Mind Hacks: Tips & Tricks for Using Your Brain (Hacks)

Book 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.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting but disappointed.......2007-07-02

Learning about the mind is okay, but I didn't learn anything that I hadn't seen in Psych 101, and a few interesting articles later on.

Calling it a "hacks" book is false advertising, at best. Should it make it to another printing, I would hope O'Reilly would rename it.

The information seemed accurate, so I'll give it that.

Mind hacks.......2007-02-13

This is a really great book. More novelty than improvement, but still great. If you're looking for something that will be useful as well as attention grabbing then look for the second edition; "Mind Performance Hacks"

Not really a "hacks" book.......2006-11-02

I was sorely disappointed in this book--I checked it out from the local library and hoped that it would actually live up to the subtitle of including tips and tools for using my brain. It didn't; the few "tips" included were those that are found in virtually every other discussion of how to improve memory.

This book is more geared toward folks who are designing user interfaces--it talks about how the brain processes information (and thus describes ways to improve information conveyance).

Mind Hacks: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain.......2006-07-25

It's a book very interested about language in mind and speech comprehension. I read a short comment in BBC Focus magazine and I wish to read because it's very easy to learn the misteries of mind in cognitive science applied to language and psichology.

A fun book.......2006-04-30

It is not a typical "hacks" book in that it does not tell you how to utilize you brain more effectively or do neat things. It *does* have a lot of exercises that show you cool things on how your brain works with sections describing how your brain works - and a number of experiments (blind spot, Magnet interaction with the brain, word parsing in the the mind, and so on). This book goes very well with a recent title called _Mind Wide Open_ by Steven Johnson.

If you want traditional "hacks" the book "Mind Performance Hacks" just came out, and is chock full of those sorts of experiments, while less informative, does do things like memory tricks, meath calculation, creativity enhancement and so on.

I view "Mind Hacks" as more informative, though, so would recommend this as the first one to get, though the next purchase in this should be the "Mind Performance Hacks."

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Perception Of Visual Information
WILLIAM R., ED. HENDEE
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387949100

Book Description

The presentation and interpretation of visual information is essential to almost every activity in human life and most endeavors of modern technology. This book examines the current status of what is known (and not known) about human vision, how human observers interpret visual data, and how to present such data to facilitate their interpretation and use. Written by experts who are able to cross disciplinary boundaries, the book provides an educational pathway through several models of human vision; describes how the visual response is analyzed and quantified; presents current theories of how the human visual response is interpreted; discusses the cognitive responses of human observers; and examines such applications as space exploration, manufacturing, surveillance, earth and air sciences, and medicine. The book is intended for everyone with an undergraduate-level background in science or engineering with an interest in visual science. This second edition has been brought up to date throughout and contains a new chapter on "Virtual reality and augmented reality in medicine."

High-Level Vision: Object Recognition and Visual Cognition

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Computational Vision

High-Level Vision: Object Recognition and Visual Cognition
Shimon Ullman
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262210134

Book Description

In this book, Shimon Ullman focuses on the processes of high-level vision that deal with the interpretation and use of what is seen in the image. In particular, he examines two major problems. The first, object recognition and classification, involves recognizing objects despite large variations in appearance caused by changes in viewing position, illumination, occlusion, and object shape. The second, visual cognition, involves the extraction of shape properties and spatial relations in the course of performing visual tasks such as object manipulation, planning movements in the environment, or interpreting graphical material such as diagrams, graphs and maps.

The book first takes up object recognition and develops a novel approach to the recognition of three-dimensional objects. It then studies a number of related issues in high-level vision, including object classification, scene segmentation, and visual cognition. Using computational considerations discussed throughout the book, along with psychophysical and biological data, the final chapter proposes a model for the general flow of information in the visual cortex.

Understanding vision is a key problem in the brain sciences, human cognition, and artificial intelligence. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the theories developed in this work, High-Level Vision will be of interest to readers in all three of these fields.

Customer Reviews:

Computational Vision.......2004-06-11

Ullman's book is a very difficult book to read thoroughly, but if you can study it carefully over time, great new insights on Vision Science are likely to come out of it. Ullman looks at both reductionist & holist views of Vision, i.e. bottom-up processing, and top-down processing. There are many equations and formulae spread throughout the text. Great book for the serious Vision physiologist.

Computational Vision: Information Processing in Perception and Visual Behavior (Computational Neuroscience)

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Computational Vision: Information Processing in Perception and Visual Behavior (Computational Neuroscience)
Hanspeter A. Mallot
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Theoretical Neuroscience: Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Neural Systems

ASIN: 0262133814

Book Description

This text provides an introduction to computational aspects of early vision, in particular, color, stereo, and visual navigation. It integrates approaches from psychophysics and quantitative neurobiology, as well as theories and algorithms from machine vision and photogrammetry. When presenting mathematical material, it uses detailed verbal descriptions and illustrations to clarify complex points. The text is suitable for upper-level students in neuroscience, biology, and psychology who have basic mathematical skills and are interested in studying the mathematical modeling of perception.

Artificial Neural Networks Biological Inspirations-ICANN 2005: 15th International Conference, Warsaw, Poland, September 11-15, 2005, Proceedings, Part I (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

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Artificial Neural Networks Biological Inspirations-ICANN 2005: 15th International Conference, Warsaw, Poland, September 11-15, 2005, Proceedings, Part I (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
Duch W.
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3540287523

Book Description

The two volume set LNCS 3696 and LNCS 3697 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2005, held in Warsaw, Poland in September 2005. The over 600 papers submitted to ICANN 2005 were thoroughly reviewed and carefully selected for presentation. The first volume includes 106 contributions related to Biological Inspirations; topics addressed are modeling the brain and cognitive functions, development of cognitive powers in embodied systems spiking neural networks, associative memory models, models of biological functions, projects in the area of neuroIT, evolutionary and other biological inspirations, self-organizing maps and their applications, computer vision, face recognition and detection, sound and speech recognition, bioinformatics, biomedical applications, and information- theoretic concepts in biomedical data analysis. The second volume contains 162 contributions related to Formal Models and their Applications and deals with new neural network models, supervised learning algorithms, ensemble-based learning, unsupervised learning, recurent neural networks, reinforcement learning, bayesian approaches to learning, learning theory, artificial neural networks for system modeling, decision making, optimalization and control, knowledge extraction from neural networks, temporal data analysis, prediction and forecasting, support vector machines and kernel-based methods, soft computing methods for data representation, analysis and processing, data fusion for industrial, medical and environmental applications, non-linear predictive models for speech processing, intelligent multimedia and semantics, applications to natural language processing, various applications, computational intelligence in games, and issues in hardware implementation.

Pictorial Communication In Virtual And Real Environments

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Pictorial Communication In Virtual And Real Environments

Manufacturer: CRC
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Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Advances in the quality and accessibility of computer graphics has provided new pictorial displays and the tools with which to control them. These new display technologies have focused interest on how to design the static and dynamic images they produce to ensure effective communication. This book, based on the conference on Spatial Displays and Spatial instruments held at the Asilomar Conference Centre in 1987, focuses on the geometry of this communication. It is intended to be a source book of theoretical analysis, experimental demonstrations and practical examples from a range of contributors interested in pictorial communication, from medical artists to astronauts. The book offers the theoretical background and practical guidance needed by designers of contemporary 2D and 3D graphical computer interfaces. Its major contribution lies in its outlining of the elements of human perception and motor control which underlie the geometric design of head-mounted graphics for virtual reality displays.

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Principles of Visual Perception
Carolyn M. Bloomer
Manufacturer: Design Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0830617043

Visions Of Mind: Architectures For Cognition And Affect

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Visions Of Mind: Architectures For Cognition And Affect

Manufacturer: Information Science Publishing
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1591404835

Book Description

"What is mind?" "Can we build synthetic or artificial minds?" Think these questions are only reserved for Science Fiction? Well, not anymore. This collection presents a diverse overview of where the development of artificial minds is as the twenty first century begins. Examined from nearly all viewpoints, Visions of Mind includes perspectives from philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, social studies and artificial intelligence. This collection comes largely as a result of many conferences and symposiums conducted by many of the leading minds on this topic. At the core is Professor Aaron Sloman's symposium from the spring 2000 UK Society for Artificial Intelligence conference. Authors from that symposium, as well as others from around the world have updated their perspectives and contributed to this powerful book. The result is a multi-disciplinary approach to the long term problem of designing a human-like mind, whether for scientific, social, or engineering purposes. The topics addressed within this text are valuable to both artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and also to the academic disciplines that they draw on and feed. Among those disciplines are philosophy, computer science, and psychology.

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Early Visual Learning
S., ED. NAYAR
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Featuring contributions from experts in the field of computer vision, Early Visual Learning represents the cutting edge of research in this field. The editors focus on learning techniques that are applied more or less directly to the signals provided by vision sensors. The emphasis is on low-level visual learning techniques that draw on results in the fields of statistics, pattern recognition and neural networks. This book will be of interest to researchers and has potential as a graduate level text in a visual learning course.

Computational Modeling of Vision: The Role of Combination (Optical Engineering, V. 62)

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Computational Modeling of Vision: The Role of Combination (Optical Engineering, V. 62)
William Uttal
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0824702425

Book Description

Defines a unified theory of vision in which nearly independent components of visual stimuli are recombined and synthesized at high levels of neural processing to produce the richness of visual experience. The text illustrates how visual systems gather, process and reconstruct information about objects in two and three dimensions.

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