David Linen, “The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good” (Viking, 2011)

Kristin Andrews, “Do Apes Read Minds?: Toward a New Folk Psychology” (MIT Press, 2012): The ability to figure out the mental lives of others – what they want, what they believe, what they know — is basic to our relationships. Sherlock Holmes exemplified this ability by accurately simulating the thought processes of suspects in order to so... by New Books in Psychology

66 min listen

Suzanne Corkin, “Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesia Patient, H.M.” (Basic Books, 2013): If you have studied neuroscience, memory, or even basic psychology, it is likely that you have heard of the famous amnesic patient Henry Molaison, or “H.M.” as he was known during his lifetime. In 1953, Henry underwent an experimental brain surgery in ... by New Books in Psychology

53 min listen

Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, “The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us” (Broadway, 2009): You might think that if you were watching a basketball game and a person in a gorilla suit walked through the game, you would notice. Or that if you were talking to someone and turned away for a second, and that person became a completely different per... by New Books in Psychology

62 min listen

Susan Schneider, “The Language of Thought: A New Philosophical Direction” (MIT Press, 2011): In 1975, Jerry Fodor published a book entitled The Language of Thought, which is aptly considered one of the most important books in philosophy of mind and cognitive science of the last 50 years or so. This book helped launch what became known as the c... by New Books in Psychology

67 min listen

Uriah Kriegel, “The Sources of Intentionality” (Oxford UP, 2011): It’s standard in philosophy of mind to distinguish between two basic kinds of mental phenomena: intentional states, which are about or represent other items or themselves, such as beliefs about your mother’s new hairdo, and phenomenal states, by New Books in Psychology

68 min listen

Eric Schwitzgebel, “Perplexities of Consciousness” (MIT Press, 2011): How much do we know about our stream of conscious experience? Not much, if Eric Schwitzgebel is right. In his new book Perplexities of Consciousness (MIT Press, 2011), Schwitzgebel argues for skepticism regarding our knowledge of the phenomenology of c... by New Books in Psychology

63 min listen

David Linen, “The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good” (Viking, 2011): What happens in our brains when we do things that feel good, such as drinking a glass of wine, exercising, or gambling? How and why do we become addicted to certain foods, chemicals and behaviors? David Linden, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins, by New Books in Psychology

37 min listen

Paul Thagard, “The Cognitive Science of Science: Explanation, Discovery, and Conceptual Change” (MIT Press, 2012): We’ve all heard about scientific revolutions, such as the change from the Ptolemaic geocentric universe to the Copernican heliocentric one. Such drastic changes are the meat-and-potatoes of historians of science and philosophers of science. by New Books in Psychology

67 min listen

Barry Schwartz, “The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less – How the Culture of Abundance Robs Us of Satisfaction” (Harper Perennial, 2003): Is there such a thing as too much choice? In The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less – How the Culture of Abundance Robs Us of Satisfaction (Harper Perennial, 2005), author Barry Schwartz answers with a resounding yes. by New Books in Psychology

45 min listen

Raelynn Maloney, “Waking Up: A Parent’s Guide to Mindful Awareness and Connection” (Companion Press, 2011): Parenting books touting new philosophies are widely available. Raelynn Maloney’s book, Waking Up: A Parent’s Guide to Mindful Awareness and Connection (Companion Press, 2011) is not that kind of book. Rather, her message to parents is simple. by New Books in Psychology

42 min listen

Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang, “Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College” (Bloomsbury, 2011): Many parents are interested in learning about how their children develop, and pretty much all parents want to do a good job with their kids. So, often they turn to parenting books. Unfortunately, many books for parents do not present the developmental ... by New Books in Psychology

50 min listen

Gabriel Finkelstein, “Emil du Bois-Reymond: Neuroscience, Self, and Society in Nineteenth-Century Germany” (MIT Press, 2013): “A good wife and a healthy child are better for one’s temper than frogs.” For Gabriel Finkelstein, Emil du Bois-Reymond was “the most important forgotten intellectual of the nineteenth century.” Most famously in a series of experimental works on electr... by New Books in Psychology

75 min listen

Tony Veale, “Exploding the Creativity Myth: The Computational Foundations of Linguistic Creativity” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2012): In these days of increasing automation, the prospect of obsolescence is an alarming one for those of us who make a living by stringing words together instead of doing something demonstrably useful. From this perspective, by New Books in Psychology

54 min listen

Stephen E. Nadeau, “The Neural Architecture of Grammar” (MIT Press, 2012): Although there seems to be a trend towards linguistic theories getting more cognitively or neurally plausible, there doesn’t seem to be an imminent prospect of a reconciliation between linguistics and neuroscience. by New Books in Psychology

63 min listen

Stephen Crain, “The Emergence of Meaning” (Cambridge UP, 2012): It’s not surprising that human language reflects and respects logical relations – logic, in some sense, ‘works’. For linguists, this represents a potentially interesting avenue of approach to the much-debated question of innateness. by New Books in Psychology

54 min listen

Christopher Mole, “Attention is Cognitive Unison: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology” (Oxford UP, 2011): Chris Mole‘s book, Attention is Cognitive Unison: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2011) provides a wonderfully elegant answer to a deceptively simple question: What does it mean to pay attention? What is “attention, by New Books in Psychology

71 min listen

Theo van Leeuwen, “The Language of Colour: An Introduction” (Routledge, 2011): Theo van Leeuwen comes to the academic discipline of social semiotics – the study of how meanings are conveyed – from his previous career as a film and TV producer. His interest in the makings of visual communication is hardly surprising. by New Books in Psychology

57 min listen

Giusi Tamburello, “Concepts and Categories of Emotion in East Asia” (Carocci editore, 2012): What is the relationship between language and the emotions? Where ought we look for evidence of emotion in historical and literary texts? Is it possible to talk about the emotional states of entire cultures or groups of peoples, and if so, by New Books in Psychology

58 min listen

Jonathan Metzl, “The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease” (Beacon Press, 2010): Schizophrenia is a real, frightening, debilitating disease. But what are we to make of the fact that several studies show that African Americans are two to three times more likely than white Americans to be diagnosed with this malady, by New Books in Psychology

46 min listen

Lawrence R. Samuel, “Shrink: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in America” (Nebraska UP, 2013): Before the Second World War, very few Americans visited psychologists or psychiatrists. Today, millions and millions of Americans do. How did seeing a “shrink” become, quite suddenly, a typical part of the “American Experience? by New Books in Psychology

45 min listen

Peter Gray, “Free to Learn” (Basic Books, 2013): In his book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books, 2013), Peter Gray proposes the following big idea: we shouldn’t force children to learn, by New Books in Psychology

66 min listen

Willem J. M. Levelt, “A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era” (Oxford UP, 2012): The only disappointment with A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era (Oxford UP, 2012) is that, as the subtitle says, the story it tells stops at the cognitive revolution, before Pim Levelt is himself a major player in psycholinguistics. by New Books in Psychology

58 min listen

Charlotte Pierce-Baker, “This Fragile Life: A Mother’s Story of a Bipolar Son” (Lawrence Hill Books, 2012): When a mother listens to the beats of her own heart, where angst, fear and fortitude compete, and then beautifully weaves emotion into a story about her ongoing journey to support a bipolar son, then you know something significant has happened in Afric... by New Books in Psychology

84 min listen

Shelley Carson, “Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life” (Harvard Health/Jossey-Bass, 2010): The creative ability of human beings is remarkable. Evidence of this can be seen in beautiful and unique works of art and music, innovations in architecture and technology, and daring new scientific theories and business practices. by New Books in Psychology

65 min listen

Gary Greenberg, “The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry” (Blue Rider Press, 2013): It is common today to treat depression and other mental disorders as concrete illnesses – akin to having pneumonia or the flu. In fact, being prescribed a pill after complaining to your family doctor about feeling depressed is a common occurrence. by New Books in Psychology

48 min listen

Sam Sommers, “Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World” (Riverhead Books, 2011): Human behavior is notoriously complex and difficult to predict. For decades, social psychologists have been exploring situational variables and how they impact our behavior. We might like to think that we behave consistently in various contexts, by New Books in Psychology

54 min listen

Darian Leader, “Strictly Bipolar” (Penguin, 2013): To those unfamiliar with psychodiagnostics, Bipolar 3.5 might sound like the latest Apple software. To psychoanalyst Darian Leader it is indicative of the relatively recent proliferation and growing elasticity of bipolar disorders. by New Books in Psychology

40 min listen

Hannah S. Decker, “The Making of DSM-III: A Diagnostic Manual’s Conquest of American Psychiatry” (Oxford UP, 2013): Like it or not, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) has an enormous influence in deciding what qualifies as a mental health disorder in the United States and beyond. by New Books in Psychology

69 min listen

Anne Jaap Jacobson, “Keeping the World in Mind” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): Some theorists in the cognitive sciences argue that the sciences of the mind don’t need or use a concept of mental representation. In her new book, Keeping the World in Mind: Mental Representations and the Science of the Mind (Palgrave Macmillan, by New Books in Psychology

67 min listen

Helen Longino, “Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality” (University of Chicago Press, 2013): What explains human behavior? It is standard to consider answers from the perspective of a dichotomy between nature and nurture, with most researchers today in agreement that it is both. For Helen Longino, Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy ... by New Books in Psychology

64 min listen

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David Linen, “The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So…

David Linen, “The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So…

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