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Spatial Neglect is one of the few areas in Neuropsychology where
clinicians, psychologists and animal experimenters have succeeded
in adopting a common language. The result of interaction between
these three approaches has been some important new advances, which
are presented in this volume. Apart from its clinical significance
in neuropsychology, Spatial Neglect raises important questions in
the field of behavioral neurosciences. In this volume, three
aspects are examined: a) normal subjects, where new findings on
spatial behavior are described. b) brain-lesioned subjects, where
the classical studies on neglect are reconsidered in the light of
new findings. c) animals, where new experimental situations allow a
deeper understanding of the neural substrate.
Written by an international team of leading experts in
neuroscience, this book presents an overview of some of the main
schools of thought as well as current research trends in
neuroscience. It focuses on neural top-down causation applied to
hot topics like consciousness, emotions, the self and the will,
action and behavior, neural networks, brains and society. A special
feature of the book is pertinent presentations and lively
discussions on the topic. The book provides the reader with
invaluable information on what the latest research is in this field
and will enable the reader to gain considerable amount of knowledge
as well as hints for further enquiry. This is the first book on the
topic of neuroscience and top-down causation, and is written at a
level that will interest both academics and the general readers.
The extensive and lively discussions included in the book offer the
reader a clear idea of the research in this field, and what will
emerge as the main trends.
Compiled as a result of the Thirteenth Symposium of the Association
for Attention and Performance, this collection focuses on the
Symposium's theme: Organization of Action. The book is arranged in
sections which provide a comprehensive view of the main issues
raised during the meeting. Several aspects of the theme were
considered, including: the anatomical and physiological constraints
on motor preparation and execution . the influence of control
(proprioceptive, cutaneous, visual, oculomotor) signals the
contribution of kinematics to the understanding of the underlying
mechanisms and the role of cognitive constraints such as attention
or learning in goal selection This new volume is of particular
interest to professionals and researchers in cognitive psychology,
physiology, and neuropsychology as well as those studying motor
skills.
'Motor Cognition' describes the field of motor cognition - one to
which the author's contribution has been seminal. The book examines
how the motor actions we perform and watch others perform play a
pivotal role in the construction of the 'self' - our ability to
acknowledge and recognise our own identity.
Compiled as a result of the Thirteenth Symposium of the Association
for Attention and Performance, this collection focuses on the
Symposium's theme: Organization of Action. The book is arranged in
sections which provide a comprehensive view of the main issues
raised during the meeting. Several aspects of the theme were
considered, including: the anatomical and physiological constraints
on motor preparation and execution . the influence of control
(proprioceptive, cutaneous, visual, oculomotor) signals the
contribution of kinematics to the understanding of the underlying
mechanisms and the role of cognitive constraints such as attention
or learning in goal selection This new volume is of particular
interest to professionals and researchers in cognitive psychology,
physiology, and neuropsychology as well as those studying motor
skills.
This volume contains chapters derived from a N. A. T. O. Advanced
Study Institute held in June 1983. As the director of this A. S. I.
it was my hope that some of the e1ectrophysiologists could express
the potentialities of their work for perceptual theory, and that
some perceptionists could speculate on the underlying "units" of
perception in a way that would engage the imagination of physio
logists. The reader will have to be the judge of whether this was
achieved, or whether such a psychophysiological inter1ingua is
still overly idealistic. It is clear that after the revolution prec
pitated by Hube1 and Weisel in understanding of visual cortical
neurons we still have only a foggy idea of the behavioral output of
any particular species of cortical detector. It was therefore
particularly unfortunate that two persons who have made great
strides in correlating interesting facets of cat cortical physio
logy with human psychophysics (Max Cynader and Martin Regan of
Dalhousie University) were unable to attend this meeting. Never
theless, a number of new and challenging ideas regarding both
spatial perception and cortical mechanisms are represented in this
volume, and it is hoped that the reader will remember not only the
individual demonstrations but the critical questions posed by the
apposition of the two different collections of experimental facts.
David Ingle April 1984 VII TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V D. N. Lee
and D. S. Young Visual Timing of Interceptive Action 1 J. J."
This is the first book to offer a comprehensive overview of
higher-order motor disorders. It introduces new concepts emerging
from basic neurosciences and shows how they have impacted on the
field of cognitive motor control and led to new vistas for the
understanding of Higher-order Motor Disorders far beyond the
traditional field of topological diagnosis. It describes in detail
a wide range of clinical disorders including those of bimanual
co-ordination, apraxia and sensorimotor transformation deficits,
motor neglect, anarchic hand syndrome, imitation and utilisation
behaviours, action motivational and action monitoring disorders, as
well as new approaches to motor cortex plasticity and
reorganisation and rehalibitation of complex movement problems. The
book reviews the topic, starting with a description of the
neuroanatomical, neurobiological and cognitive basis of normal
motor behaviours, before moving on to cover the clinical features
of the disordered states. The final chapters cover the issues of
plastcity and recovery, pharmacological treatments and
rehabilitation.
This volume will stimulate research and foster new insights into
cognitive and motivational motor disorders. With expert
contributions from the major international centres in Europe and
the Americas his book gives a truly new framework for a complex and
confusing field.
Recent neuroscience, in replacing the old model of the brain as a
single centralized source of control, has emphasized "plasticity,"
the quality by which our brains develop and change throughout the
course of our lives. Our brains exist as historical products,
developing in interaction with themselves and with their
surroundings. Hence there is a thin line between the organization
of the nervous system and the political and social organization
that both conditions and is conditioned by human experience.
Looking carefully at contemporary neuroscience, it is hard not to
notice that the new way of talking about the brain mirrors the
management discourse of the neo-liberal capitalist world in which
we now live, with its talk of decentralization, networks, and
flexibility. Consciously or unconsciously, science cannot but echo
the world in which it takes place. In the neo-liberal world,
"plasticity" can be equated with "flexibility"-a term that has
become a buzzword in economics and management theory. The plastic
brain would thus represent just another style of power, which,
although less centralized, is still a means of control. In this
book, Catherine Malabou develops a second, more radical meaning for
plasticity. Not only does plasticity allow our brains to adapt to
existing circumstances, it opens a margin of freedom to intervene,
to change those very circumstances. Such an understanding opens up
a newly transformative aspect of the neurosciences. In insisting on
this proximity between the neurosciences and the social sciences,
Malabou applies to the brain Marx's well-known phrase about
history: people make their own brains, but they do not know it.
This book is a summons to such knowledge.
Our ability to acknowledge and recognise our own identity - our
'self' - is a characteristic doubtless unique to humans. Where does
this feeling come from? How does the combination of
neurophysiological processes coupled with our interaction with the
outside world construct this coherent identity? We know that our
social interactions contribute via the eyes, ears etc. However, our
self is not only influenced by our senses. It is also influenced by
the actions we perform and those we see others perform. Our brain
anticipates the effects of our own actions and simulates the
actions of others. In this way, we become able to understand
ourselves and to understand the actions and emotions of others.
This book is the first to describe the new field of 'Motor
Cognition' - one to which the author's contribution has been
seminal. Though motor actions have long been studied by
neuroscientists and physiologists, it is only recently that
scientists have considered the role of actions in building the
self. How consciousness of action is part of self-consciousness,
how one's own actions determine the sense of being an agent, how
actions performed by others impact on ourselves for understanding
others, differentiating ourselves from them and learning from them:
these questions are raised and discussed throughout the book,
drawing on experimental, clinical, and theoretical bases. The
advent of new neuroscience techniques, like neuroimaging and direct
electrical brain stimulation, together with a renewal of behavioral
methods in cognitive psychology, provide new insights into this
area. Mental imagery of action, self-recognition, consciousness of
actions, imitation can be objectively studied using these new
tools. The results of these investigations shed light on clinical
disorders in neurology, psychiatry and in neuro-development. This
is a major new work that will lay down the foundations for the
field of motor cognition.
Recent neuroscience, in replacing the old model of the brain as a
single centralized source of control, has emphasized "plasticity,"
the quality by which our brains develop and change throughout the
course of our lives. Our brains exist as historical products,
developing in interaction with themselves and with their
surroundings. Hence there is a thin line between the organization
of the nervous system and the political and social organization
that both conditions and is conditioned by human experience.
Looking carefully at contemporary neuroscience, it is hard not to
notice that the new way of talking about the brain mirrors the
management discourse of the neo-liberal capitalist world in which
we now live, with its talk of decentralization, networks, and
flexibility. Consciously or unconsciously, science cannot but echo
the world in which it takes place. In the neo-liberal world,
"plasticity" can be equated with "flexibility"-a term that has
become a buzzword in economics and management theory. The plastic
brain would thus represent just another style of power, which,
although less centralized, is still a means of control. In this
book, Catherine Malabou develops a second, more radical meaning for
plasticity. Not only does plasticity allow our brains to adapt to
existing circumstances, it opens a margin of freedom to intervene,
to change those very circumstances. Such an understanding opens up
a newly transformative aspect of the neurosciences. In insisting on
this proximity between the neurosciences and the social sciences,
Malabou applies to the brain Marx's well-known phrase about
history: people make their own brains, but they do not know it.
This book is a summons to such knowledge.
Ways of seeing is a book about human vision. It results from the collaboration between a world famous cognitive neuroscientist and an eminent philosopher. In the past forty years, cognitive neuroscience has made many startling discoveries about the human brain, and about the human visual system in particular. This book brings many recent empirical findings, from electrophysiological recordings in animals, the neuropsychological examination of human patients, psychophysics, and developmental cognitive psychology, to bear on questions traditionally addressed by philosophers. What is the meaning of the English verb 'to see'? How does visual perception yield knowledge of the world? How does visual perception relate to thought? What is the role of conscious visual experience in visually guided actions? How does seeing actions relate to seeing objects? In the process the book provides a new assessment of the 'two visual systems' hypothesis, according to which the human visual system comprises two anatomical pathways with separable visual functions. The first truly interdisciplinary book about human vision, it will be of interest to students and researchers in many areas of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind.
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