The Secret Life of the Mind: How Your Brain Thinks, Feels, and Decides

"Like the brain, a book of secret connections" according to Continental Op. This is not the standard walk through the facts of brain science that transits the hierarchy from molecules to brain in logical order. Rather, this book strikes me as an elaborate exercise based on the idea that talking about neuroscience is discussing a system that is trying to understand itself. The brain is the central entity that gives structure to reality, so this is the branch of science that is closest to a first-person perspective. Probably because of that, the topics presented are always punctuated by the author’s own peculiar intellectual itinerary and a disreg. "Beautifully written, does not water down the deep issues and dilemmas." according to NY Dad. In matters of psychology and how the brain works, everybody has opinions based on nothing but anecdotes. Sigman is one of the grand practitioners of understanding how the mind actually works from careful and masterfully thought-out experiments. With this tiny book, Sigman demonstrates that he is not just one of the great scientists of the field, but also a lucid expositor who makes the intricacies and pitfalls of the subject. Highly recommended reading for anyone who wants to get past the "psych for the masses" into understanding the real problems and dilemmas.. "but pretty clear and precise in its will to make the" according to Gonza. Not the first book I read on this topic, but pretty clear and precise in its will to make the brain as clear as possible. Some things I knew some other I didn't so it was a pleasure to read it.Non il primo libro che leggo sull'argomento, ma piuttosto chiaro e preciso nel suo desiderio di rendere i processi celebrali il piú "trasparenti" possibile. Alcune cose le sapevo, altre no, quindi é stato un piacere leggerle.

Over the course of his 20-year career investigating the inner workings of the human brain, Dr. Sigman has cultivated a remarkable interdisciplinary vision. Building on the author's awe-inspiring TED talk, the cutting-edge research presented in The Secret Life of the Mind revolutionizes how we understand the role that neuroscience plays in our lives, unlocking the mysterious cerebral processes that control the ways in which we learn, reason, feel, think, and dream. . From a world-renowned leader in neuroscience, a provocative, enthralling journey into the depths of the human mind.Where do our thoughts come from? How do we make choices and trust our judgments? What is the role of the unconscious? Can we manipulate our dreams? In this mind-bending international bestseller, award-winning neuroscientist Mariano Sigman explores the complex answers to these and many other age-old questions. He draws on research in physics, linguistics, psychology, education, and beyond to explain why people who speak more than one language are less prone to dementia; how infants can recognize by sight objects they've previously only touched; how babies, even before they utter their first word, have an innate sense of right and wrong; and how we can "read" the thoughts of vegetative patients by decoding patterns in their brain activity

Mariano Sigman, PhD, a physicist by training, is a leading international figure in the cognitive neuroscience of learning and decision-making. His awards include a Human Frontiers Career Development Award, the National Prize of Physics, the Pius XI medal from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Young Investigator Prize of "College de France," and the IBM Scalable Data Analytics Award.

The company of brilliant minds, including Chomsky, Turing, Rousseau, Molière, Plato, Sagan, and Freud, and their revisiting in the smart light of Mariano Sigman's clever experiments, make this book enormously enjoyable, from beginning to end -- a riveting scientific page-turner."Stanislas Dehaene, author of Consciousness and the Brain and Reading in the Brain"Mariano Sigman writes and thinks in a uniquely provocative way. He is the Richard Feynman of the brain."Andrew Meltzoff, Professor of Psychology, the University of Washington, and co-author of The Scientist in the Crib. He is a gifted cognitive neuroscientist, and we are lucky to have him excavating the secret life of the mind. Concise, pithy, sprinkled with illuminating metaphors, this book takes you on a most entertaining journey into the subtleties