Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience

Is “right-brain” thought essentially creative, and “left-brain” strictly logical? Joseph B. Hellige argues that this view is far too simplistic. Surveying extensive data in the field of cognitive science, he disentangles scientific facts from popular assumptions about the brain’s two hemispheres.

This important text presents a comprehensive introduction to the history, methods, and applications of psychophysiology and explores other areas concerned with the “mind–body interface,” such as psychosomatic medicine, behavioral medicine, clinical psychology, psychiatry, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience.

A prominent neuroscientist argues that human language—though more sophisticated than all other forms of animal communication—is not a qualitatively different ability from all forms of animal communication, it does not require a quantum evolutionary leap to be explained, and it is not unified in a single “language instinct.”

Neural plasticity—the brain’s ability to change in response to normal developmental processes, experience, and injury—is a critically important phenomenon for both neuroscience and psychology. This book is a unique contribution to research and to the literature on clinical neuroscience.

Our subjective inner life is what really matters to us as human beings—and yet we know relatively little about how it arises. Over a long and distinguished career, Benjamin Libet has conducted experiments that have helped us see, in clear and concrete ways, how the brain produces conscious awareness. For the first time, Libet gives his own account of these experiments and their importance to our understanding of consciousness.

David LaBerge provides a systematic view of the attention process as it occurs in everyday perception, thinking, and action. Drawing from a variety of research methods and findings from cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and computer science, he presents a masterful synthesis.

Berthoz describes how human beings on earth perceive and control bodily movement. In his view, the brain acts like a simulator that is constantly inventing models to project onto the changing world, models that are corrected by steady, minute feedback from the world.