Do people have free will, or this universal belief an illusion? If free will is more than an illusion, what kind of free will do people have? How can free will influence behavior? Can free will be studied, verified, and understood scientifically? How and why might a sense of free will have evolved? These are a few of the questions this book attempts to answer.
People generally act as though they believe in their own free will: they don't feel like automatons, and they don't treat one another as they might treat robots. While acknowledging many constraints and influences on behavior, people nonetheless act as if they (and their neighbors) are largely in control of many if not most of the decisions they make. Belief in free will also underpins the sense that people are responsible for their actions. Psychological explanations of behavior rarely mention free will as a factor, however. Can psychological science find room for free will? How do leading psychologists conceptualize free will, and what role do they believe free will plays in shaping behavior?
In recent years a number of psychologists have tried to solve one or more of the puzzles surrounding free will. This book looks both at recent experimental and theoretical work directly related to free will and at ways leading psychologists from all branches of psychology deal with the philosophical problems long associated with the question of free will, such as the relationship between determinism and free will and the importance of consciousness in free will. It also includes commentaries by leading philosophers on what psychologists can contribute to long-running philosophical struggles with this most distinctly human belief.These essays should be of interest not only to social scientists, but to intelligent and thoughtful readers everywhere.

Time pervades every aspect of people's lives. We are all affected by remnants of our pasts, assessments of our presents, and forecasts of our futures. Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors over time inexorably intertwine and intermingle, determining varied reactions such as affect and emotions, as well as future behaviors. The purpose of this volume is to bring together the diverse theory and research of an outstanding group of scholars whose work relates to peoples judgements over time. To date, much theory and research on temporal variables within psychology has remained somewhat fragmented, isolated, and even provincial--researchers in particular domains are either unaware of or are paying little attention to each other's work. Integrating the theory and research into a single volume will bring about a greater awareness and appreciation of conceptual relations between seemingly disparate topics, define and promote the state of scientific knowledge in these areas, and set the agenda for future work. The volume presents the two main ways of looking at judgments over time: looking at how people's thoughts about the future and the past affect their present states, and looking at the interplay over time among people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Multitasking is all around us: the office worker interrupted by a phone call, the teenager texting while driving, the salesperson chatting while entering an order. When multitasking, the mind juggles all the many tasks we're doing this second, this hour, this week, and tries to perform them together-sometimes with great ease, sometimes with great difficulty. We don't often stop to think about how exactly we accomplish these feats of multitasking great and small. How do we switch from one task to another? What types of multitasking are disruptive, and when are they most disruptive? And ultimately, how can we take advantage of the benefits of multitasking while alleviating its negative effects in our daily lives?
This book presents the theory of threaded cognition, a theory that aims to explain the multitasking mind. The theory states that multitasking behavior can be expressed as cognitive threads-independent streams of thought that weave through the mind's processing resources to produce multitasking behavior, and sometimes experience conflicts to produce multitasking interference. Grounded in the ACT-R cognitive architecture, threaded cognition incorporates computational representations and mechanisms used to simulate and predict multitasking behavior and performance.
The book describes the implications of threaded cognition theory across three traditionally disparate domains: concurrent multitasking (doing multiple tasks at once), sequential multitasking (interrupting and resuming tasks), and multitask skill acquisition (learning and practicing multiple tasks). The work stresses the importance of unifying basic and applied research by alternating between in-depth descriptions of basic research phenomena and broader treatments of phenomena in applied domains, such as driver distraction and human-computer interaction. The book also includes practical guidelines for designers of interactive systems intended for multitasking contexts.

Consciousness is a perennial source of mystification in the philosophy of mind: how can processes in the brain amount to conscious experiences? Robert Kirk uses the notion of `raw feeling' to bridge the intelligibility gap between our knowledge of ourselves as physical organisms and our knowledge of ourselves as subjects of experience; he argues that there is no need for recourse to dualism or private mental objects. The task is to understand how the truth about raw feeling could be strictly implied by narrowly physical truths. Kirk's explanation turns on an account of what it is to be a subject of conscious perceptual experience. He offers penetrating analyses of the problems of consciousness and suggests novel solutions which, unlike their rivals, can be accepted without gritting one's teeth. His sustained defence of non-reductive physicalism shows that we need not abandon hope of finding a solution to the mind-body problem.

Some psychological phenomena can be explained by identifying and describing the processes that constitute them. Others cannot be explained in that way. In Attention is Cognitive Unison Christopher Mole gives a precise account of the metaphysical difference that divides these two categories and shows that, when current psychologists attempt to explain attention, they assign it to the wrong one.
Having rejected the metaphysical approach taken by our existing theories of attention Mole then develops a new theory. According to this theory the question of whether someone is paying attention is not settled by the facts about whichprocesses are taking place. It is settled by the facts about whether the processes that serve that person's task-- whichever processes those happen to be--are processes that operate in unison. This theory gives us a new account of the problems that have dogged debates about the psychology of attention since the middle of the twentieth century. It also gives us a new way to understand the explanatory importance of cognitive psychology's empirical findings. The book as whole shows that metaphysical questions have a foundational role to play in the explanatory project of cognitive psychology.
This volume is of interest to anyone engaged in current debates in the philosophy of mind and perception, and in cognitive science generally.

Simple Heuristics in a Social World invites readers to discover the simple heuristics that people use to navigate the complexities and surprises of environments populated with others. The social world is a terrain where humans and other animals compete with conspecifics for myriad resources, including food, mates, and status, and where rivals grant the decision maker little time for deep thought, protracted information search, or complex calculations. Yet, the social world also encompasses domains where social animals such as humans can learn from one another and can forge alliances with one another to boost their chances of success. According to the book's thesis, the undeniable complexity of the social world does not dictate cognitive complexity as many scholars of rationality argue. Rather, it entails circumstances that render optimization impossible or computationally arduous: intractability, the existence of incommensurable considerations, and competing goals. With optimization beyond reach, less can be more. That is, heuristics--simple strategies for making decisions when time is pressing and careful deliberation an unaffordable luxury--become indispensible mental tools. As accurate as or even more accurate than complex methods when used in the appropriate social environments, these heuristics are good descriptive models of how people make many decisions and inferences, but their impressive performance also poses a normative challenge for optimization models. In short, the Homo socialis may prove to be a Homo heuristicus whose intelligence reflects ecological rather than logical rationality.

This Handbook examines disparities in public health by highlighting recent theoretical and methodological advances in cultural neuroscience. It traces the interactions of cultural, biological, and environmental factors that create adverse physical and mental health conditions among populations, and investigates how the policies of cultural and governmental institutions influence such outcomes. In addition to providing an overview of the current research, chapters demonstrate how a cultural neuroscience approach to the study of the mind, brain, and behavior can help stabilize the quality of health of societies at large. The volume will appeal especially to graduate students and professional scholars working in psychology and population genetics. The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience represents the first collection of scholarly contributions from the International Cultural Neuroscience Consortium (ICNC), an interdisciplinary group of scholars from epidemiology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, genetics, and psychiatry dedicated to advancing an understanding of culture and health using theory and methods from cultural neuroscience. The Handbook is intended to introduce future generations of scholars to foundations in cultural neuroscience, and to equip them to address the grand challenges in global mental health in the twenty-first century.

This is the last major work of Eugene N. Sokolov, Professor of Psychophysiology at Moscow State University from 1950 to 2008. It summarizes the contributions of a lifetime on the neural mechanism of consciousness. Working at the intersection of psychology, neurophysiology and mathematics, Sokolov early introduced the concept of quantifiable 'difference in neuronal activity' and 'cognitive distance' as corresponding metrics in the physical and mental models of reality. He demonstrated the power of multidimensional vector mathematics to represent the neural computations that mediate between the brain's neural model and the mind's mental model of reality.
Sokolov and colleagues showed a mathematical commonality among the neuronal mechanisms that mediate the perception of basic features of visual stimuli including color, brightness, line orientation and motion. This led to a general vector model linking perceptual and memory processes to adaptive motor mechanisms. They extended the model to encompass broader, more complex functions, such as the perception of emotions in facial expressions, semantic differences in verbal stimuli and differential executive control mechanisms. Integrating evidence from human psychophysics, animal neurophysiology and vector mathematics they developed a unified model to characterize quantitatively many complex relations between objective and subjective aspects of reality.
Sokolov's studies of neuronal mechanisms of mental phenomena led him to distinguish two categories of neurons: 'consciousness neurons' directly associated with awareness of perceptual, emotional and cognitive events, and neurons that are necessary for, but not directly involved in, conscious processes. The book integrates his findings with major themes shaping twenty-first century understanding of the brain-mind relationship. It relates the findings both to work of other Russian investigators, such as Pavlov, Luria, and Rusinov, and to work of many Western researchers, including von Bekesy, Eccles, Edelman, Ehrenstein, Grossberg, John, Koch and Crick, Ledoux, Llinas, Milner, Penfield, Penrose, Posner, and Schrodinger."

Few conversational topics can be as significant as our troubles in life, whether everyday and commonplace, or more exceptional and disturbing. In groundbreaking research conducted with John Lee at the University of Manchester UK, Gail Jefferson turned the microscope on how people talk about their troubles, not in any professional or therapeutic setting, but in their ordinary conversations with family and friends. Through recordings of interactions in which people talk about problems they're having with their children, concerns about their health, financial problems, marital and relationship difficulties (their own or other people's), examination failures, dramatic events such as burglaries or a house fire and other such troubles, Jefferson explores the interactional dynamics and complexities of introducing such topics, of how speakers sustain and elaborate their descriptions and accounts of their troubles, how participants align and affiliate with one another, and finally manage to move away from such topics. The studies Jefferson published out of that remarkable period of research have been collected together in this volume. They are as insightful and informative about how we talk about our troubles, as they are innovative in the development and application of Conversation Analysis. Gail Jefferson (1938-2008) was one of the co-founders of Conversation Analysis (CA); through her early collaboration with Harvey Sacks and in her subsequent research, she laid the foundations for what has become an immensely important interdisciplinary paradigm. She co-authored, with Harvey Sacks and Emanuel Schegloff, two of the most highly cited articles ever published in Language, on turn-taking and repair. These papers were foundational, as was the transcription system that she developed and that is used by conversation analysts world-wide. Her research papers were a distinctive and original voice in the emerging micro-analysis of interaction in everyday life.

How does the immediate experience of musical sound relate to processes of meaning construction and discursive mediation?
This question lies at the heart of the studies presented in Experience and Meaning in Music Performance, a unique multi-authored work that both draws on and contributes to current debates in a wide range of disciplines, including ethnomusicology, musicology, psychology, and cognitive science. Addressing a wide range of musical practices from Indian raga and Afro-Brazilian Congado rituals to jazz, rock, and Canadian aboriginal fiddling, the coherence of this study is underpinned by its three main themes: experience, meaning, and performance. Central to all of the studies are moments of performance: those junctures when sound and meaning are actually produced. Experience-what people do, and what they feel, while engaging in music-is equally important. And considered alongside these is meaning: what people put into a performance, what they (and others) get out of it, and, more broadly, how discourses shape performances and experiences of music. In tracing trajectories from moments of musical execution, this volume a novel and productive view of how cultural practice relates to the experience and meaning of musical performance.
A model of interdisciplinary study, and including access to an array of audio-visual materials available on an extensive companion website, Experience and Meaning in Music Performance is essential reading for scholars and students of ethnomusicology and music psychology.

The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve presents a road map for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century. It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also an organ of plasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hard-wired components frozen in the evolutionary past, The Shape of Thought presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions and evolutionary histories that shape how they develop, what information they use, and what they do with that information. The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using the rich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges the long-standing divide between "nativist" approaches to development, based on innateness, and "empiricist" approaches, based on learning. It shows how a view of humans as a flexible, culturally-dependent species is compatible with a complexly specialized brain, and how the nature of our flexibility can be better understood by confronting the evolved design of the organ on which that flexibility depends.

All normal human beings alive in the last fifty thousand years appear to have possessed, in Mark Turner's phrase, "irrepressibly artful minds." Cognitively modern minds produced a staggering list of behavioral singularities--science, religion, mathematics, language, advanced tool use, decorative dress, dance, culture, art--that seems to indicate a mysterious and unexplained discontinuity between us and all other living things. This brute fact gives rise to some tantalizing questions: How did the artful mind emerge? What are the basic mental operations that make art possible for us now, and how do they operate? These are the questions that occupy the distinguished contributors to this volume, which emerged from a year-long Getty-funded research project hosted by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. These scholars bring to bear a range of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives on the relationship between art (broadly conceived), the mind, and the brain. Together they hope to provide directions for a new field of research that can play a significant role in answering the great riddle of human singularity.

In recent years, philosophical discussions of free will have focused largely on whether or not free will is compatible with determinism. In this challenging book, David Hodgson takes a fresh approach to the question of free will, contending that close consideration of human rationality and human consciousness shows that together they give us free will, in a robust and indeterministic sense. In particular, they give us the capacity to respond appositely to feature-rich gestalts of conscious experiences, in ways that are not wholly determined by laws of nature or computational rules. The author contends that this approach is consistent with what science tells us about the world; and he considers its implications for our responsibility for our own conduct, for the role of retribution in criminal punishment, and for the place of human beings in the wider scheme of things.
Praise for David Hodgson's previous work, The Mind Matters
"magisterial...It is balanced, extraordinarily thorough and scrupulously fair-minded; and it is written in clear, straightforward, accessible prose." --Michael Lockwood, Times Literary Supplement
"an excellent contribution to the literature. It is well written, authoritative, and wonderfully wide-ranging. ... This account of quantum theory ... will surely be of great value. ... On the front cover of the paper edition of this book Paul Davies is quoted as saying that this is "a truly splendid and provocative book." In writing this review I have allowed myself to be provoked, but I am happy to close by giving my endorsement to this verdict in its entirety " --Euan Squires, Journal of Consciousness Studies
"well argued and extremely important book." --Sheena Meredith, New Scientist
"His reconstructions and explanations are always concise and clear." --Jeffrey A Barrett, The Philosophical Review
"In this large-scale and ambitious work Hodgson attacks a modern orthodoxy. Both its proponents and its opponents will find it compelling reading." --J. R. Lucas, Merton College, Oxford

The study of attention is central to psychology. In this work, Michael Posner, a pioneer in attention research, presents the science of attention in a larger social context, which includes our ability to voluntarily choose and act upon an object of thought. The volume is based on fifty years of research involving behavioral, imaging, developmental, and genetic methods. It describes three brain networks of attention that carry out the functions of obtaining and maintaining the alert state, orienting to sensory events, and regulating responses. The book ties these brain networks to anatomy, connectivity, development, and socialization and includes material on pathologies that involve attentional networks, as well as their role in education and social interaction.

It is well known that the class of steroid hormones known as estrogens have powerful effects on organs related to reproduction such as the uterus and the breast. What is less well known is that estrogens also profoundly modulate brain function and behavior. Estrogens, such as estradiol, can occur in brain as the result of ovarian secretion of the hormone into the blood that then finds its way to the brain. In male vertebrates, the testes secrete androgens, such as testosterone, into the blood and this class of steroid hormones can be converted into estrogens in the brain via the action of the enzyme aromatase which is expressed in the male brain in many species. Finally estradiol can be synthesized de novo from cholesterol as it has been shown in a variety of species that all the enzymes required to synthesize estrogens are expressed in the brain. This book collects chapters by experts in the field that considers, how estradiol is synthesized in the brain and what its effects are on a variety of behaviors. Special attention is paid to the enzyme aromatase that is distributed in discrete regions of the brain and is highly regulated in a sex specific and seasonal specific manner. Recently it has become clear that estrogens can act in the brain at two very different time scales, one is rather long lasting (days to weeks) and involves the modulation of gene transcription by the hormone-receptor complex. A second mode of action is much quicker and involves the action of estrogens on cell membranes that can result in effects on second messenger systems and ultimately behavior within minutes. Thus this book highlights novel views of estrogen action that are still under-appreciated namely that estrogens have significant effects on the male brain and that they can act on two very different times scales. This volume will be of interest to both basic researchers and clinicians interested in the action of estrogens.

Lara Buchak sets out an original account of the principles that govern rational decision-making in the face of risk. A distinctive feature of these decisions is that individuals are forced to consider how their choices will turn out under various circumstances, and decide how to trade off the possibility that a choice will turn out well against the possibility that it will turn out poorly. The orthodox view is that there is only one acceptable way to do this: rational individuals must maximize expected utility. Buchak's contention, however, is that the orthodox theory (expected utility theory) dictates an overly narrow way in which considerations about risk can play a role in an individual's choices. Combining research from economics and philosophy, she argues for an alternative, more permissive, theory of decision-making: one that allows individuals to pay special attention to the worst-case or best-case scenario (among other 'global features' of gambles). This theory, risk-weighted expected utility theory, better captures the preferences of actual decision-makers. Furthermore, it isolates the distinct roles that beliefs, desires, and risk-attitudes play in decision-making. Finally, contra the orthodox view, Buchak argues that decision-makers whose preferences can be captured by risk-weighted expected utility theory are rational. Thus, Risk and Rationality is in many ways a vindication of the ordinary decision-maker-particularly his or her attitude towards risk-from the point of view of even ideal rationality.

Largely through trial and error, filmmakers have developed engaging techniques that capture our sensations, thoughts, and feelings. Philosophers and film theorists have thought deeply about the nature and impact of these techniques, yet few scientists have delved into empirical analyses of our movie experience-or what Arthur P. Shimamura has coined "psychocinematics." This edited volume introduces this exciting field by bringing together film theorists, philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists to consider the viability of a scientific approach to our movie experience.

What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of consciousness fit into an objective world? How can there be a science of consciousness? In this sequel to his groundbreaking and controversial The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers develops a unified framework that addresses these questions and many others. Starting with a statement of the "hard problem" of consciousness, Chalmers builds a positive framework for the science of consciousness and a nonreductive vision of the metaphysics of consciousness. He replies to many critics of The Conscious Mind, and then develops a positive theory in new directions. The book includes original accounts of how we think and know about consciousness, of the unity of consciousness, and of how consciousness relates to the external world. Along the way, Chalmers develops many provocative ideas: the "consciousness meter", the Garden of Eden as a model of perceptual experience, and The Matrix as a guide to the deepest philosophical problems about consciousness and the external world. This book will be required reading for anyone interested in the problems of mind, brain, consciousness, and reality.