This book explores the relationship between cellular processes and animal behaviour. It does this by focusing on the domain of navigation, bringing together scientists from either side of the brain-behaviour divide in an attempt to explain the linkage between spatial behaviour and the underlying activity of neurons.

The Neurobiology of Spatial Behaviour is organised into two sections. Section one deals with the so-called 'higher' levels of description - studies of spatial behaviour and the brain areas that might underlie such behaviour. The section begins with insects, remarkably sophisticated navigators, and ends with humans, examining along the way issues such as whether animal brains contain maps and whether spatial and non-spatial information interact, and if so, how? Section two delves further into the brain and focuses on the mammalian representation of space and the role of place cells.

These issues have far wider ramifications that simply helping us to understand the process of navigation. This system might provide a model for how other forms of knowledge, beliefs and intentions are encoded in neurons. As such, the book will be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience, including ethologists, psychologists, behavioural neuroscientists, computational modelers, physiological neuroscientists and molecular biologists.

In 1953 a young female Japanese macaque called Imo began washing sweet potatoes before eating them, presumably to remove dirt and sand grains. Soon other monkeys had adopted this behaviour, and potato-washing gradually spread throughout the troop. When, three years after her first invention, Imo devised a second novel foraging behaviour, that of separating wheat from sand by throwing mixed handfuls into water and scooping out the floating grains, she was almost instantly heralded around the world as a 'monkey genius'. Imo is probably the most celebrated of animal innovators. In fact, many animals will invent new behaviour patterns, adjust established behaviours to a novel context, or respond to stresses in an appropriate and novel manner.

Innovation is an important component of behavioural flexibility, vital to the survival of individuals in species with generalist or opportunistic lifestyles, and potentially of critical importance to those endangered or threatened species forced to adjust to changed or impoverished environments. Innovation may also have played a central role in avian and primate brain evolution. Yet until recently animal innovation has been subject to almost complete neglect by behavioural biologists, psychologists, social learning researchers, and conservation-minded biologists.

This collection of stimulating and readable articles by leading scientific authorities is the first ever book on 'animal innovation', designed to put the topic of animal innovation on the map and heighten awareness of this developing field.

Music offers a unique opportunity to better understand the organization of the human brain. Like language, music exists in all human societies. Like language, music is a complex, rule-governed activity that seems specific to humans, and associated with a specific brain architecture. Yet unlike most other high-level functions of the human brain--and unlike language--music is a skil at which only a minority of people become proficient. The study of music as a major brain function has for some time been relatively neglected. Just recently, however, we have witnessed an explosion in research activities on music perception and performance that correlates in the human brain. This volume brings together an outstanding collection of international authorities--from the fields of music, neuroscience, psychology, and neurology--to describe the amazing advances being made in understanding the complex relationship between music and the brain.

Sleep has long been a topic of fascination for artists and scientists. Why do we sleep? What function does sleep serve? Why do we dream? What significance can we attach to our dreams?

We spend so much of our lives sleeping, yet its precise function is unclear, in spite of our increasing understanding of the processes generating and maintaining sleep. We now know that sleep can be accompanied by periods of intense cerebral activity, yet only recently has experimental data started to provide us with some insights into the type of processing taking place in the brain as we sleep. There is now strong evidence that sleep plays a crucial role in learning and in the consolidation of memories. Once the preserve of psychoanalysts, 'dreaming' is now a topic of increasing interest amongst scientists. With research into sleep growing, this volume is both timely and valuable in presenting a unique study of the relationship between sleep, learning, and memory. It brings together a team of international scientists researching sleep in both human and animal subjects. Aimed at researchers within the fields of neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, and neurology, this book will be an important first step in developing a full scientific understanding of the most intriguing state of consciousness.

Implicit memory refers to a change in task performance due to an earlier experience that is not consciously remembered. The topic of implicit memory has been studied from two quite different perspectives for the past 20 years. On the one hand, researchers interested in memory have set out to characterize the memory system (or systems) underlying implicit memory, and see how they relate to those underlying other forms of memory. The alternative framework has considered implicit memory as a by-product of perceptual, conceptual, or motor systems that learn. That is, on this view the systems that support implicit memory are heavily constrained by pressures other than memory per se. Both approaches have yielded results that have been valuable in helping us to understand the nature of implicit memory, but studied somewhat in isolation and with little collaboration. This volume is unique in explicitly contrasting these approaches, bringing together world class scientists from both camps in an attempt to forge a new approach to understanding one of the most exciting and important issues in psychology and neuroscience. Written for postgraduate students and researchers in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, this is a book that will have an important influence on the direction that future research in this field takes.

The term 'episodic memory' refers to our memory for unique, personal experiences, that we can date at some point in our past - our first day at school, the day we got married. It has again become a topic of great importance and interest to psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers. How are such memories stored in the brain, why do certain memories disappear (especially those from early in childhood), what causes false memories (memories of events we erroneously believe have really taken place)? Since Endel Tulving's classic book 'Episodic memory' (OUP, 1983) very few books have been published on this topic. In recent years however, many of the assumptions made about episodic memory have had to be reconsidered as a result of new techniques, which have allowed us a far deeper understanding of episodic memory. In 'Episodic memory: new directions in research' three of the worlds leading researchers in the topic of memory have brought together a stellar team of contributors from the fields of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and neuroscience, to present an account of what we now know about about this fundamentally important topic. The list of contributors includes, amongst others, Daniel Schacter, Richard Morris, Fareneh Vargha-Khadem, and Endel Tulving. The work presented within this book will have a profound effect on the direction that future research in this topic will take.

While making a distinction between meditation-based and Langerian mindfulness, Sayyed Mohsen Fatemi illustrates the components of Langerian phenomenology by expanding and explaining the concept of mindfulness and its implications. Fatemi argues that a shift from epistemology to ontology in Langerian mindfulness will result in the rise of a radical and transformational consciousness.

We tend to think about memory in terms of the human experience, neglecting the fact that we can trace a direct line of descent from the earliest vertebrates to modern humans. But the evolutionary history that we share with other vertebrates has left a mark on modern memory, complemented by unique forms of memory that emerged in humans. This book tells an intriguing story about how evolution shaped human memory. It explains how a series of now-extinct ancestral species adapted to life in their world, in their time and place. As they did, new brain areas appeared, each of which supported an innovative form of memory that helped them gain an advantage in life. Through inheritance and modification across millions of years, these evolutionary developments created several kinds of memory that influence the human mind today. Then, during human evolution, yet another new kind of memory emerged: about ourselves and others. This evolutionary innovation ignited human imagination; empowered us to remember and talk about a personal past; and enabled the sharing of knowledge about our world, our culture, and ourselves. Through these developments, our long journey along the evolutionary road to human memory made it possible for every individual, day upon day, to add new pages to the story of a life: the remarkably rich record of experiences and knowledge that make up a human mind. Written in an engaging and accessible style, The Evolutionary Road to Human Memory will be enjoyable reading for anyone interested in the human mind.

Several Python programming books feature tools designed for experimental psychologists. What sets this book apart is its focus on eye-tracking. Eye-tracking is a widely used research technique in psychology and neuroscience labs. Research grade eye-trackers are typically faster, more accurate, and of course, more expensive than the ones seen in consumer goods or usability labs. Not surprisingly, a successful eye-tracking study usually requires sophisticated computer programming. Easy syntax and flexibility make Python a perfect choice for this task, especially for psychology researchers with little or no computer programming experience. This book offers detailed coverage of the Pylink library, a Python interface for the gold standard EyeLink (R) eye-trackers, with many step-by-step example scripts. This book is a useful reference for eye-tracking researchers, but you can also use it as a textbook for graduate-level programming courses.

Vision research is one of the largest and most active areas within brain research. Psychologists, neuroscientists, opthamologists and optometrists, computer scientists, and engineers all have an interest in the practical side of the subject. Vision Research is a clear and comprehensive laboratory manual providing all the detailed practical information needed to undertake vision research. Spanning methods used across the breadth of vision research, this book provides detailed protocols and advice on experimental techniques and procedures, as well as useful background information. It covers the choice and use of modern light sources and optical components, with particular consideration of how to generate specified colours, and the creation and presentation of images, with special emphasis on up-to-date computer techniques. It also deals with the design of psychophysical experiments, and the particular problems posed by working with children and with animals. Finally, it provides a thorough coverage of all types of physiological measurement: of ERG and evoked potentials, and the measurement of accommodation, eye movements, and pupil diameter. Here are the "tricks of the trade" of vision research, from some if its leading practitioners, of a kind that cannot be found in published papers and are often only acquired through apprenticeship and a life-time of personal experience. Accessibly written for those with little background in optics and electronics, this book will be essential for students undertaking practical vision research for the first time. Clinical researchers and experienced researchers in other fields wishing to learn about and use vision research techniques will also find it extremely useful. An essential resource in every vision research laboratory.

This book offers an analysis of experimental psychology that is embedded in a general understanding of human behavior. It provides methodological self-awareness for researchers who study and use the experimental method in psychology. The book critically reviews key research areas (e.g., rule-breaking, sense of agency, free choice, task switching, task sharing, and mind wandering), examining their scope, limits, ambiguities, and implicit theoretical commitments. Topics featured in this text include: Methods of critique in experimental research Goal hierarchies and organization of a task Rule-following and rule-breaking behavior Sense of agency Free-choice tasks Mind wandering Experimental Psychology and Human Agency will be of interest to researchers and undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, theoretical psychology, and critical psychology, as well as various philosophical disciplines.

This book presents and discusses seven contemporary theoretical approaches to behavior analysis that build upon the foundations laid by B.F. Skinner's radical behaviorism and renew its legacy. These contemporary approaches show that behaviorism is not a monolithic or static intellectual tradition, but a dynamic movement, which changes and adapts in face of new questions, issues, and perspectives. The death of behaviorism has been proclaimed since its early days - a "premature" assessment, to say the least - but this volume shows that behaviorism is alive and kicking, even thirty years after its main proponent passed away. This volume contains seven sections, each one dedicated to a particular variation of contemporary behaviorism: Howard Rachlin's teleological behaviorism, William Baum's molar behaviorism and multiscale behavior analysis, John Staddon's theoretical behaviorism, John Donahoe's biological behaviorism, Gordon Foxall's intentional behaviorism, Steven Hayes' contextual behaviorism or contextual behavioral science, and Emilio Ribes-Inesta's field-theory behaviorism. Each section contains three chapters: the first one written by the original proponent of each of these forms of behaviorism, the second one written by a commentator, and the third one written by the proponent, replying to the commentator. Contemporary Behaviorisms in Debate will be a valuable tool to behavior analysts and psychologists in general by providing an introduction to contemporary forms of behaviorism and promoting debates about the main philosophical issues faced by the field of behavior analysis today- issues that can directly influence future epistemological variations in the selection process of "behaviorisms." By doing so the book is directed not only to the present, but, more importantly, toward the future of the field.

In the 1960s, Americans combined psychedelics with Buddhist meditation to achieve direct experience through altered states of consciousness. As some practitioners became more committed to Buddhism, they abandoned the use of psychedelics in favor of stricter mental discipline, but others carried on with the experiment, advancing a fascinating alchemy called psychedelic Buddhism. Many think exploration with psychedelics in Buddhism faded with the revolutionary spirit of the sixties, but the underground practice has evolved into a brand of religiosity as eclectic and challenging as the era that created it. Altered States combines interviews with well-known figures in American Buddhism and psychedelic spirituality-including Lama Surya Das, Erik Davis, Allan Badiner, Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Sensei, Rick Strassman, and Charles Tart-and personal stories of everyday practitioners to define a distinctly American religious phenomenon. The nuanced perspective that emerges, grounded in a detailed history of psychedelic religious experience, adds critical depth to debates over the controlled use of psychedelics and drug-induced mysticism. The book also opens new paths of inquiry into such issues as re-enchantment, the limits of rationality, the biochemical and psychosocial basis of altered states of consciousness, and the nature of subjectivity.

Why do we need two eyes? Why are all cats grey at night and appear to move faster the day? Why is the sky blue and the setting sun red? This book explains the multifaceted nature of perception, and discusses the mysteries of vision. It provides readers with experiments to help them discover optical illusions and the features of their own perception. Illusions of Seeing begins with a discussion on the essence of light and its perception to the human eye. It presents a comprehensive overview of the basic laws of human perception as well as the fundamentals of good gestalt. Subsequent chapters discuss geometric-optical illusions; the perception of form, brightness, and translucency and their interaction with each other; ambiguous perception, color vision, spatial vision. The book ends with a discussion of the perception of motion and its interaction with color, form, and spatial depth with a full chapter devoted to illusions in our everyday life. Consider this your travel guide in the marvelous world of sight, to experience a completely individual way to understand and improve your own perception. Illusions of Seeing will be of interest to psychologists, physicists, biologists, and undergraduate and graduate students within the field of cognitive psychology.

Brief and acute psychotic disorders with a short duration and a generally good prognosis have long intrigued psychiatrists. Although they are included in internationally accepted diagnostic systems, understanding of these disorders remains minimal. This book is the first comprehensive overview of the clinical features, biology, course and long-term outcome of brief and acute psychoses. The authors review the world literature on the topic and they also present data from their own longitudinal study - the most complete investigation of this group of disorders so far conducted. The book concludes with considerations of the nosological status of brief and acute psychoses and their impact on our understanding of the continuum of psychotic and affective disorders.

This book consists of thirteen chapters covering many facts like psycho-social intervention on emotional disorders in individuals, impact of emotion and cognition on blended theory, theory and implication of information processing, effects of emotional self esteem in women, emotional dimension of women in workplace, effects of mental thinking in different age groups irrespective of the gender, negative emotions and its effect on information processing, role of emotions in education and lastly emotional analysis in multi perspective domain adopting machine learning approach. Most of the chapters having experimental studies, with each experiment having different constructs as well as different samples for each data collection. Most of the studies measure information processing within altered mood states, such as depression, anxiety, or positive emotional states, with mental ability tasks being conducted in addition to the experiments of quasi-experimental design.

The second edition of this book brings together a cutting edge international team of contributors to critically review the current knowledge regarding the effectiveness of training interventions designed to improve cognitive functions in different target populations. Since the publication of the first volume, the field of cognitive research has rapidly evolved. There is substantial evidence that cognitive and physical training can improve cognitive performance, but these benefits seem to vary as a function of the type and the intensity of interventions and the way training-induced gains are measured and analyzed. This book will address the new topics in psychological research and aims to resolve some of the currently debated issues. This book offers a comprehensive overview of empirical findings and methodological approaches of cognitive training research in different cognitive domains (memory, executive functions, etc.), types of training (working memory training, video game training, physical training, etc.), age groups (from children to young and older adults), target populations (children with developmental disorders, aging workers, MCI patients etc.), settings (laboratory-based studies, applied studies in clinical and educational settings), and methodological approaches (behavioral studies, neuroscientific studies). Chapters feature theoretical models that describe the mechanisms underlying training-induced cognitive and neural changes. Cognitive Training: An Overview of Features and Applications, Second Edition will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, students, and professors in the fields of psychology and neuroscience.

This volume provides an empirical and conceptual overview of advances in our understanding of impulsivity and impulsive behaviors. Prominent scientists review the range of behavioral phenomena referred to as 'impulsive', as well as the defining features and psychological, neurocognitive and behavioral processes that underlie of the manifestation of impulsive behaviors, focussing on progress made and the questions remaining to be answered.

This book examines the role that human subjective experience plays in the creation of reality and introduces a new concept, the Bubble Universe, to describe the universe as it looks from the subjective viewpoint of an individual. Drawing on a range of research, the author questions the extent to which the scientific study of the origins of life, consciousness and subjective experience is itself influenced by scientists' subjective worlds. The author argues that in many respects the Bubble Universe differs from the universe as described by science and religion, and analyzes these differences. The fabric and structure of subjective reality is described, and various aspects of the Bubble Universe are examined, including science, religion, life, morality and history. The differences between the views from inside the subjective universe and from scientific, religious and sociocultural versions of the universe are outlined, and their significance for practical and theoretical problems are highlighted and illustrated with psychological experiments. This book will be of value to all scholars interested in how subjectivity influences research and appeal in particular to those working in developmental and theoretical psychology, consciousness, epistemology, phenomenology, and the philosophy of science and of the mind.

Die renommierte Autorin und Oxytocinforscherin, Kerstin Uvnas Moberg, betrachtet in diesem Buch Nahe und Beziehung aus einem hoechst spannenden physiologischen Blickwinkel. Nahe, Koerperkontakt und Beziehung stimulieren die Ausschuttung von Oxytocin. Dieses "Hormon der Nahe" bewirkt Ruhe und Entspannung, baut Angst ab, verbessert unsere Wahrnehmung fur Beziehungssignale, erhoeht unser Vertrauen in andere Menschen und fuhrt insgesamt dazu, dass wir leistungsfahiger und gesunder sind. Die Herausgeber der vorliegenden deutschen Ausgabe, Uta Streit und Fritz Jansen, haben das Werk fur den deutschsprachigen Markt uberarbeitet und entsprechend angepasst. Sie sind erfahrene Psychotherapeuten und Experten fur den Bereich Koerperkontakt. In Zusammenhang mit dem von Frau Uvnas Moberg vermittelten Wissen eroeffnen sie zukunftsweisende Perspektiven: Fur das Verstehen von Beziehungsproblemen, das Verstehen der Auswirkungen von Koerperkontaktstoerungen und die enormen Chancen, die eine Nutzung von Nahe und Koerperkontakt im Rahmen der Therapie unterschiedlichster Stoerungsbilder - vom Saugling bis zum alten Menschen - bietet.

How does creativity evolve in mind? This question leads a journey through neuroanatomical understanding and cognitive models. It thereby helps to figure out new approaches in decoding the process of creativity. These "aspects of the new" provide better understanding and constitute future research and insight of cognitive activities and creativity.

This book critically examines the historical and philosophical foundations of construct validity theory (CVT), and how these have and continue to inform and constrain the conceptualization of validity and its application in research. CVT has had an immense impact on how researchers in the behavioural sciences conceptualize and approach their subject matter. Yet, there is equivocation regarding the foundations of the CVT framework as well as ambiguities concerning the nature of the "constructs" that are its raison d'etre. The book is organized in terms of three major parts that speak, respectively, to the historical, philosophical, and pragmatic dimensions of CVT. The primary objective is to provide researchers and students with a critical lens through which a deeper understanding may be gained of both the utility and limitations of CVT and the validation practices to which it has given rise.

Analogical thinking lies at the core of human cognition, pervading from the most mundane to the most extraordinary forms of creativity. By connecting poorly understood phenomena to learned situations whose structure is well articulated, it allows reasoners to expand the boundaries of their knowledge. The first part of the book begins by fleshing out the debate around whether our cognitive system is well-suited for creative analogizing, and ends by reviewing a series of studies that were designed to decide between the experimental and the naturalistic accounts. The studies confirm the psychological reality of the surface bias revealed by most experimental studies, thus claiming for realistic solutions to the problem of inert knowledge. The second part of the book delves into cognitive interventions, while maintaining an emphasis on the interplay between psychological modeling and instructional applications. It begins by reviewing the first generation of instructional interventions aimed at improving the later retrievability of educational contents by highlighting their abstract structure. Subsequent chapters discuss the most realistic avenues for devising easily-executable and widely-applicable ways of enhancing access to stored knowledge that would otherwise remain inert. The authors review results from studies from both others and their own lab that speak of the promise of these approaches.

This book reconstructs the rise and fall of Wilhelm Wundt's fortunes, focusing for the first time on the role of Richard Avenarius as catalyst for the so-called "positivist repudiation of Wundt." Krauss specifically looks at the progressive disavowal of Wundtian ideas in the world of scientific psychology, and especially by his former pupils. This book provides important historical context and a critical discussion of the current state of research, in addition to a detailed consideration of Wundt's and Avenarius' systems of thought, as well as on their personal relationship. The author outlines the reception of Avenarius' conceptions among Wundt's pupils, such as Kulpe, Munsterberg and Titchener, and among other psychologists of the time, such as Ward, James and Ebbinghaus. Finally, this book presents Wundt's two-fold attempt to respond to the new trend through a criticism of the "materialistic" psychology, and a reformulation of his own ideas.

As positive psychology continues to make leaps and bounds in terms of scientific advancement, the focus on the importance of the body within optimal functioning is still lagging. Positive Psychology and the Body provides a critical reflection on this omission, highlighting the mounting corpus of scientific research completed on the physical mechanisms which assist either momentary experiences of pleasure or longer-lasting feelings of meaning and self development.Indispensable reading for students of well-being, positive psychology and sports psychology, the book spans topics such as physical activity, genetics, interpersonal touch, positive sexual behaviours, nutrition and many more. Those studying and researching coaching, health, clinical psychology and counselling psychology will also find the book valuable reading. With contributions from Angela Clow and Michael Pluess. "Case studies, fun facts, and suggested resources are just some of the many learning boxes within the text. These allow the readers to pause and really think about the material ... Hefferon offers a lot of new topics to the conversation. She also notes the value that positive psychology holds for research in other unexpected fields." Review on website of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy"Finally, an author has addressed the white elephant in the room: the human body. Arguably one of the most important aspects of the self the body has long been overlooked by positive psychologists as a serious point of study. This book has it all: from sex to genetics to illness Hefferon brings an expert review of research, clear advice and fresh thinking." Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, Managing Director, Positive Acorn, LLC"With this fine textbook, Positive Psychology expands its scope considerably, to include new and important perspectives from the very foundation of any psyche: the body. Indeed, we may argue that as much as any organ, the psyche is part of the body, if certainly still very strangely so. Kate Hefferon with her colleagues are to be strongly applauded for making new understandings of the mind-body-unity so accessible to students and everyone else interested in this fascinating topic." Hans Henrik Knoop, Aarhus University, Denmark and President, European Network for Positive Psychology"In a field - positive psychology - overcrowded with simplistic treatments of happiness and the good life, Kate Hefferon has put together a truly original book. By linking principles of positive psychology with the body, Hefferon brings to light the need for a more holistic approach to the good life, one that honors the reality that we carry out this project called "life" tethered to this world through our bodies. Anybody interested in a more grounded positive psychology should read this book." Corey L. M. Keyes, Professor of Sociology, Emory University, USA"In showing the relevance of positive psychology to sexuality, nutrition, health and physical activity Kate Hefferon pushes the boundaries of positive psychology into new territory. Packed with ideas that we can apply in our own lives, students and others interested in positive psychology will find this book an excellent introduction. Well worth the time to read." Stephen Joseph, author of What Doesn't Kill Us: The New Psychology of Posttraumatic Growth