neuroscience and neurobiology books

	The New Unconscious (Social Cognition and Social Neuroscience)
	By: Ran R. Hassin, James S. Uleman, John A. Bargh ISBN: 0195307690 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Release Date: 24 August, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 298565	It is almost two centuries since philosophers and the forerunners of modern psychology first began to realize that there are a great many psychological processes that run below the horizon of conscious awareness. These observations and insights reached their height with Sigmund Freud and his successors, and the notion that many of our thoughts and actions are the fruits of unconscious processes entered the mainstream over a hundred years ago. <br /> <br />But academic psychology was never quite so sure. Freud, Jung, Adler and the others had constructed an untestable metatheory that began to fall off the radar of most academic psychologists. Yet psychotherapists continued to use techniques informed by concepts of unconscious motivations, and some empirical research confirmed the value of the approach. Though the value of some of the therapies did little to confirm the existence of unconscious processes. <br /> <br />The problem of the existence of the unconscious was compounded by the problems of definitions: some spoke of a "personal" unconscious; Jung and his followers introduced the notion of a "collective" unconscious, but then many writers began to use the words "unconscious" and "subconscious' interchangeably. That obfuscation was compounded by many popular writers who expanded the concept of the "subconscious" to include biological functions operating below the level of conscious awareness. So then everything from the beating of the heart to the metabolic fires of the mitochondria were all subsumed under the term "subconscious." The problem with any overly broad definition is that it ceases to be a useful descriptor that we can use to make predictions to advance our understanding. <br /> <br />Yet another attempt to clarify non-conscious processes was to introduce the notion of a "preconscious" to describe some of the psychological processes that occur before or during conscious events, to differentiate them from the activities of the autonomic nervous systems and the interactions of the brain and nervous system with the immune and endocrine systems. One influential model is to differentiate three major "levels:" <br />1. The true unconscious, which is so far below awareness that it can never be directly known by introspection, but only inferred <br />2. The preconscious that contains latent procedural knowledge <br />3. The subconscious level of awareness, which includes hypnotic and dissociative states <br /> <br />In the last few years cognitive psychologists have re-entered the arena, and created models and methods to try to make sense of unconscious processes. This is not some dry academic exercise, but an enterprise that reaches to the heart of mind/body interactions ad may provide explanation for some of the most baffling of human actions and reactions. <br /> <br />This excellent book is divided into an introduction, followed by five sections and nineteen chapters: <br /> <br />Introduction: Becoming Aware of the New Unconscious: James S. Uleman <br /> <br />Section 1: Fundamental Questions <br />1. Who is the Controller of Controlled Processes?: Daniel M. Wegner <br />2. Bypassing the Will: Towards Demystifying the Nonconscious Control of Social Behavior: John A. Bargh <br /> <br />Section 2: Basic Mechanisms <br />3. The Interaction of Emotion and Cognition: The Relation Between the Human Amygdala and Cognitive Awareness: Elizabeth A. Phelps <br />4. The power of the subliminal: On Subliminal Persuasion and Other Potential Applications: Ap Dijksterhuis, Henk Aarts, and Pamela K. Smith <br />5. Nonintentional Similarity Processing: Art Markman and Dedre Gentner <br />6. The Mechanics of Imagination: Automaticity and Control in Counterfactual Thinking: Neal Rose, Lawrence J. Sanna, and Adam D. Galinsky <br />7. Compensatory Automaticity: Unconscious Volition is not an Oxymoron: Jack Glaser and John F. Kihlstrom <br />8. Non Conscious Control and Implicit Working Memory: Ran R. Hassin <br /> <br />Section 3: Intention and Theory of Mind <br />9. Folk Theory of Mind: Conceptual Foundations of Human Social Cognition: Bertram F. Malle <br />10. The development of the intention concept: From the observable world to the unobservable mind: Jodie A. Baird and Janet W. Astington <br />11. Theory of Mind: Conscious Attribution and Spontaneous Trait Inference: Angeline S. Lillard and Lori Skibbe <br /> <br />Section 4: Perceiving and Engaging Others <br />12. The Glimpsed World: Unintended Communication and Unintended Perception: Y. Susan Choi, Heather M. Gray, and Nalini Ambady <br />13. Beyond the Perception-Behavior Link: The Ubiquitous Utility and Motivational Moderators of Nonconscious Mimicry: Tanya L. Chartrand, William W. Maddux, and Jessica L. Lakin <br />14. Implicit Impressions: James S. Uleman, Steven L. Blader, and Alexander Todorov <br />15. Attitudes as Accessibility Bias: Dissociating Automatic Controlled Processes: B. Keith Payne, Larry L. Jacoby, and Alan J. Lambert <br />16. The Unconscious Relational Self: Susan M. Anderson, Inga Reznik, and Noah S. Glassman <br /> <br />Section 5: Self-Regulation <br />17. The Control of the Unwanted: Peter M. Gollwitzer, Ute C. Bayer, and Kathleen C. McCulloch <br />18. Motivational Sources of Unintended Thought: Irrational Intrusions or Side Effects of Rational Strategies?: E. Tory Higgins <br />19. Going Beyond the Motivation Given: Self-Control and Situational Control over Behavior: Yaacov Trope and Ayelet Fishbach <br /> <br />Despite the number of authors, the editors have done an excellent job of maintaining a consistent style and readability, and there is remarkably little overlap between the chapters. <br /> <br />If you are looking for the best book so far on unconscious processes, I highly recommend this one. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Richard G. Petty, MD, author of [[ASIN:0595458017 Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life]] Is consciousness all that it's cracked up to be? For example, even if Dan Dennett's explanation of consciousness in "Consciousness Explained" is correct, what of it? <br /> <br />If, to riff on the New Age urban legend that we only use 10 percent of our brains, it turns out that only 10 percent of our mental activity is conscious, then Dennett hasn't explained very much. <br /> <br />But, the idea that much of our mental activity is unconscious is scary to many people. This includes not just John and Jane Does, but many educated people and even many cognitive scientists. It's of a partial piece, at least, with fears over the lack of free will. On that subject, note that even a Dennett, while denying the existence of a Cartesian Central Meaner, has spilled ink enough for two whole books illogically continuing to defend the existence of free will. <br /> <br />Some parts of fears of unconscious mental behavior touch on its free will aspects. A fair amount do. Probably the second biggest fear behind worries about unconscious mental activity is the risk that humans will look more, well, animalistic. <br /> <br />And that's precisely what "The New Unconscious" addresses. <br /> <br />Without any of its authors putting percentages on conscious versus unconscious mental activity, the cognitive science essays collected here ask -- and in large degree answer -- just what all is happening in our minds out of the reach of our own selves. <br /> <br />Does subliminal programming work? Yes, to a moderate to modest extent, depending on the exact goals of specific subliminal ideas. At the same time, no, if it's on New Ageish self-help audio tapes; to the degree subliminal programming works, it works far better with visual than with audio programming. <br /> <br />Related to that, do various forms of unconscious priming -- such as priming one toward certain emotional or belief states, or reinforcing old ones -- work? The answer is a pretty strong yes. Sometimes, as in how racial attitudes can be effective, this is somewhat scary, yet challenging to national issues of sociology, indicating that at least some change in racial attitudes in America is in fact, pardon the pun, only skin deep. <br /> <br />Can unconscious thoughts and processes be controlled? The answer appears to be yes. Does this mean we have unconscious free will? The authors of the main study in this area of the book say yes. They don't answer, though, how that would square with the absence of a Central Meaner, and whether it might not imply an Unconscious Central Meaner. I say it does, until the authors further develop their idea. However, that's just their theory of unconscious free will. Unless one believes that lack of a conscious central meaner is some weird form of an emergent property, I don't see how unconscious free will, let alone an implied unconscious Cartesian Meaner, can actually exist. I charge that they don't, and that Jack Glaser and John Kihlstrom need to do more work. <br /> <br />But that's not all in here. Tying in to Malcolm Gladwell, the relative accuracy of thin-slice, quick-slice judgments of other people has been clinically upheld. <br /> <br />The power of assimilating to other people's mannerisms and becoming unconscious mimics has also been demonstrated. Ditto on mimicry of emotional affect, similarity judgments and other things. <br /> <br />Our minds are less our own than we thought. <br /> <br />Of course, with no Cartesian Meaner, they're really not "our" minds anyway.
	Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations into Brain Function
	By: Stanley Finger ISBN: 0195146948 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Release Date: 11 October, 2001 Bioscience book rank: 227713	Stanley Finger's Origins of Neuroscience is an extremely useful and entertaining introduction to history of neuroscience. It entails multicultural contributions to philosophy of mind, and neural science from antiquity to contemporary times. In my opinion, this book is a 'must' for people interested in evolution of neural science and theories of mind from a neuroscientist point of view. This book is a wonderful introduction into the history of neurosciences and our understanding of the brain. It is an excellent read for the physician, scientist, or brain enthusiast. It is easy to follow and well organized. Finger captures the excitement of the important discoveries about the brain and diseases of the brain. I highly recommend this book for anyones shelf who collects history of medicine books.
	Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language
	By: Maxwell Bennett, Daniel Dennett, Peter Hacker, John Searle, Daniel N. Robinson ISBN: 0231140444 Publisher: Columbia University Press Release Date: 15 March, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 214046	Granted, Bennett and Hacker were the impetus behind this book's creation, but I feel they could have allowed more back-and-forth with Dennett and Searle, their two primary interlocutors. Instead, they republish sections of their own original arguments to give some context to Dennett and Searles' responses, which don't differ except in tone from their positions at the conference from which the book came. Then the book grants Bennett and Hacker another answer (composed, so far as I could tell, of almost willful misreadings of Searle's and Dennetts' criticisms), then a conclusion from a "referee" who, naturally, mostly judges them to have come out ahead in the argument. I expected more interlocution, but instead it seems to be a vehicle for Hacker and Bennett's position. That philosophy should unravel conceptual confusions in neuroscience or other sciences is a principal theme of the authors of [[ASIN:140510838X Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience]], which book is in the presently reviewed one discussed by those authors, Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker, and defended by them in response to criticisms by Daniel Dennett and John Searle. <br /> <br />However, major conceptual confusion characterizes the arguments of authors Bennett and Hacker themselves. <br /> <br />Let me begin by noting that all of these authors appear to subscribe to physicalism, describable as holding that all reality is reducible to physical phenomena. Consequently it is understandable that they will aim to fit their arguments into that straightjacket. A well-known expression of this attitude is the intense opposition to Cartesian dualism, the view by Descartes that mind and body, or mind and matter, are two distinct substances. <br /> <br />How derided this view is by the authors can be seen from the manner in which they speak of it: "crippling Cartesianism" (p.75, Dennett), "find themselves in bed with Descartes" (p.100, Searle), "the long, dark shadow of Descartes" (p.159, Bennett and Hacker). Only the commentator in the book, Daniel Robinson, expresses (pp.192-3) reservations about "how many kinds of different sorts of 'stuff' might be constitutive of all reality", but he considers such questions "best to leave unanswered". <br /> <br />They need not be left unanswered in philosophy, which with the aid of logic is here to try to resolve them. I may immodestly note that I deal with such questions in my [[ASIN:0961951907 On Proof for Existence of God, and Other Reflective Inquiries]], but now I wish to point out confusions by the principal reviewed authors, whose object is to prevent confusion. <br /> <br />In their arguments they contend (p.208, note 6) that "the idea that the mind is a SUBSTANCE [I capitalized italics] of any kind is not coherent", i.e. that it makes no "sense" to speak of mind as contrasted with the body. But the authors are confused by words. "Substance" is usually defined by the likes of "essential nature", and the main issue, regardless of words used, is whether there is an entity customarily termed "mind" which is distinct from the body. The entity in question is obviously, in Descartes' and other discussions of interaction between mind and body, consciousness--leaving aside particulars like recent propounding of an unconscious. And it certainly makes sense to inquire about the relation between conscious and bodily occurrences. <br /> <br />But the most prominent area of confusion by the authors is in their primary contention of a "mereological fallacy" (e.g. p.22), regarding "the logic of part/whole relations". The authors repeatedly contend such as: "psychological predicates are ascribable to the whole animal, not to its constituent parts". The underlying dispute is with neuroscientists who ascribe "psychological predicates" to the brain, and the presently discussed authors insist: "Human beings, but not their brains, can be said to be thoughtful or to be thoughtless; animals, but not their brains..., can be said to see, hear, smell and taste things..." And the authors repeat: "psychological predicates apply paradigmatically to the HUMAN BEING (OR ANIMAL) AS A WHOLE, and NOT to the body or its parts". <br /> <br />It should be noted that the shift to the brain by neuroscientists is done from the traditional "mind" or consciousness, since the latter does not lend itself to their physical scrutiny. And the turn by the discussed authors to the "whole" of the animal is evidently born of the like physicalist presupposition that one cannot speak of a mind separate from the body. Ironically, their phrase "psychological predicates" itself relies on the word "psyche" for "soul", and it is easy to see that their arguments correspondingly confuse the concepts involved. <br /> <br />It is not the "whole" of the human or animal that thinks, sees, hears, smells and tastes things. The arm does not take part in thinking, or the leg in seeing. It is indeed a truism that it is the conscious part in us that performs those tasks, enlisting in cases some of the body. Try as they may, thinkers cannot dismiss the role of consciousness in our lives. <br /> Philosophy is one of the oldest intellectual pursuits. Yet it is only in very recent times that science is starting to provide an underpinning. The status of this is argued in this book. With some of the latest results and trends in neuroscience as the talking point. <br /> <br />The book is formatted with 2 scientists providing views on consciousness, as gleaned from experiments. While the contrary opinions are given by 2 philosophers. With the scientists then given space to issue a reply. <br /> <br />Whatever your own positions on all this, perhaps you can appreciate the excitement in the air. For the first time, philosophy has hard experimental observations to cogit over. And the problem of consciousness is surely one of the fundamental unknowns in science.
	Fundamental Neuroscience
	By: Duane E. Haines, J. R., M.D. Bloedel, P. B., Ph.D. Brown, N. F. Phd Capra, R. B. Phd Chronister, M. D. Ard, M. P. Schenk, M. E. Kirkman, G. W. Armstrong ISBN: 0443066035 Publisher: Churchill Livingstone Release Date: 15 January, 2002 Bioscience book rank: 361659	I am a med. student and this book was suggested by the department probably due to the fact that it contains all the necessary information needed. One thing the department has ignored is that it is in some parts impossible to read. I admit that neurobiology is a hard subject, but in my opinion, the purpose of an author is to make it easier to the reader. Not once I was puzzled by the unnecessary complexity of the figures and the text which may be clear to someone who has already taken the course but on the other hand present a total mystery to a beginner. <br />I give this book 3 stars ... For many medical students, deciding whether to buy a book is something the student has to decide, considering that studying a textbook is time away from studying a detailed syllabus, which is where the majority of test questions will come from. Textbooks are almost always a reference for a class. I thus find it shocking that this textbook does not have a glossary, which makes studying neuroscience much more difficult. Textbooks with glossaries are always much easier to use, and there is no such thing as an excellent textbook that doesn't have a glossary. In addition, there are no practice questions, which makes this book less useful for the medical student. This book does indeed provide a great look at human neuroanatomy, with some discussion on function. As a graduate student taking a course and lab in neuroanatomy, this book will be helpful. The book is rather concise for the subject matter it is covering. Therefore, the writing style is condensed and difficult to follow at times. Perhaps the title should have been Fundamental Neuroanatomy, as opposed to Fundamental Neuroscience, as little discussion is given to research techniques and extrapolation from animal to human models.
	Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Diagnosis, Development, Neurobiology, and Behavior
	By: Fred R. Volkmar, Rhea Paul, Ami Klin, Donald J. Cohen ISBN: 0471716960 Publisher: Wiley Release Date: 28 April, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 129432	The most comprehensive, research-based information relative to individual's with ASD. None better!
	Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience: Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain
	By: Randall C. O'Reilly, Yuko Munakata, James L. McClelland ISBN: 0262650541 Publisher: The MIT Press Release Date: 04 September, 2000 Bioscience book rank: 242464	With a background in chemistry, biology, psychology, and neuroscience, I believed a course on simulating the the brain to understand the mind would be incredibly fascinating. However, this book, in spite of various claims to be an introduction to cognitive neuroscience, is full of technical jargon that is mostly likely only understood by those familiar with the subject. <br /> <br />The book itself comes off as extremely condescending to any beginner who is frustrated with the book because throughout the text, the authors repeat over and over and over again some variation of, "Here is a SIMPLE example..." <br /> <br />****ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE: As for the free software you can download online, PDP++, it is prone to errors (random quitting, functions not working properly) and DOES NOT work on many newer versions of Mac OS X. You have to download a different program called Emergent, which is not compatible with what you read in this text; this is also an annoying problem. <br /> <br />The aspects of the book that focus on the biology of the mind are like breaths of fresh air, but every chapter inevitably leads into mind-numbing instructions and equations that are difficult to comprehend. <br /> <br />This is by far the most frustrating book I've had to deal with. The other one-star review was shrewd in warning undergrad students and beginners about this text. I am currently taking a honors psych class which utilizes this textbook as a lab handout (we solve the exercises closing out each chapter). I find this book very hard to read due to the language and the explanations the authors use to explain certain topics. The book reads more like a guide for those already familiar with the subject matter, and the questions closing out each chapter are even harder to understand than the chapter text itself. If the authors wish the book to be of any help to undergrads who are not already familiar with the topic they should take a step back and revise the text so that it is understandable for all. NOTE TO UA STUDENTS THINKING OF TAKING THE CLASS WHICH UTILIZES THIS BOOK <br />---->dont. "Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience" provides a very readable overview of state-of-the-art neural network models for human cognition with an emphasis on both biological plausibility and experimental (psychological/cognitive) evidence.
	Physiology of Behavior, with Neuroscience Animations and Student Study Guide CD-ROM, Eighth Edition
	By: Neil R. Carlson ISBN: 0205381758 Publisher: Allyn & Bacon Release Date: 25 July, 2003 Bioscience book rank: 229722	This was my textbook for Behavioral Neuroscience (Pysch 390 I think) at UMass Amherst. It can get kind of verbose, but its immense detail more than makes up for it. I still use it for a reference source. I think it's also worth noting that Barron's GRE Psychology prep book recommends this book. <br /> <br />I got an A in the class, and the science side of psychology is really not my thing at all. <br /> <br />It's a good book, you should get it :) the book came in a reasonable amount of time but was not the same quality as was initially stated. It said the book was brand new but it had bent corners. Company was prompt and service was great. However, the book was listed in 'good' condition and it is not. I can ignore the writing and hilighting but it had a defect in which it was missing about 50 of it's pages. To me missing pages does not qualify as 'good' condition. These people obviously do not check the quality of thier books.
	Neurobiology of Addiction
	By: George F. Koob, Michel Le Moal ISBN: 0124192394 Publisher: Academic Press Release Date: 01 November, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 434463
	If Not God, Then What? Neuroscience, Aesthetics, and the Origins of the Transcendent
	By: Joshua Fost ISBN: 0615161065 Publisher: Clearhead Studios, Inc. Release Date: 24 November, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 488675
	Social Neuroscience: People Thinking about Thinking People (Social Neuroscience)
	By: John T. Cacioppo, Penny S. Visser, Cynthia L. Pickett ISBN: 0262033356 Publisher: The MIT Press Release Date: 01 December, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 522176