The Autonomous Brain
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The Autonomous Brain
The behaviorist credo that animals are devices for translating sensory input into appropriate responses dies hard. The thesis of this pathbreaking book is that the brain is innately constructed to initiate behaviors likely to promote the survival of the species, and to sensitize sensory systems to stimuli required for those behaviors. Animals attend innately to vital stimuli (reinforcers) and the more advanced animals learn to attend to related stimuli as well. Thus, the centrifugal attentional components of sensory systems are as important for learned behavior as the more conventional paths. It is hypothesized that the basal ganglia are an important source of response plans and attentional signals. This reversal of traditional learning theory, along with the rapid expansion of knowledge about the brain, especially that acquired by improved techniques for recording neural activity in behaving animals and people, makes it possible to re-examine some long standing psychological problems. One such problem is how the intention to perform an act selects sensory input from relevant objects and ensures that it alone is delivered to the motor system to control the intended response. This is an aspect of what is sometimes known as the binding problem: how the different features of an observed object are integrated into a unified percept. Another problem that has never been satisfactorily addressed is how the brain stores information concerning temporal order, a requirement for the production of most learned responses, including pronouncing and writing words. A fundamental process, the association between brain activities representing external events, is surprisingly poorly understood at the neural level. Most concepts have multiple associations but the concept is not unduly corrupted by them, and usually only a single appropriate association is aroused at a time. Furthermore, any arbitrary pair of concepts can be instantly associated, apparently requiring an impossibly high degree of neural interconnection. The author suggests a substitute for the reverberating closed neuronal loop as an explanation for the engram (active memory trace or working memory), which may go some way to resolving these difficulties. Shedding new light on enduring questions, The Autonomous Brain will be welcomed by a broad audience of behavioral and brain scientists.
Brain Tingles
A user-friendly guide to ASMR—the stress-reducing, sleep-inducing, tingly sensation you have to try!— featuring step-by-step instructions on ASMR best practices for home and professional use alike. The calming feeling when someone gently brushes your hair. The deep comfort and connection you feel when a friend whispers in your ear. The tingly sensation experienced from the personal attention of a hairdresser, a clinician, or even watching and listening to Bob Ross… That feeling has a name! ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response (a deeply relaxing sensation with delightful head tingles that typically begin on the scalp and move down the spine) feels so good that some refer to it as a “brain-gasm.” ASMR videos on YouTube have millions of subscribers and billions of views. ASMR is truly everywhere—from ad campaigns to celebrities to millions of regular people looking for a moment of “ahhhh.” With Brain Tingles, it’s now possible to stimulate—and even share—those feel-good tingles every day, and in real life! ASMRUniversity.com founder Craig Richard, PhD, explains what ASMR is, why it happens, and how to trigger it at home. No special training or fancy equipment required! Inside, you’ll learn the most common auditory, visual, and tactile triggers and how to create person-to-person ASMR scenarios (from a mock eye exam to a pretend manicure) with a partner, client, or friend. The end result? That calming, tingly euphoria that can be used for comfort, relaxation, restfulness, or even to set the tone for sleep—on demand! With a textured cover you can rub, stroke, or scratch to use as a tactile trigger, Brain Tingles is the ultimate ASMR tool, inside and out.
Computational Cultural Neuroscience
This book provides novel insights into the study of empirical computational approaches in the field of cultural neuroscience. It discusses and analyses topics such as cultural intelligence, cultural machine learning, cultural brain dynamics and cultural security. This comprehensive text engages with computational principles to guide the research on the influence of cultural environments on human genetics. It explores the theoretical and methodological approaches involved in computational neuroscience. The author elucidates how cultural processes intersect with the structural organization of the nervous system, contributing to the study of computational principles and neural information-processing mechanisms at the cultural level. Research in this subject area can help provide better understanding of the role of computation in cultural neuroscience, stimulating further research into practice and policy. Computational Cultural Neuroscience: An Introduction is the ideal resource for academics, researchers and students of psychology, neuroscience, computer science or philosophy, who are interested in cultural neuroscience.