Systemizing The Past

A groundbreaking argument about the link between autism and ingenuity. Why can humans alone invent? In The Pattern Seekers, Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen makes a case that autism is as crucial to our creative and cultural history as the mastery of fire. Indeed, Baron-Cohen argues that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for seventy thousand years, from the first tools to the digital revolution. How? Because the same genes that cause autism enable the pattern seeking that is essential to our species's inventiveness. However, these abilities exact a great cost on autistic people, including social and often medical challenges, so Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their triumphs. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn't just a new theory of human civilization, but a call to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.

Dedicated to Pavel Avetisyan, a leading modern Armenian archaeologist with wide international recognition, 36 contributions take the reader to the fascinating world of Caucasian archaeology. The volume demonstrates the essential role of the region in shaping the prehistoric cultural landscape of the Ancient Near East.

This volume presents the work of leading scientists from Russia, Georgia, Estonia, Lithuania, Israel and the USA, revealing major insights long unknown to the scientific community. Without any doubt their work will provide a springboard for further research in anticipation. Until recently, Robert Rosen (Anticipatory Systems) and Mihai Nadin (MIND – Anticipation and Chaos) were deemed forerunners in this still new knowledge domain. The distinguished neurobiologist, Steven Rose, pointed to the fact that Soviet neuropsychological theories have not on the whole been well received by Western science. These earlier insights as presented in this volume make an important contribution to the foundation of the science of anticipation. It is shown that the daring hypotheses and rich experimental evidence produced by Bernstein, Beritashvili, Ukhtomsky, Anokhin and Uznadze, among others—extend foundational work to aspects of neuroscience, physiology, motorics, education.

This groundbreaking core textbook offers a comprehensive overview of different approaches to the causes, assessment and treatment of psychological disorders. The book includes important diagnostic frameworks, including the new DSM-5-TR, ICD-11 and PDM, but also widens the scope of coverage beyond mainstream psychiatric models to include psychological, biological, historical, sociocultural and therapeutic approaches. Contemporary and well-balanced, this book provides an even-handed and holistic foundation, allowing students to develop a strong critical mindset while retaining a robust research-driven orientation. This new edition: - features an innovative structure organized by presenting problem, examining each in a broad context of traditional psychiatric and alternative approaches - is grounded in lived experience of disorder: shining a spot-light on service-users through 'Case Examples' scenarios and 'Lived Experience' perspective pieces - Supports student learning and critical thinking through engaging 'Controversial Question' and 'In Depth' features - Features an attractive new layout and plenty of colour illustrations - Is supported by impressive online support features including lecture slides, a test bank, instructor manual, video library, student study questions, self-test quizzes, flashcard activities and more. Now thoroughly updated to include the latest developments in research and clinical practice, along with enhanced in-text and online pedagogy to support instructors and learners, this book is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students on abnormal psychology, psychopathology, mental health or clinical psychology courses.

From the chief architect of the Pandora Radio’s Music Genome Project comes a definitive and groundbreaking examination of how your mind, body, and upbringing influence the music you love. Everyone loves music. But what is it that makes music so universally beloved and have such a powerful effect on us? In this sweeping and authoritative book, Dr. Nolan Gasser—a composer, pianist, and musicologist, and the chief architect of the Music Genome Project, which powers Pandora Radio—breaks down what musical taste is, where it comes from, and what our favorite songs say about us. Dr. Gasser delves into the science, psychology, and sociology that explains why humans love music so much; how our brains process music; and why you may love Queen but your best friend loves Kiss. He sheds light on why babies can clap along to rhythmic patterns and reveals the reason behind why different cultures around the globe identify the same kinds of music as happy, sad, or scary. Using easy-to-follow notated musical scores, Dr. Gasser teaches music fans how to become engaged listeners and provides them with the tools to enhance their musical preferences. He takes readers under the hood of their favorite genres—pop, rock, jazz, hip hop, electronica, world music, and classical—and covers songs from Taylor Swift to Led Zeppelin to Kendrick Lamar to Bill Evans to Beethoven, and through their work, Dr. Gasser introduces the musical concepts behind why you hum along, tap your foot, and feel deeply. Why You Like It will teach you how to follow the musical discourse happening within a song and thereby empower your musical taste, so you will never hear music the same way again.

The claim that India--uniquely among civilizations--lacks historical writing distracts us from a more pertinent question: how to recognize the historical sense of societies whose past is recorded in ways very different from European conventions. Romila Thapar, a distinguished scholar of ancient India, guides us through a panoramic survey of the historical traditions of North India, revealing a deep and sophisticated consciousness of history embedded in the diverse body of classical Indian literature. The history recorded in such texts as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata is less concerned with authenticating persons and events than with presenting a picture of traditions striving to retain legitimacy amid social change. Spanning an epoch from 1000 BCE to 1400 CE, Thapar delineates three strains of historical writing: an Itihasa-Purana tradition of Brahman authors; a tradition composed mainly by Buddhist and Jaina monks and scholars; and a popular bardic tradition. The Vedic corpus, the epics, the Buddhist canon and monastic chronicles, inscriptional evidence, regional accounts, and literary forms such as royal biographies and drama are all scrutinized afresh--not as sources to be mined for factual data but as genres that disclose how Indians of ancient times represented their own past to themselves.

The papers collected in this volume congeal around a debate about the ways and extent of the dominance of linear time and progressive history and the concomitant delineation of the nation in Chinese and Japanese historiography. As China and Japan entered the global capitalist system of nation states, the Chinese and Japanese regimes implemented a number of reforms, which resulted in transformations that affected everyday experience. In the face of imperialism and the perceived threat of being split up, the Meiji and late Qing governments radically reoriented policies in order to become wealthy and powerful in the global arena. People not only began to experience time and space in new ways, but elites also were increasingly exposed to Western theories of history and concepts of nationhood, which became dominant. These changes contributed to the production of new types of historical consciousness and collective identity. The essays in this volume each provide a perspective on the complex ways in which imagining national and regional identity in East Asia were and continue to be enmeshed with visions of time and history. This book should be of interest to all those who are interested in nationalism, modernity in China and Japan, global capitalism and the politics of time.

A breakthrough work in neuroscience—and an incisive corrective to a long history of damaging pseudoscience—that finally debunks the myth that there is a hardwired distinction between male and female brains We live in a gendered world, where we are ceaselessly bombarded by messages about sex and gender. On a daily basis, we face deeply ingrained beliefs that sex determines our skills and preferences, from toys and colors to career choice and salaries. But what does this constant gendering mean for our thoughts, decisions and behavior? And what does it mean for our brains? Drawing on her work as a professor of cognitive neuroimaging, Gina Rippon unpacks the stereotypes that surround us from our earliest moments and shows how these messages mold our ideas of ourselved and even shape our brains. By exploring new, cutting-edge neuroscience, Rippon urges us to move beyond a binary view of the brain and to see instead this complex organ as highly individualized, profoundly adaptable and full of unbounded potential. Rigorous, timely and liberating, Gender and Our Brains has huge implications for women and men, for parents and children, and for how we identify ourselves.