The Cerebral Code

The Cerebral Code is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes could operate in the brain to shape mental images in only seconds, starting with shuffled memories no better than the jumble of our nighttime dreams, but evolving into something of quality, such as a sentence to speak aloud. Jung said that dreaming goes on continuously but you can't see it when you are awake, just as you can't see the stars in the daylight because it is too bright. Calvin's is a theory for what goes on, hidden from view by the glare of waking mental operations, that produces our peculiarly human type of consciousness with its versatile intelligence. As Piaget emphasized in 1929, intelligence is what we use when we don't know what to do, when we have to grope rather than using a standard response. Calvin tackles a mechanism for doing this exploration and improvement offline, as we think before we act or practice the art of good guessing. Surprisingly, the subtitle's mosaics of the mind is not a literary metaphor. For the first time, it is a description of a mechanism of what appears to be an appropriate level of explanation for many mental phenomena, that of hexagonal mosaics of electrical activity that compete for territory in the association cortex of the brain. This two-dimensional mosaic is predicted to grow and dissolve much as the sugar crystals do in the bottom of a supersaturated glass of iced tea. A Bradford Book

As the second decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, the cultural, social, and economic effects of artificial intelligence are becoming ever more apparent. Despite their long-intertwined histories, the fields of neuroscience and artificial intelligence research are notoriously divided. In Cognitive Code Johannes Bruder argues that seemingly incompatible scales of intelligence – the brain and the planet – are now intimately linked through neuroscience-inspired AI and computational cognitive neuroscience. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in brain imaging labs in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, alongside analyses of historical and contemporary literature, Cognitive Code examines how contemporary research on the brain makes routine use of engineering epistemologies and practices. Bruder elaborates on how the question of mimicking human cognition and thought on the scale of computer chips and circuits has gradually evolved into a comprehensive restructuring of the world through "smart" infrastructures. The brain, traditionally treated as a discrete object that thinks, is becoming part of the larger thinking network we now know as "the Cloud." The author traces a recent shift in the goals of brain imaging to show that the introduction of novel statistical and computational techniques has upset traditional paradigms and disentangled cognition from its biological substrate. Investigating understandings of intelligence from the micro to the macro, Cognitive Code explains how the future of human psychology is increasingly determined by engineering and design.

Originally published in 1986, this stimulating and unorthodox book integrates the major findings of hemispheric research with the larger questions of how the brain stores and transmits information – the ‘brain code’. Norman Cook emphasizes how the two cerebral hemispheres communicate information over the corpus callosum, the largest single nerve tract of the human brain. Excitatory mechanisms are involved in the duplication of information between the hemispheres; in contrast, inhibitory mechanisms are implicated in the production of hemispheric asymmetries and, crucially, in high-level cognitive phenomena such as the right hemisphere’s role in providing the ‘context’ within which left hemispheric verbal information is placed. These callosal mechanisms of information transfer are not only fundamental to the brain code; they are the simplest and most easily demonstrated ways in which the neocortex ‘talks to itself’. The Brain Code demonstrates how popular topics within psychology at the time, such as laterality, hemisphere differences and the psychology of left and right, are central to further progress in understanding the human brain. This book provides stimulating reading for students of psychology, artificial intelligence and neurophysiology, as well as anyone interested in the broader question of how the brain works.

Viewing the human brain as "the most complex and powerful computer known," with a memory capacity and computational power exceeding the largest mainframe systems, Professor Baron sets the groundwork for understanding the computational structure and organization of the human brain. He provides the introductory framework necessary for this new and growing field of investigation and he discusses human vision, mental imagery, sensory-motor functions, audition, affect and behavior.

A neuroscientist and a linguist show how evolution could have given rise to structured language. A machine for language? Certainly, say the neurophysiologists, busy studying the language specializations of the human brain and trying to identify their evolutionary antecedents. Linguists such as Noam Chomsky talk about machinelike "modules" in the brain for syntax, arguing that language is more an instinct (a complex behavior triggered by simple environmental stimuli) than an acquired skill like riding a bicycle. But structured language presents the same evolutionary problems as feathered forelimbs for flight: you need a lot of specializations to fly even a little bit. How do you get them, if evolution has no foresight and the intermediate stages do not have intermediate payoffs? Some say that the Darwinian scheme for gradual species self-improvement cannot explain our most valued human capability, the one that sets us so far above the apes, language itself. William Calvin and Derek Bickerton suggest that other evolutionary developments, not directly related to language, allowed language to evolve in a way that eventually promoted a Chomskian syntax. They compare these intermediate behaviors to the curb-cuts originally intended for wheelchair users. Their usefulness was soon discovered by users of strollers, shopping carts, rollerblades, and so on. The authors argue that reciprocal altruism and ballistic movement planning were "curb-cuts" that indirectly promoted the formation of structured language. Written in the form of a dialogue set in Bellagio, Italy, Lingua ex Machina presents an engaging challenge to those who view the human capacity for language as a winner-take-all war between Chomsky and Darwin.

The Persuasion Code Capture, convince, and close—scientifically Most of your attempts to persuade are doomed to fail because the brains of your audience automatically reject messages that disrupt their attention. This book makes the complex science of persuasion simple. Learn to develop better marketing and sales messages based on a scientific model; NeuroMap™. Regardless of your level of expertise in marketing, neuromarketing, neuroscience or psychology: The Persuasion Code: How Neuromarketing Can Help You Persuade Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime will make your personal and business lives more successful by unveiling a credible and practical approach towards creating a breakthrough persuasion strategy. This book will satisfy your interest in neuromarketing, scientific persuasion, sales, advertising effectiveness, website conversion, marketing strategy and sales presentations. It’ll teach you the value of the award-winning persuasion model NeuroMapTM : the only model based on the science of how your customers use their brain to make any decision including a buying decision. You will appreciate why this scientific approach has helped hundreds of companies and thousands of executives achieve remarkable results. Written by the founders of SalesBrain who pioneered the field of neuromarketing SalesBrain has trained more than 100,000 executives worldwide including over 15,000 CEO Includes guidance for creating your own neuromarketing plan Advance your business or career by creating persuasive messages based on the working principle of the brain.