Product Description

The brain is a fearsomely complex information-processing environment--one that often eludes our ability to understand it. At any given time, the brain is collecting, filtering, and analyzing information and, in response, performing countless intricate processes, some of which are automatic, some voluntary, some conscious, and some unconscious. Cognitive neuroscience is one of the ways we have to understand the workings of our minds. It's the study of the brain biology behind our mental functions: a collection of methods--like brain scanning and computational modeling--combined with a way of looking at psychological phenomena and discovering where, why, and how the brain makes them happen. Want to know more? Mind Hacks is a collection of probes into the moment-by-moment works of the brain. Using cognitive neuroscience, these experiments, tricks, and tips related to vision, motor skills, attention, cognition, subliminal perception, and more throw light on how the human brain works. Each "hack" examines specific operations of the brain. By seeing how the brain responds, we pick up clues about the architecture and design of the brain, learning a little bit more about how the brain is put together. Mind Hacks begins your exploration of the mind with a look inside the brain itself, using hacks such as "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: Turn On and Off Bits of the Brain" and "Tour the Cortex and the Four Lobes." Also among the 100 hacks in this book, you'll find: Release Eye Fixations for Faster Reactions See Movement When All is Still Feel the Presence and Loss of Attention Detect Sounds on the Margins of Certainty Mold Your Body Schema Test Your Handedness See a Person in Moving Lights Make Events Understandable as Cause-and-Effect Boost Memory by Using Context Understand Detail and the Limits of Attention Steven Johnson, author of "Mind Wide Open" writes in his foreword to the book, "These hacks amaze because they reveal the brain's hidden logic; they shed light on the cheats and shortcuts and latent assumptions our brains make about the world." If you want to know more about what's going on in your head, then Mind Hacks is the key--let yourself play with the interface between you and the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44547 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 363 pages

Review
The authors have compiled a fascinating ?collection of probes into the moment-by-moment works of the brain?. From getting to know the structure of your brain to learning how we see, hear and recall events, Mind Hacks allows you to test the theories of neuroscience on your own grey matter. If you?ve always wanted to get closer to your cerebellum but never plucked up the courage to take that DIY neurosurgery course, this is the book for you.? ? PD Smith, The Guardian, 15 Jan 2005

bookzen.blogspot.com
It is totally overflowing with examples and simple exercises. ..buy the book and give a Mind Hacks party!

From the Author
Mind Hacks is 100 do-it-at-home demonstrations that reveal something about how your brain works. We wrote the book because we found so much cool stuff being done in the cognitive sciences and we wanted to tell people about it, packaging it so that anyone could understand it and begin to use it in the own way for their own purposes. One of us (Tom) is a cognitive neuroscientist, the other (Matt) is a programmer and designer - so we're both interested in mechanism - in how things work. The book should help you understand a few quirks of mind not only affect how we think and behave but also reveal some fundamental things about how our brain constructs the illusion of reality for us.

Each Hack describes a phenomenon and gives an explanation of the psychology and neuroscience behind it. The demonstration will either make you go "wow" or it will make you go "I always noticed that - but I thought it was just me". Did you know that you spend 90 minutes of your waking day functionally blind (because visual input is cut off when your eyes move)? That you can improve your muscle strength by mental exercise alone? That preventing someone talking to themselves can stop them being able to combine information from different senses? Would you like to know why you're good with faces but not with names? Why you have a favourite coffee cup or why it is easier to listen to someone if you are wearing your glasses? The book lets you understand why these things happens, what they mean about our brain, and how they connect to the rest of our everyday lives. We had great fun writing the book, and some fantastic contributors. It is ram-packed full of tit-bits, information-nuggets, links and references for following things up. Come and visit us at mindhacks.com to get a taster.

- Tom & Matt

Customer Reviews

Informative and, more importantly, fun!
I've only just finished reading it, but I have a feeling this will be one of those books that you keep coming back to. There's a lot of scope for flicking through and reading bits that catch your eye.

A lot of this is down to the layout - within each section the points are made in short "hacks", each one capturing a particular trick of the mind to reveal the (occasionally hackish) way it works.

If an optical illusion can trick us into thinking that two identical objects are different sizes, why do our hands know the right size when they go to pick one up? This is one of the hacks, and it proves that visual information is processed on two paths - the motor control is happening before the processing of context. Or does it? Many of the hacks raise questions which have not been settled, so readers can explore the controversy for themselves.

The authors have an infectious enthusiasm for the subject which is manifest in a lot of links and supplementary reading (as well as a blog). It's certainly a good idea to have the internet accessible to you while you read so you can look up the demos they link to, or you'll find your copy overflowing with bookmarks like I did.

Two minor notes of caution - not all of the hacks are tricks that you can actually try out. Especially at the beginning of the book many of them are textbook information presented in the "hacks" style. This is a fun book, but the science is there as well so be prepared for it! The other potential irritation is that, because the hacks are designed to stand on their own, the book can feel a bit repetitive if you try to read it cover to cover.

Overall, though, an excellent roadtrip through the workings of the mind, with plenty of opportunity for picking up party tricks along the way. There'll even be some serious lessons for anyone interested in the way senses are processed for interface design etc. I can thoroughly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in how the mind works.

Great read
Not particularly great in terms of giving 'tips and tricks', but still an awesome book if you're into the way the brain works.

Very good. though the lingo can put you off.
Okay first off I must congratluate the Authors and those that helped them with building this archive of short cuts that the mind takes to create a imige of the world.

Though there are a few things, if you arnt fammiler with Psychology or the layout of the brain, your likly to become confused, but its quite possible to get your head round it, all in all, exceeltent work. but not desighed for the person who is just starting out on Psychology/psychiartry studys.