If creativity is the highest expression of the life impulse, why do creative individuals who have made lasting contributions to the arts and sciences so often end their lives? M.F. Alvarez addresses this central paradox by exploring the inner lives and works of eleven creative visionaries who succumbed to suicide. Through a series of case studies, Alvarez shows that creativity and suicide are both attempts to authenticate and resolve personal catastrophes that have called into question the most basic conditions of human existence.

This book develops a new approach to naturalizing phenomenology. The author proposes to integrate phenomenology with the mechanistic framework that offers new methodological perspectives for studying complex mental phenomena such as consciousness. While mechanistic explanatory models are widely applied in cognitive science, their approach to describing subjective phenomena is limited. The author argues that phenomenology can fill this gap. He proposes two novel ways of integrating phenomenology and mechanism. First, he presents a new reading of phenomenological analyses as functional analyses. Such functional phenomenology delivers a functional sketch of a target system and provides constraints on the space of possible mechanisms. Second, he develops the neurophenomenological approach in the direction of dynamic modeling of experience. He shows that neurophenomenology can deliver dynamical constraints on mechanistic models and thus inform the search for an underlying mechanism. Mechanisms and Consciousness will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and the cognitive sciences.

This book illustrates the link that unites memory, thought, and narration, and explores how the act of telling helps people to understand themselves and others. The structure of the book is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the aspect of narrative comprehension-the person as narrator. It identifies two different origins of narrative comprehension (memory and play) and argues that the narratives we produce starting from autobiographical memory are intended to give order and meaning to events that happened in the past, in order to be able to interpret the present. Conversely, the narratives we produce starting from play are aesthetically constructed, not forced to respect reality, and because of this create potential new worlds of understanding. The second part of this book is devoted to the study of narrative understanding as an understanding of the other. Chapters examine the different points of view a listener can adopt in order to interpret the text produced by a narrator and how these points of view can interact with each other. The book concludes with a consideration of narrative comprehension in the digital world, and examines the principal effects of stories and narrative on the notion of self in the realm of the "Internet galaxy." Telling to Understand will be of interest to researchers and students in cognitive science, psychology, literary studies, philosophy, education, and educational technology, as well as any reader interested in enlarging their concept of narrative and how narrating modifies the self.

The notions of 'function', 'feature' and 'functional feature' are associated with relatively new developments and insights in several areas of cognition. This book brings together different definitions, insights and research related to defining these notions from such diverse areas as language, perception, categorization and development. Each of the contributors in this book explicitly defines the notion of 'function', 'feature' or 'functional feature' within their own theoretical framework, presents research in which such a notion plays a pivotal role, and discusses the contribution of functional features in relation to their insights in a particular area of cognition. As such, this book not only presents new developments devoted to defining 'function', 'feature' and 'functional feature' in several sub-disciplines of cognitive science, but also offers a focused account of how these notions operate within the cognitive interface linking language and spatial representation. All book chapters are accessible for the interested novice, and offer the specialized researcher new empirical and theoretical insights into defining function, both with respect to the language and space interface and across cognition. The introduction to the book presents the reader with the main issues and viewpoints that are discussed in more detail in each of the book chapters.

Advances in Motivation Science, Volume Six, the latest release in Elsevier's serial on the topic of motivation science, presents articles on a variety of topics, including Motivation, Emotion, Cognition, and Communication: Definitions and Notes toward a Grand Theory, Motivation in the Service of Allostasis: The Role of anterior Mid Cingulate, Climatic Ignition of Motivation, My Journey to the Attribution Fields, Inspiration as optimal motivation: From ancient theory to contemporary science, The development of self-determination theory: The emergence of SDT's six mini theories and their validation, and more. The advent of the cognitive revolution in the 1960 and 70s eclipsed the emphasis on motivation to a large extent, but in the past two decades motivation has returned en force. Today, motivational analyses of affect, cognition and behavior are ubiquitous across psychological literatures and disciplines. This series brings together internationally recognized experts who focus on cutting-edge theoretical and empirical contributions in this important area of psychology.

This book explores the ways in which poetic inspiration came to be associated with madness in early nineteenth-century Britain. By examining the works of poets such as Barrett, Browning, Clare, Tennyson, Townshend, and the Spasmodics in relation to the burgeoning asylum system and shifting medical discourses of the period, it investigates the ways in which Britain's post-Romantic poets understood their own poetic vocations within a cultural context that insistently linked poetic talent with illness and insanity. Joseph Crawford examines the popularity of mesmerism among the writers of the era, as an alternative system of medicine that provided a more sympathetic account of the nature of poetic genius, and investigates the persistent tension, found throughout the literary and medical writings of the period, between the Romantic ideal of the poet as a transcendent visionary genius and the 'medico-psychological' conception of poets as mere case studies in abnormal neurological development.

Baron argues that our well-meant and deeply felt intuitions about what is right often prevent us from achieving the results we want. Rather than banishing these intuitions, he suggests that they should take a secondary role, and that we base our decisions affecting the common good on an understanding of consequences, results, and effects.

Is Apple conscious?

Could a cyber–human system sense a potential terrorist attack?

Or make diagnosing a rare and little-known disease routine?

Computers are not replacing us: they are enhancing us. Different intelligences are joining together to do things we thought were impossible.

Whether it’s devising innovations to tackle climate change, helping job seekers and employers find one another, or identifying the outbreak of a serious disease, groups of humans and machines are already working together to solve all sorts of problems. And they will do a lot more.

The future will be like another world – a place where we’ll think differently. In many ways, we are already there.

Takes an evidence-based approach to motivate intervention research to understand how what we know about crosslinguistic influence can be used to improve L2 learning. A unique resource for students and scholars of L2 learning, bi- and multilingualism, and language teaching. Comprehensively reviews empirical studies and cognitive theories of learning to understand the critical role of crosslinguistic influence in L2 development. No existing book does this.

Many organisms possess multiple sensory systems, such as vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The possession of such multiple ways of sensing the world offers many benefits. These benefits arise not only because each modality can sense different aspects of the environment, but also because different senses can respond jointly to the same external object or event, thus enriching the overall experience-for example, looking at an individual while listening to them speak. However, combining the information from different senses also poses many challenges for the nervous system. In recent years, there has been dramatic progress in understanding how information from different sensory modalities gets integrated in order to construct useful representations of external space; and in how such multimodal representations constrain spatial attention. Such progress has involved numerous different disciplines, including neurophysiology, experimental psychology, neurological work with brain-damaged patients, neuroimaging studies, and computational modelling. This volume brings together the leading researchers from all these approaches, to present the first integrative overview of this central topic in cognitive neuroscience.

Across several intellectual disciplines there exists a tension between an appreciation of the cognitive capacities that all humans share and a recognition of the great variety in their manifestations in different individuals and groups. In this book G. E. R. Lloyd examines how, while avoiding the imposition of prior Western assumptions and concepts, we can reconcile two conflicting intuitions: that all humans share the same basic cognitive capacities and yet their actual manifestations in different individuals and groups differ appreciably. Lloyd investigates the cultural viability of analytic tools we commonly use (such as the contrasts between the literal and the metaphorical, between myth and rational account, and between nature and culture themselves) and the categories that we employ to organize human experience (like mathematics, religion, law, and aesthetics). The end result is a robust defence, within limits, of the possibilities of mutual intelligibility-one which recognizes both the diversity in the manifestations of human intelligence and the need to revise our assumptions in order to achieve that understanding.

This book shows how Shakespeare's excellence as storyteller, wit and poet reflects the creative process of conceptual blending. Cognitive theory provides a wealth of new ideas that illuminate Shakespeare, even as he illuminates them, and the theory of blending, or conceptual integration, strikingly corroborates and amplifies both classic and current insights of literary criticism. This study explores how Shakespeare crafted his plots by fusing diverse story elements and compressing incidents to strengthen dramatic illusion; considers Shakespeare's wit as involving sudden incongruities and a reckoning among differing points of view; interrogates how blending generates the "strange meaning" that distinguishes poetic expression; and situates the project in relation to other cognitive literary criticism. This book is of particular significance to scholars and students of Shakespeare and cognitive theory, as well as readers curious about how the mind works.

Creativity and Humor provides an overview of the intersection of how humor influences creativity and how creativity can affect humor. The book's chapters speak to the wide reach of creativity and humor with different topics, such as play, culture, work, education, therapy, and social justice covered. As creativity and humor are individual traits and abilities that have each been studied in psychology, this book presents the latest information.

The Emotions in the Classics of Sociology stands as an innovative sociological research that introduces the study of emotions through a detailed examination of the theories and concepts of the classical authors of discipline. Sociology plays a crucial role emphasizing how much emotional expressions affect social dynamics, thus focusing on the ways in which subjects show (or decide to show) a specific emotional behaviour based on the social and historical context in which they act. This book focuses the attention on the individual emotions that are theorized and studied as forms of communication between subjects as well as magnifying glasses to understand the processes of change in the communities. This volume, therefore, guides the readers through an in-depth overview of the main turning points in the social theory of the classical authors of sociology highlighting the constant interaction between emotional, social and cultural elements. Thus, demonstrating how the attention of the emotional way of acting of the single subject was already present in the classics of the discipline. The book is suitable for an audience of undergraduate, postgraduate students and researchers in sociology, sociology of emotions, sociology of culture, social theory and other related fields.

This is an innovative textbook that explores the interaction between cognitive processes and neuropsychology to develop a modern, integrated understanding of emotion.This is the first textbook to integrate cognitive and neuroscientific perspectives on emotion, giving it a unique scope. It provides broad coverage of normal and disordered emotions. The author is a well-respected researcher in this field. The book discusses both theory and fundamental research findings which gives the student a comprehensive overview.Fox integrates the different approaches to understanding emotions, looking at cognitive and neuroscientific processes and is informed by recent advances. She offers a cohesive and innovative view of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and clinical aspects of emotion to develop a modern understanding of the subject.

Rapid technological change, global competition, and economic uncertainty have all contributed to organizations seeking to improve creativity and innovation. Researchers and businesses want to know what factors facilitate or inhibit creativity in a variety of organizational settings. Individual Creativity in the Workplace identifies those factors, including what motivational and cognitive factors influence individual creativity, as well as the contextual factors that impact creativity such as teams and leadership.The book takes research findings out of the lab and provides examples of these findings put to use in real world organizations.

* This highly topical book will look at and discuss the holistic world of the new intelligences and the new ways to educate us all for living in the future. * Combines, educational research, cognitive psychology and AI perspectives * A book to help increase and develop creativity in response to fundamental changes in our societies and to enhance our intelligence, our ability to understand and act in an informed way. * Contains numerous illustrations and activities

This work is a study of the various ways in which individuals and groups use memory narratives to express and form the quality of their lives. Activities of remembering, forgetting, reconstructing, metamorphosizing, and vicariously remembering are described for cultures in Latin America, Africa, Europe, Canada, and the United States. The authors find that the territory of memory is bounded by neither space nor time, but exists in the minds of individuals and groups. Memory changes as individuals and cultures change, forming a dialogue between the past and the present in response to present and changing needs. Memories of dislocation, war, torture, famine, and separation are given particular attention for the way they create meaning in the present and future lives of those who remember and share their memories.

Praise for Cognitive Psychodynamics . . .

"It is refreshing to encounter an integrative reframing of the current status of psychodynamic theory and practice. . . . Professor Horowitz lays out a [clear] approach to assessment and psychotherapy . . . livened by brief, effective case studies." --Jerome L. Singer, Professor of Psychology and Child Study Center, Yale University

And other titles by the same author . . .

Mardi Horowitz has gone where others fear to tread . . . [by] blending traditional psychodynamic concepts with cognitive psychology and neuroscience. The result is a relatively accessible and sensible primer of mental structure and function. --Robert Waldinger, M.D., on Introduction to Psychodynamics: A New Synthesis

Horowitz' revised volume must be considered the definitive work in the area. The bibliography is comprehensive, and the scholarship is superb. --Glen Gabbard, M.D., on Image Formation and Psychotherapy

Cognitive Psychodynamics offers an important new integration of cognitive science and psychodynamic psychology that provides a common language across disciplines while presenting an explicit theoretical basis for understanding the processes that bring about change. Written by Mardi J. Horowitz, one of the world's leading psychological theoreticians, this trailblazing work provides an analysis of both conscious and unconscious mental processes and the development of identity and relationships.

The book is organized around three theoretical constructs: states of mind; defensive control processes used to regulate emotion; and person schemas, the cognitive maps that organize patterns of relationships and identity. Initial chapters present theinformation processing of emotional themes. The book then addresses how people form a meaningful identity during development and how they deal with the conflict between self-striving and responsibility to others.

Starting with smaller systems that represent ideas and feelings, the material builds toward larger systems that tackle complex issues such as the nature of identity, the basis of attachments to others, and why maladaptive relationship cycles get repeated despite their destructive nature. Bridging the gap between theory and clinical practice, the book addresses crucial concepts of change -- how people become self-aware, how enhanced awareness can lead to insight, and how insight can lead to new decisions that can alter fundamental attitudes and lead to adaptive changes in behavioral patterns. Interesting case examples anchor theory to observable human predicaments, and to concrete ways in which change can occur.

Cognitive Psychodynamics offers an original perspective on issues of emotional conflict and character development that will be welcomed by psychologists, psychiatrists, researchers, and scholars, as well as professors and students in the behavioral and social sciences.

In recent years there has been much psychological and neurological work purporting to show that consciousness and self-awareness play no role in causing actions, and indeed to demonstrate that free will is an illusion. The essays in this volume subject the assumptions that motivate such claims to sustained interdisciplinary scrutiny. The book will be compulsory reading for psychologists and philosophers working on action explanation, and for anyone interested in the relation between the brain sciences and consciousness.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *Why does your foot hit the brake pedal before you are conscious of danger ahead?* *Why is it so difficult to keep a secret?* *How is it possible to get angry at yourself: who, exactly, is mad at whom?* In this sparkling and provocative book, renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain. Taking in brain damage, plane spotting, dating, drugs, beauty, infidelity, synaesthesia, criminal law, artificial intelligence and visual illusions, INCOGNITO is a thrilling subsurface exploration of the mind and all its contradictions.

This book offers a new approach to film studies by showing how our brains use our interpretations of various other films in order to understand Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Borrowing from behavioral psychology, cognitive science and philosophy, author Robert J. Belton seeks to explain differences of critical opinion as inevitable. The book begins by introducing the hermeneutic spiral, a cognitive processing model that categorizes responses to Vertigo's meaning, ranging from wide consensus to wild speculations of critical "outliers." Belton then provides an overview of the film, arguing that different interpreters literally see and attend to different things. The fourth chapter builds on this conclusion, arguing that because people see different things, one can force the production of new meanings by deliberately drawing attention to unusual comparisons. The latter chapters outline a number of such comparisons-including avant-garde films and the works of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch-to shed new light on the meanings of Vertigo.

This authoritative collection goes beyond economic statistics and probability data to offer a robust psychological understanding of risk perception and risk taking behavior. Expert contributors examine various risk domains in life, and pinpoint cognitive, emotional, and personality factors contributing to individual differences in risk taking as well as the many nuances social demographics (e.g., culture, gender) bring to risk decisions. Coverage takes competing theories and studies into account to identify mechanisms involved in processing and acting on uncertainty. And implications and applications are demonstrated in varied fields, from updated risk models for the insurance sector to improved risk communication in health services to considering risk perception in policy decisions. A sampling of the topics: Personality and risk: beyond daredevils-risk taking from a temperament perspective. Cognitive, developmental, and neurobiological aspects of risk judgments. The group effect: social influences on risk identification, analysis, and decision-making. Cognitive architectures as a scaffolding for risky choice models. Improving understanding of health-relevant numerical information. Risk culture as a framework for improving competence in risk management. Psychological Perspectives on Risk and Risk Analysis will be of great interest to researchers in and outside of psychology, including decision-making experts and behavioral economists. Additionally, this volume will appeal to practitioners who often have to make risky decisions, such as managers and physicians.

This book proposes a novel and rigorous explanation of consciousness. It argues that the study of an aspect of our self-consciousness known as the 'feeling of embodiment' teaches us that there are two distinct phenomena to be targeted by an explanation of consciousness. First is an explanation of the phenomenal qualities - 'what it is like' - of the experience; and second is the subject's awareness of those qualities. Glenn Carruthers explores the phenomenal qualities of the feeling of embodiment using the tools of quality spaces, as well as the subject's awareness of those qualities as a functionally emergent property of various kinds of processing of these spaces. Where much recent work on consciousness focuses on visual experience, this book rather draws evidence from the study of self-consciousness. Carruthers argues that in light of recent methodological discoveries, awareness must be explained in terms of the organization of multiple cognitive processes. The book offers an explanation of anomalous body representations and, from that, poses a more general theory of consciousness. Ultimately this book creates a hybrid account of consciousness that explains phenomenology and awareness using different tools. It will be of great interest to all scholars of psychology and philosophy as well as anyone interested in exploring the intricacies of how we experience our bodies, what we are and how we fit into the world.