Riveted The Science Of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh Movies Make Us Cry And Religion Makes Us Feel One With The Universe

Why do some things pass under the radar of our attention, but other things capture our interest? Why do some religions catch on and others fade away? What makes a story, a movie, or a book riveting? Why do some people keep watching the news even though it makes them anxious? The past 20 years have seen a remarkable flourishing of scientific research into exactly these kinds of questions. Professor Jim Davies' fascinating and highly accessible book, Riveted, reveals the evolutionary underpinnings of why we find things compelling, from art to religion and from sports to superstition. Compelling things fit our minds like keys in the ignition, turning us on and keeping us running, and yet we are often unaware of what makes these "keys" fit. What we like and don't like is almost always determined by subconscious forces, and when we try to consciously predict our own preferences we're often wrong. In one study of speed dating, people were asked what kinds of partners they found attractive. When the results came back, the participants' answers before the exercise had no correlation with who they actually found attractive in person! We are beginning to understand just how much the brain makes our decisions for us: we are rewarded with a rush of pleasure when we detect patterns, as the brain thinks we've discovered something significant; the mind urges us to linger on the news channel or rubberneck an accident in case it might pick up important survival information; it even pushes us to pick up People magazine in order to find out about changes in the social structure.Drawing on work from philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, psychology, economics, computer science, and biology, Davies offers a comprehensive explanation to show that in spite of the differences between the many things that we find compelling, they have similar effects on our minds and brains.

“This book gets to the heart of the matter.” --Ryan Holiday, New York Times bestselling author of Stillness Is the Key and Ego Is the Enemy “This book taps into something that so many of us feel but can’t articulate.” --Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global “Ambitious, far-reaching, and impactful." --David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of Range and The Sports Gene From the bestselling author of Peak Performance comes a powerful antidote to heroic individualism and the ensuing epidemic of burnout. Achievement often comes at a cost. Angst, restlessness, frayed relationships, exhaustion, and even substance abuse can be the unwanted side effects of an obsession with outward performance. While the high of occasional wins can keep you going for a while, playing into the always-on, never enough hustle culture ultimately takes a serious toll. In The Practice of Groundedness, bestselling author Brad Stulberg shares a healthier, more sustainable model for success. At the heart of this model is groundedness--a practice that values presence over rote productivity, accepts that progress is nonlinear, and prioritizes long-term values and fulfillment over short-term gain. To be grounded is to possess a firm and unwavering foundation, a resolute sense of self from which deep and enduring, not shallow and superficial, success can be found. Groundedness does not eliminate ambition and striving; rather, it situates these qualities and channels them in more meaningful ways. Interweaving case studies, modern science, and time-honored lessons from ancient wisdom traditions such as Buddhism, Stoicism, and Taoism, Stulberg teaches readers how to cultivate the habits and practices of a more grounded life. Readers will learn: • Why patience is the key to getting where you want to go faster--in work and life--and how to develop it, pushing back against the culture’s misguided obsession with speed and “hacks.” • How to utilize the lens of the wise observer in order to overcome delusion and resistance to clearly see and accept where you are—which is the key to more effectively getting where you want to go • Why embracing vulnerability is the key to genuine strength and confidence • The critical importance of “deep community,” or cultivating a sense of belonging and connection to people, places, and causes. Provocative and practical, The Practice of Groundedness is the necessary corrective to the frenetic pace and endemic burnout resulting from contemporary definitions of success. It offers a new—and better—way.

We don’t think of imagination the way that we should. The word is often only associated with children, artists and daydreamers, but in reality, imagination is an integral part of almost every action and decision that we make. Simply put, imagination is a person’s ability to create scenarios in his or her head: this can include everything from planning a grocery list, to honing a golf swing, to having religious hallucinations. And while imagination has positive connotations, it can also lead to decreased productivity and cooperation, or worse, the continuous reliving of past trauma.The human brain is remarkable in its ability to imagine—it can imagine complex possible futures, fantasy worlds, or tasty meals. We can use our imaginations to make us relaxed or anxious. We can imagine what the world might be, and construct elaborate plans. People have been fascinated with the machination of the human brain and its ability to imagine for centuries. There are books on creativity, dreams, memory, and the mind in general, but how exactly do we create those scenes in our head? With chapters ranging from hallucination and imaginary friends to how imagination can make you happier and more productive, Jim Davies' Imagination will help us explore the full potential of our own mind.

In Adapted Brains and Imaginary Worlds, Donald Beecher explores the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of the brain as they affect the study of fiction. He builds upon insights from the cognitive sciences to explain how we actualize imaginary persons, read the clues to their intentional states, assess their representations of selfhood, and empathize with their felt experiences in imaginary environments. He considers how our own faculty of memory, in all its selective particularity and planned oblivion, becomes an increasingly significant dimension of the critical act, and how our own emotions become aggressive readers of literary experience, culminating in states which define the genres of literature. Beecher illustrates his points with examples from major works of the Renaissance period, including Dr Faustus, The Faerie Queene, Measure for Measure, The Yorkshire Tragedy, Menaphon, The Dialogue of Solomon and Marcolphus, and The Moral Philosophy of Doni. In this volume, studies in the science of mind come into their own in explaining the architectures of the brain that shape such emergent properties as empathy, suspense, curiosity, the formation of communities, gossip, rationalization, confabulation, and so much more that pertains to the behaviour of characters, the orientation of readers, and the construction of meaning. Discussing a breadth of topics - from the mysteries of the criminal mind to the psychology of tears - Adapted Brains and Imaginary Worlds is the most comprehensive work available on the study of fictional worlds and their relation to the constitution of the human brain.

The volume consists of twenty-five chapters selected from among peer-reviewed papers presented at the CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) 2013 Conference held in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, in October 2013 and also from world class scholars in e-learning systems, environments and approaches. The following sub-topics are included: Exploratory Learning Technologies (Part I), e-Learning social web design (Part II), Learner communities through e-Learning implementations (Part III), Collaborative and student-centered e-Learning design (Part IV). E-Learning has been, since its initial stages, a synonym for flexibility. While this dynamic nature has mainly been associated with time and space it is safe to argue that currently it embraces other aspects such as the learners’ profile, the scope of subjects that can be taught electronically and the technology it employs. New technologies also widen the range of activities and skills developed in e-Learning. Electronic learning environments have evolved past the exclusive delivery of knowledge. Technology has endowed e-Learning with the possibility of remotely fomenting problem solving skills, critical thinking and team work, by investing in information exchange, collaboration, personalisation and community building.

Landscape designers have long understood the use of plants to provide beauty, aesthetic pleasure and visual stimulation while supporting a broad range of functional goals. However, the potential for plants in the landscape to elicit human involvement and provide mental stimulation and restoration is much less well understood. This book meshes the art of planting design with an understanding of how humans respond to natural environments. Beginning with an understanding of human needs, preferences and responses to landscape, the author interprets the ways in which an understanding of the human-environment interaction can inform planting design. Many of the principles and techniques that may be used in planting design are beautifully illustrated in full colour with examples by leading landscape architects and designers from the United Kingdom, Europe, North America and Asia, including: Andrea Cochran, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, San Francisco, CA Design Workshop Inc. Richard Hartlage, Land Morphology, Seattle, WA Shunmyo Masuno, Japan Landscape Consultants Ltd., Yokohama Piet Oudolf, Hummelo, The Netherlands Melody Redekop, Vancouver Christine Ten Eyck, Ten Eyck Landscape Architects Inc., Austin, TX Kongjian Yu, Turenscape Ltd., Beijing. The book stimulates thought, provides new direction and assists the reader to find their own unique design voice. Because there are many valid processes and intentions for landscape design, the book is not intended to be overly prescriptive. Rather than presenting a strict design method and accompanying set of rules, Planting Design provides information, insight and inspiration as a basis for developing the individual designer’s own expression in this most challenging of art forms.

Narrative complexity is a trend in contemporary cinema. Since the late 1990s there has been a palpable increase in complex storytelling in movies. But how and why do complex movies create perplexity and confusion? How do we engage with these challenges? And what makes complex stories so attractive? By blending film studies, narrative theory and cognitive sciences, Kiss and Wilemsen look into the relation between complex storytelling and the mind. Analysing the effects that different complex narratives have on viewers, the book addresses how films like Donnie Darko, Mulholland Drive and Primer strategically create complexity and confusion, using the specific category of the impossible puzzle film to examine movies that use baffling paradoxes, impossible loops, and unresolved ambiguities in their stories and storytelling. By looking at how these films play on our mind's blind spots, this innovative book explains their viewing effects in terms of the mental state of cognitive dissonance that they evoke.

How does an immortal deal with death? What can an ancient Time Lord teach us about real human nature? Why does the Doctor say he and Freud “got on very well”? How do the Daleks and Cybermen reflect concerns about losing our humanity? And what new challenges loom ahead when the Doctor regenerates as a woman? Hailed as the “most successful sci-fi series ever made” (Guinness World Records), Doctor Who has been a cult-classic for more than half a century. And though time may not be the boss—Rule 408—as times change, so too do social norms and psychological challenges, which have paved the way for a new kind of Doctor who can appeal to the modern viewer. Revised and updated for our changing times, the second edition of Doctor Who Psychology: Times Change explores the alien in us all. Travis Langley’s fascinating in-depth collection delves into the psychology behind the time-traveling Doctor in his many iterations—as men and women—as well as his companions and his foes. With a foreword by Third Doctor Companion Katy Manning, an introduction to the second edition, and new interviews with actors who have played Doctors new and old, Doctor Who Psychology: Times Change travels through the how and why of Who. Contributors to the second edition include: Jenna Busch * Erin Currie * Jim Davies * Kristin Erickson * Wind Goodfriend * Daniel Hand * David Kyle Johnson * Billy San Juan * Deirdre Kelly * Alan Kistler * Travis Langley * Katy Manning * Justine Mastin * Matt Munson * Miranda Pollock * Stephen Prescott * Sarita Robinson * Aaron Sagers * Daniel Saunders * Janina Scarlet * William Sharp