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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Philosophy & theory of psychology > Cognitive theory
How do we appreciate a work of art? Why do we like some artworks but not others? Is there no accounting for taste? Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to explore connections between art, mind, and brain, Shimamura considers how we experience art. In a thoughtful and entertaining manner, the book explores how the brain interprets art by engaging our sensations, thoughts, and emotions. It describes interesting findings from psychological and brain sciences as a way to understand our aesthetic response to art. Beauty, disgust, surprise, anger, sadness, horror, and a myriad of other emotions can occur as we experience art. Some artworks may generate such feelings rather quickly, while others depend on thought and knowledge. Our response to art depends largely on what we know-from everyday knowledge about the world, from our cultural backgrounds, and from personal experience. Filled with artworks from many traditions and time points, "Experiencing Art" offers insightful ways of broadening one's approach and appreciation of art.
"The question for me is how can the human mind occur in the
physical universe. We now know that the world is governed by
physics. We now understand the way biology nestles comfortably
within that. The issue is how will the mind do that as
well."--Allen Newell, December 4, 1991, Carnegie Mellon University
What happens when we accept that everything we feel and think stems not from an immaterial spirit but from electrical and chemical activity in our brains? In this thought-provoking narrative drawn from professional expertise as well as personal life experiences trailblazing neurophilosopher Patricia S. Churchland grounds the philosophy of mind in the essential ingredients of biology. She reflects with humor on how she came to harmonize science and philosophy, the mind and the brain, abstract ideals and daily life. Offering lucid explanations of the neural workings that underlie identity, she reveals how the latest research into consciousness, memory, and free will can help us reexamine enduring philosophical, ethical, and spiritual questions: What shapes our personalities? How do we account for near-death experiences? How do we make decisions? And why do we feel empathy for others? Recent scientific discoveries also provide insights into a fascinating range of real-world dilemmas for example, whether an adolescent can be held responsible for his actions and whether a patient in a coma can be considered a self. Churchland appreciates that the brain-based understanding of the mind can unnerve even our greatest thinkers. At a conference she attended, a prominent philosopher cried out, I hate the brain; I hate the brain But as Churchland shows, he need not feel this way. Accepting that our brains are the basis of who we are liberates us from the shackles of superstition. It allows us to take ourselves seriously as a product of evolved mechanisms, past experiences, and social influences. And it gives us hope that we can fix some grievous conditions, and when we cannot, we can at least understand them with compassion."
This Handbook provides a complete assessment of the current achievements and challenges of the Minimalist Program. Established 15 years ago by Noam Chomsky with the aim of making all statements about language as simple and general as possible, linguistic minimalism is now at the centre of efforts to understand how the human language faculty operates in the mind and manifests itself in languages. In this book leading researchers from all over the world explore the origins of the program, the course of its sometimes highly technical research, and its connections with other disciplines, such as parallel developments in fields such as developmental biology, cognitive science, computational science, and philosophy of mind. The authors examine every aspect of the enterprise, show how each part relates to the whole, and set out current methodological and theoretical issues and proposals. The various chapters in this book trace the development of minimalist ideas in linguistics, highlight their significance and distinctive character, and relate minimalist research and aims to those in parallel fields. They focus on core aspects in syntax, including feature, case, phrase structure, derivations, and representations, and on interface issues within the grammar. They also take minimalism outside the domain of grammar to consider its role in closely related biolinguistic projects, including the evolution of mind and language and the relation between language and thought. The handbook is designed and written to meet the needs of students and scholars in linguistics and cognitive science at graduate level and above, as well as to provide a guide to the field for researchers other disciplines.
Around the world and throughout history, in cultures as diverse as
ancient Mesopotamia and modern America, human beings have been
compelled by belief in gods and developed complex religions around
them. But why? What makes belief in supernatural beings so
widespread? And why are the gods of so many different people so
similar in nature? This provocative book explains the origins and
persistence of religious ideas by looking through the lens of
science at the common structures and functions of human thought.
'The question for me is how can the human mind occur in the
physical universe. We now know that the world is governed by
physics. We now understand the way biology nestles comfortably
within that. The issue is how will the mind do that as well.'
What goes on in creative writers' heads when they write? What can cognitive psychology, neuroscience, literary studies and previous research in creative writing studies tell creative writers about the processes of their writing mind? Creative writers have for centuries undertaken cognitive research. Some described cognition in vivid exegetical essays, but most investigated the mind in creative writing itself, in descriptions of the thinking of characters in fiction, poetry and plays. The inner voicings and inner visualising revealed in Greek choruses, in soliloquies, in stream-of-consciousness narratives are creative writers' 'research results' from studying their own cognition, and the thinking of others. The Creative Writer's Mind is a book for creative writers: it sets out to cross the gap between creative writing and science, between the creative arts and cognitive research.
The Highly Sensitive Brain is the first handbook to cover the science, measurement, and clinical discussion of sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), a trait associated with enhanced responsivity, awareness, depth-of-processing and attunement to the environment and other individuals. Grounded in theoretical models of high sensitivity, this volume discusses the assessment of SPS in children and adults, as well as its health and social outcomes. This edition also synthesizes up-to-date research on the biological mechanisms associated with high sensitivity, such as its neural and genetic basis. It also discusses clinical issues related to SPS and seemingly-related disorders such as misophonia, a hyper-sensitivity to specific sounds. In addition, to practical assessment of SPS embedded throughout this volume is discussion of the biological basis of SPS, exploring why this trait exists and persists in humans and other species. The Highly Sensitive Brain is a useful handbook and may be of special interest to clinicians, physicians, health-care workers, educators, and researchers.
Ward Edwards is well known as the father of behavioral decision
making. In his 1954 Psychological Bulletin paper on decision
making, he brought psychological ideas into what had been the
province of economists. His influence in this realm is so pervasive
that the Nobel committee was able to trace a direct path from
Edwards's work to Daniel Kahneman's 2002 Prize for prospect theory.
In a 1963 Psychological Review paper, Edwards brought Bayesian
statistics to the attention of psychologists, who have continued to
proliferate Bayesian ideas, underscoring the importance of the
perspective. In a 1962 IEEE paper, Edwards foresaw how the world of
intelligence gathering and analysis could by transformed by systems
in which humans provided (subjective) probabilities and machines
provided computational power. He also showed, in a 1986 book
written with Detlof von Winterfeldt, how multiattribute utility
analysis could help real-world decision makers generate
satisfactory solutions to complex problems.
This important contribution to the Minimalist Program offers a
comprehensive theory of locality and new insights into phrase
structure and syntactic cartography. It unifies central components
of the grammar and increases the symmetry in syntax. Its central
hypothesis has broad empirical application and at the same time
reinforces the central premise of minimalism that language is an
optimal system.
This book fills a long standing need for a basic introduction to Cognitive Grammar that is current, authoritative, comprehensive, and approachable. It presents a synthesis that draws together and refines the descriptive and theoretical notions developed in this framework over the course of three decades. In a unified manner, it accommodates both the conceptual and the social-interactive basis of linguistic structure, as well as the need for both functional explanation and explicit structural description. Starting with the fundamentals, essential aspects of the theory are systematically laid out with concrete illustrations and careful discussion of their rationale. Among the topics surveyed are conceptual semantics, grammatical classes, grammatical constructions, the lexicon-grammar continuum characterized as assemblies of symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings), and the usage-based account of productivity, restrictions, and well-formedness. The theory's central claim - that grammar is inherently meaningful - is thereby shown to be viable. The framework is further elucidated through application to nominal structure, clause structure, and complex sentences. These are examined in broad perspective, with exemplification from English and numerous other languages. In line with the theory's general principles, they are discussed not only in terms of their structural characterization, but also their conceptual value and functional motivation. Other matters explored include discourse, the temporal dimension of language structure, and what grammar reveals about cognitive processes and the construction of our mental world.
This book scrutinizes recent work in phonological theory from the
perspective of Chomskyan generative linguistics and argues that
progress in the field depends on taking seriously the idea that
phonology is best studied as a mental computational system derived
from an innate base, phonological Universal Grammar. Two simple
problems of phonological analysis provide a frame for a variety of
topics throughout the book. The competence-performance distinction
and markedness theory are both addressed in some detail, especially
with reference to phonological acquisition. Several aspects of
Optimality Theory, including the use of Output-Output
Correspondence, functionalist argumentation and dependence on
typological justification are critiqued. The authors draw on their
expertise in historical linguistics to argue that diachronic
evidence is often mis-used to bolster phonological arguments, and
they present a vision of the proper use of such evidence. Issues of
general interest for cognitive scientists, such as whether
categories are discrete and whether mental computation is
probabilistic are also addressed. The book ends with concrete
proposals to guide future phonological research.
This book scrutinizes recent work in phonological theory from the
perspective of Chomskyan generative linguistics and argues that
progress in the field depends on taking seriously the idea that
phonology is best studied as a mental computational system derived
from an innate base, phonological Universal Grammar. Two simple
problems of phonological analysis provide a frame for a variety of
topics throughout the book. The competence-performance distinction
and markedness theory are both addressed in some detail, especially
with reference to phonological acquisition. Several aspects of
Optimality Theory, including the use of Output-Output
Correspondence, functionalist argumentation and dependence on
typological justification are critiqued. The authors draw on their
expertise in historical linguistics to argue that diachronic
evidence is often mis-used to bolster phonological arguments, and
they present a vision of the proper use of such evidence. Issues of
general interest for cognitive scientists, such as whether
categories are discrete and whether mental computation is
probabilistic are also addressed. The book ends with concrete
proposals to guide future phonological research.
This is the first exhaustive investigation of gradience in syntax,
conceived of as grammatical indeterminacy. It looks at gradience in
English word classes, phrases, clauses and constructions, and
examines how it may be defined and differentiated. Professor Aarts
addresses the tension between linguistic concepts and the
continuous phenomena they describe by testing and categorizing
grammatical vagueness and indeterminacy. He considers to what
extent gradience is a grammatical phenomenon or a by-product of
imperfect linguistic description, and makes a series of linked
proposals for its theoretical formalization.
Looking at Trauma: A Tool Kit for Clinicians is an easy-to-use, engaging resource designed to address the challenges health care professionals face in providing much-needed trauma psychoeducation to clients with histories of childhood trauma. Developed by trauma therapists Abby Hershler and Lesley Hughes in collaboration with artist Patricia Nguyen and biomedical communications specialist Shelley Wall, this book presents twelve trauma treatment models accompanied by innovative and engaging comics. The models help clinicians provide practical information about the impacts of trauma to their clients-and support those clients in understanding and managing their distressing symptoms. Topics covered include complex posttraumatic stress disorder, emotion regulation, memory, relationship patterns, and self-care. Each chapter features step-by-step instructions on how to use the treatment models with clients; practical educational tips from experienced clinicians in the field of childhood trauma; interactive trauma education comics; a foundational framework focused on care for the provider; and references for further study. Intended for use in therapeutic, clinical, and classroom settings, this book is a valuable resource for all healthcare workers. In particular, social workers, psychotherapists, spiritual care providers, nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists, primary care physicians, and psychiatrists will find this tool kit indispensable.
From a leading crisis management expert, a breakthrough book about performance under pressure that will change the way you think about stress Upshift 1. a movement of a variable to a higher level e.g. of performance, growth, frequency. When we experience too much stress, we often feel like shutting down and escaping the source. Neurologists call this 'downshifting', where your thinking shifts from the cognitive and creative areas in the brain to the domains associated with survival. But with too little stress, we become disengaged and apathetic. So what happens in the middle zone - when we experience what psychologists call positive stress - and how can we best make use of it? In Upshift, international thought leader Ben Ramalingam takes readers on an epic journey from early humans' survival of the ice age to present times in our inescapable, pernicious and ever-shifting digital landscape. You will hear remarkable stories from a vast range of backgrounds, including scientists, gamers, performers and artists, athletes and health professionals and everyday people, all of whom carved new routes around perceived barriers using their powers to upshift. Whether discussing how city commuters navigate train cancellations to how astronauts deal with life-threatening incidents, Ramalingam presents a fascinating argument that we all have the power to innovate, whether or not we identify ourselves as creative or extraordinary. In a runaway world that is an engine for perpetual crisis, Upshift is not only an essential toolkit for survival, it is a roadmap for positive, and potentially life-changing transformation and influence. You don't have to shut down - you can upshift.
Abstract concepts are often embodied through metaphor. For example, we talk about moving through time in metaphorical terms, as if we were moving through space, allowing us to 'look back' on past events. Much of the work on embodied metaphor to date has assumed a single set of universal, shared bodily experiences that motivate our understanding of abstract concepts. This book explores sources of variation in people's experiences of embodied metaphor, including, for example, the shape and size of one's body, one's age, gender, state of mind, physical or linguistic impairments, personality, ideology, political stance, religious beliefs, and linguistic background. It focuses on the ways in which people's experiences of metaphor fluctuate over time within a single communicative event or across a lifetime. Combining theoretical argument with findings from new studies, Littlemore analyses sources of variation in embodied metaphor and provides a deeper understanding of the nature of embodied metaphor itself.
The higher-order evidence debate concerns how higher-order evidence affects the rationality of our first-order beliefs. This Element has two parts. The first part (Sections 1 and 2) provides a critical overview of the literature, aiming to explain why the higher-order evidence debate is interesting and important. The second part (Sections 3 to 6) defends calibrationism, the view that we should respond to higher-order evidence by aligning our credences to our reliability degree. The author first discusses the traditional version of calibrationism and explains its main difficulties, before proposing a new version of calibrationism called 'Evidence-Discounting Calibrationism.' The Element argues that this new version is independently plausible and that it can avoid the difficulties faced by the traditional version.
The neuroscience of why bad habits are so hard to break-and how evidence-based strategies can help us change our behavior more effectively We all have habits we'd like to break, but for many of us it can be nearly impossible to do so. There is a good reason for this: the brain is a habit-building machine. In Hard to Break, leading neuroscientist Russell Poldrack provides an engaging and authoritative account of the science of how habits are built in the brain, why they are so hard to break, and how evidence-based strategies may help us change unwanted behaviors. Hard to Break offers a clear-eyed tour of what neuroscience tells us about habit change and debunks "easy fixes" that aren't backed by science. It explains how dopamine is essential for building habits and how the battle between habits and intentional goal-directed behaviors reflects a competition between different brain systems. Along the way, we learn how cues trigger habits; why we should make rules, not decisions; how the stimuli of the modern world hijack the brain's habit machinery and lead to drug abuse and other addictions; and how neuroscience may one day enable us to hack our habits. Shifting from the individual to society, the book also discusses the massive habit changes that will be needed to address the biggest challenges of our time. Moving beyond the hype to offer a deeper understanding of the biology of habits in the brain, Hard to Break reveals how we might be able to make the changes we desire-and why we should have greater empathy with ourselves and others who struggle to do so.
This work brings together classic and recent papers in the philosophical and linguistic analysis of fuzzy grammar, of gradience in meaning, word classes and syntax. Issues such as how many grains make a heap, when a puddle becomes a pond, and so forth, have occupied thinkers since Aristotle and, since the 1980s, have been the subject of increasing interest among linguists as well as in fields such as artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. The work is designed to be of use to students in all these fields. It has a substantial introduction, is divided into thematic parts, contains annotated sections of further reading, and is fully indexed.
Philosophers since Aristotle have explored emotion, so the new emphasis on emotion in Anglo-American philosophy is the rediscovery of a discipline that is very old and has always been essential to the "love of wisdom." Today, it has become evident to most philosophers that emotions are ripe for philosophical analysis, a view supported by a considerable number of excellent publications. Emotions have now become mainstream. In this volume, I have tried to bring together some of the best Anglo-American philosophers now writing on the philosophy of emotion. I have solicited chapters from those philosophers who have already distinguished themselves in the field of emotion research and have interdisciplinary interests, particularly in the social sciences. It is impossible to study the emotions today without engaging with contemporary psychology and the neurosciences. Philosophy has always been (in its own mind, at least) "the queen of the sciences." Thus the essays included here should appeal to a broad spectrum of emotion researchers as well as philosophers interested or at least curious about their emotions. Topics include Emotions, Physiology, Intentionality, Emotion, Appraisal, and Cognition, Emotions and Feelings, Emotions, and Rationality, Emotions, Action, and Freedom, Emotion and Value, On Theories of Emotion. The contributors include Annette Baier, Aaron Ben-Zeev, Purushottama Bilimoria, Cheshire Calhoun, John Deigh, Ronald De Sousa, Jon Elster, Peter Goldie, Pat Greenspan, Paul Griffiths, Jerry Neu, Martha Nussbaum, Jesse Prinz, Jenefer Robinson, Amelie Rorty, Robert C. Solomon, Michael Stocker, ,
This book evaluates whether or not we can decide on the best theory of concepts by appealing to the explanatory results of cognitive science. It undertakes an in-depth analysis of different theories of concepts and of the explanations formulated in cognitive science. As a result, two reasons are provided for thinking that an appeal to cognitive science cannot help to decide on the best theory of concepts.
Cognitive Grammar offers a radical alternative to mainstream linguistic theories. This book introduces the theory in clear, non-technical language, relates it to current debates about the nature of linguistic knowledge, and applies it to in-depth analyses of a range of topics in semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Study questions and suggestions for further reading accompany each of the main chapters. |
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