of social bonds. Neuroplastic changes following severely adverse experiences are not something that a person grows out of and gets over. These experiences alter the neurobiological and biochemical makeup and cause people to live in an emotionally relabeled world in which the evaluation of any social cue, their behavior, cognition, and state of mind are biased towards the negative. Even more worrying, detrimental neurophysiological consequences are not limited to the traumatized individual but are often transmitted to subsequent generations through a process of social niche construction, thereby creating a vicious cycle. Thus, the making and breaking forces of the brain are epitomized by parents, alloparents, peers, and our socioeconomic niche. This book expounds on the formative role that the social environment plays in healthy brain development, especially during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Based on scientific findings, the book advocates for bold measures and responsible stewardship to combat child abuse, maltreatment, and child poverty. By bringing together insights from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and social education work, it lays out a fact-based, transdisciplinary endeavor that aims at rising to the societal challenge of providing a rewarding perspective to youth at risk. It will be a valuable resource for academics from social education, pedagogy, cognitive science, neuroscience, as well as professionals in the fields of social work, pedagogy, education, child welfare.